(By Sarah Hennigan, pics courtesy of Iain Keen and Nik Johnson)
After a rather stressful week of getting the boat ‘ship shape’ for the long road trip to Dunsborough (think flat battery, engine not working, trailer brakes unable to attach to new club car etc.), Nik and Pia (thanks drivers!) finally set off on Friday to begin the journey. Unfortunately, the tale of woe continued with a rather alarming noise coming from the trailer during the drive.
Luckily they made it to Dunsborough and over dinner and wine, decided there was nothing to be done until morning.
Dunsborough boatramp, waiting to get out to the HMAS Swan
Saturday dawned with beautiful, sunny flat weather. Boat launched, trailer on its way to a mechanic in Busselton, 8 divers headed for the Swan. We had been informed that we could use the Dive Sheds mooring that day, so dropped in, right on top of the wreck, with some of the best visibility I’ve seen there. The non-bubble makers spent a healthy 2 hours cruising around in peace and quiet, the rest of the mere mortals lasted 45 mins to an hour, and everyone declared it a thoroughly enjoyable outing.
How good was the viz!?
Back to the ramp, picked up the next lot of 8 divers (who were more or less the same as wave 1) and back out to the Swan to repeat the exercise. Another awesome dive was had by all, albeit slightly colder than the first one. We still had no news about when the trailer would be ready so there was a slightly growing concern about what we would do with the boat overnight if we couldn’t recover it. Luckily the very kind people from Cape Naturaliste Sea Rescue were at the ramp when we got back, and very kindly offered us a mooring for the night. Crisis averted!!
Supermoon
On Saturday evening, everyone gathered at the party house for a bbq, some beers, and a cake for someone’s special birthday!
Sunday again was perfect conditions, and we had the wreck to ourselves when we arrived. We were on the public mooring this time, so had to swim a little to get to the wreck – how rude! Both dive shops arrived while the last few of our divers were in the water, but most of us had beautiful, crowd free dives. Still no word on the trailer, so we borrowed a mooring from the whale watching boat this time.
Happy divers...but there was definitely something afoot....
Overall, despite the slight mechanical issues, it was a fantastic trip, everyone enjoyed themselves, diving was awesome and the weather gods didn’t let us down.
Thanks to everyone who came along and made it so good, lots of people gave a lot of effort for this trip to happen so it was especially awesome that it turned out so well.
P.S. The trailer eventually did get fixed by Tuesday, HUGE thanks to Nik for staying around an extra 2 days to tow it home. He even let me do some towing, he’s a brave man!!
(many thanks for organizing Sarah, sounds like everyone had an awesome time despite the hiccups along the way! UWAUC)