From: wally@boi.hp.com (Wally Overton)
Newsgroups: rec.scuba
Subject: Trip report, the Coral Sea on the Spoilsport
Date: 9 Nov 92 20:26:05 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard / Boise, Idaho
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4


TRIP REPORT, THE CORAL SEA ON THE SPOILSPORT

We boarded the dive boat M/V Spoilsport at 9 PM in Townsville, Australia, for
the 11 hour trip out to the Flinders Group in the Coral Sea.  This is the
largest boat in Mike Ball Dive Expeditions' fleet.  It is a 100 foot cat hull
with a 36 foot beam, approaching a cross between a dive boat and ferry boat in
feel, but quite comfortable, and reasonably fast, cruising at 13 knots.  We had
a double bed suite with roomy private head and shower, located just feet from
the dive deck.  The double suite included an additional single bunk to spread
camera gear on.  The available space was more than expected, with space under
the bunks for luggage, plus three large drawers under a half length closet for
everything needed while out.  Each cabin has individual air conditioning and
both 240 and 120 V AC outlets, so charging strobes and lights was no problem.
This trip included 27 guests, 5 Ausies and the rest U.S., and a crew of ten.
There was plenty of room for everybody, either on the open decks, the lounge
area, or the dinning area.  One of the crew was a marine biologist, who gave
slide supported talks several evenings.  The crew was hard working and very
helpful, or out of your way, as desired.  Meals were very good, buffet style
breakfast and lunch, and family style dinner, prepared with imagination by a
professionally trained chef.  There was fresh fruit all week and fresh baked
bread at lunch.  Plenty of options were available, including vegetarian.  The
dive deck was well laid out, though with that many divers it was occasionally a
mad house.  It had two pairs of long benches, running fore and aft, with tank
racks between each pair and plastic cartons under the bench for gear.  BCs were
left on the tanks, just pull the first stage off when removing your gear, and
the tank would be filled in place, typically to 3200 PSI.  Good racks for photo
gear, and the crew would put cameras in fresh water tubs when handed up from
the water.  Six rather steep steps on each side led to a platform on each hull
for entry, with a high "giant stride' platform provided in the middle.  I give
the boat, crew, and accommodation 5 stars. 

Diving was somewhat structured, with times set for dives, to accommodate the
boat moving about and having the crew available on the dive deck.  The crew
logged divers out and back, noting depth and times in a master log, but there
were no constraints on computer use or where divers could go.  Computers were
accepted, and even rentable from the boat.  We received good briefings on each
area we dived.  Usually five dives a day were scheduled, including a night
dives, though Australian law limits a sport diver to four dives a day.  The
dive sites varied widely in quality, though were all unspoiled, with good hard
and soft corals and reef fish.  Two were outstanding, Watenabie's Bommie and
Cod Wall, which had large pelagics in abundance.  Most dives were on somewhat
isolated reefs, which are locally called bommies.  I don't carry a thermometer,
but we found the water to be a tad colder than what we are used to at places
like Fiji, Bornio, or Palau.  I wore both my dive skin and 1/8 inch shorty, and
my wife bought a skin from the boat to supplement her full 1/8 inch suit.  Our
trip was the first week in October, early spring down there.

SHARK EXPERIENCE:  The big attraction for the 4th dive of the 4th day out was
to be a shark feed.  At a certain location on the reef, the sharks are
accustomed to showing up when they hear the sound of the Spoilsport's engines.
We were all guided down to a large cage mounted permanently on the bottom, in
45 feet of water.  We all took our fins off, to minimize stirring up sand, and
had openings in the 2 inch grid to take pictures through.  The crew winched
garbage cans full of bait fish to the bottom, which could then be remotely
opened when everybody was in place.  When this was done, floats pulled a line,
with bait attached, out of the can, and we had over a dozen sharks going into
the classic feeding frenzy.  They were White Tips and Grey Whalers, from 5 to 7
feet long.  It was the fastest 36 exposers I have ever gone through.  The
combined power, grace, and ferocity of the sharks was something to behold.
After the food was gone, the sharks appeared to lose interest, and drift away.
We put on our fins, opened the cage, and swam up to the decompression bar under
the boat, all the while watching a few of the sharks circle around on the
bottom.  After getting settled down we started the 9 hour, over night trip to
the wreck "Yongala", inside the Great Barrier Reef.

THE WRECK OF THE YONGALA:  We arose in the morning to a glassy sea, with the
Spoilsport anchored along side the buoys marking the bow and stern of the
wreck.  This is supposed to be one of the worlds most beautiful diveable
wrecks.  (Interruption, as I enter this part into my HP95, the chef just set
out a plate of nachos.)  We didn't find the wreck itself to be nearly as
interesting as those in Truk Lagoon, but the life around the site was something
else.  Resident rays, turtles, groupers, and larger fish of many varieties, all
taking divers quite for granted.  (Another interruption, a pod of whales came
past.)  After taking a tail view picture of a 4 foot Eagle Ray, it obligingly
turned toward me for a better shot.  There was enough current running that we
were taken by Zodiac to one of the buoys, to ascend via the line attached to
the hull, on one occasion.  There was quite a bit of stuff in the water
limiting visibility to about 30 to 40 feet.  We stayed in place all day,
permitting four dives, plus two the next morning.  Of the six dives, the
current was low enough to ignore only on one, otherwise one was constrained to
the lee side of the wreck.   

RATING THE DIVING:  The diving did not really live up to our expectations for
several reasons.  One reason would be that we are spoiled, having dived Sipadan
Island last year.  The Great Barrier Reef is so well known, even if only due to
it's size, that expectations of diving might be over inflated.  We have been
told that as nice as the Great Barrier Reef is, it is much better to get out
beyond it, where we were.  We certainly had some good diving, we were simply
not quite "blown away".  This area seemed to lack the bottom color of the more
equatorial waters.  I think that, to some degree, the dive operation was not
trying very hard to keep the quality of the diving up, dive after dive.  They
don't seem to have that much competition for this kind of trip, in this
particular area.  At least a third of our dives were so called "exploratory
dives".  I find this hard to accept, as they have been diving this area for six
years.  I think "exploratory dive" is a euphemism for "we'll put you down on
this bommie, mate, but it's not our fault it's not very exiting".

On two occasions they catered to individuals, at some cost to the group.  The
second day out, we stayed in a rather uninteresting spot most of the day, in
order to rendezvous with a seaplane bringing a late arriving passenger out.
The second event shortened our last day out.  A passenger had scheduled himself
to fly out at 5 PM, the same time as we were to arrive in port.  We had to be
up at 5 AM, in order to get our last two dives on the Yongala, and reach port
by 3:30.  This also demonstrated questionable judgement by the passenger flying
out, as I believe he made the first dive that morning.  

I would give the diving 3 1/2 to 4 stars, but that is on a South Pacific scale,
4 1/2 to 5, on a Caribbean scale.  To give our dive travel agent due credit, we
were told not to expect the diving to be quite up to par with our previous
trips, but my wife had business interests in Australia, thus establishing our
destination.  I certainly don't regret the trip.

BOTTOM LINE:  We were late getting our reservations, such that the only
openings were the deluxe double suite.  We choked and paid $2500 each for the
week.

AUSTRALIA:  We were blown away by Australia.  I have a "not yet done" trip
report covering the rest of our three weeks, which I may or may not get into
rec.travel. Anyone interested can email me for a direct copy, when it's
complete. 

--

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