SS Bombo and Pig Island

There was a nice break in the recent wet weather to give us an excellent weekend for diving. Jane and I headed down to picturesque Wollongong Harbour for a trip out to the SS Bombo and Pig Island.

Jane climbing from the boat in picturesque Wollongong Harbour

I encountered a few equipment issues on the first dive: My new Aeris Epic dive computer, with wireless tank pressure transmitter, went into free dive mode. This meant once I got down to about 2M I could not see my tank pressure as it thought I was free diving. Despite 3 resurfacing attempts to correct the problem I could not get it back to the correct state for Scuba diving. I asked Jamie but he was not sure about it either so I got back on the boat.

Jane waiting patiently for me to get my computer sorted.

Back on the boat once it was dried I was able to change the mode to Scuba and went for my first dive. I really need to get a lot more familiar with the settings on this computer as that was nearly a dive cancellation.

Jane descending the anchor line to the SS Bombo

At about 14M deep there was a big thermal drop of almost 6 degrees Celsius. My dive computer registered the temperature on the wreck at 13.3 degrees Celsius.At the surface it was 18.7 C. The big temperature drop caused my camera to fog up on the inside of the lens as can be seen on the picture below. I do have a desiccant bag inside the housing but maybe it was just too big a temp change?

Jane on the propeller of the SS Bombo

Jane likes wrecks and enjoys posing around propellers. As we went towards the bow of the wreck I saw something very large and very fast moving through the gap between the break in the bow and the stern. I only saw the tail moving into the obscurity of the visibility but it was a shark of some sort and judging by the size of the tail at least 3M long. It was not a Wobby as it was sort of Grey/brown in colour. I only saw it out of the corner of my eye and it was big and then it was gone, moving very quickly. I have no idea what it was but I haven't seen a fish that big moving that fast before.

Janes gloved hand next to a starfish

 For the second dive we went out to Pig Island, where there are magnificent sponge gardens

Sea Squirts

There were lots of fish and a huge school of Bream were attracted to our bubbles and surrounded us .

In the middle of a school of fish

Jane started to sing underwater ("Octopus's Garden" as I recall), her confidence in the water is really growing.

A large finger sponge

Bull Ray

We saw a large Bull Ray swimming by, I gave chase to try to get a picture but he was very shy and gently flew away

Jane over the Kelp

Climbing out of the boat up the Harbour wall.

When we returned the tide was completely out and we had to climb up the harbor wall to get out. No problem for Navy Seals such as ourselves :)

I really enjoy Wollongong and wish I could get down there more often. It has great diving and such a nice seaside town feel and it is about 1 hour closer than the Central Coast. We had Fish & Chips overlooking the harbour before returning to Sydney.

SS Bombo dive profile

Pig Island dive profile

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