7/11/2006 - The Yellow Submarine
I managed to log a dive on the fondly nicknamed Yellow Submarine which is, in reality, the J5 submarine scuttled just outside Port Phillip Bay in Victoria, Australia. Despite a weekend of digustingly bad weather [cold, swell, rain, wind], the dive itself was pretty damn good and I wouldn't hesitate at recommending it to anyone else!
the tow ring on the J5, covered in zoanthids
As I already mentioned, the weather wasn't particularly brilliant for diving. All weekend we'd had really low visibility and pretty big swells; dark and overcast weather also meant there wasn't much natural lighting.
Still, for someone who very rarely dives wrecks of any description, this was still a huge treat!
The J5 submarine is one of seven J class submarines that was built the Brittish admiralty during WWI in response to rumours of German U-boats that could reach and maintain warship speeds on the surface. Evidently, the rumours were only that, rumours, but the Brittish had already started their J class subs so they finished them.
What sets the J class subs apart from other submarines of the time was the use of both diesel and electric engineering, and the fact that they had three props instead of a normal twin screw. The center shaft was run by diesel power, and the two lateral were supplied by battery power. The innovation of using three props instead of two, along with a few other design features, meant these subs could reach surface speeds of 19.5knts and submerged speeds of 9.5knts, which was pretty damn impressive at the time!! It meant that on the surface that could keep up with most warships of the time!
Overall, there were seven J class subs constructed (though there were supposed to be eight) and they were named J1-J7 at the end of the day (A little bit of kerfluffel in terms of number assigning and renaming, but in the end this is what they ended up with). All the subs except J6 survived the war, and on February 13 1919 they were offered to the Australian navy as a gift from the Brittish navy, along with six destroyers including the HMAS Brisbane which is now scuttled off the Queensland coast.
The J1, J4 and J5 are regularly dived by Victorian dive charters; J2 is known as the "broken" sub because it is hardly intact anymore. One of the remaining subs was scuttled off Swan (I think) Island, and another is a breakwater at another popular bay in Victoria.
J5, commonly known as the "Yellow Submarine" due to it's colonisation by zoanthids, also is known as the intact submarine. As you can see from the photo that I posted above, the bow is starting to disintegrate and there is a large area of missing supersturcture just before the tow-ring which never used to be the case. It lies in a depth of approximately 36m, however I did manage to hit 37.4m and I wasn't actually physically on the bottom. I guess it has a lot to do with tides, what depths you manage to reach.
In terms of the dive I did - very, very interesting. We dropped in right next to the stern, and even though visibility was only about 10m (if that) and it was very dark, I could still see quite a bit of detail. We swam along the hull for a short way before we reached the conning tower.
Once again, see how the zoanthids have completely coated it's structure? The nickname of "Yellow Submarine" is DEFINITELY appropriate!!!
We continued along and my buddy (who is very experienced on these submarines) dropped through a hatch. I followed him down into a smallish cabin which was swam through. Due to the positioning of this sub and the way the swell rolls through, the locals told me that the silt inside it very rarely gets cleaned out and as such it can be fairly dangerous if you stir it up - a girl apparently died in there several years ago because she stirred up the bottom and couldn't find her way out.
Despite that grim bit of history, myself and my buddy managed to avoid stirring it up and had an interesting poke around. Apparently you used to be able to penetrate through a lot further but once again, the recent breakdown of the submarine means you can't penetrate as far as you once could. We popped up a short way later and once again followed the hull along to the bow.
The hull itself isn't covered with that much growth, but all the missing superstructure has the potential of setting up some really good shots. Unfortuantely, as I mentioned, visibility was atrocious (there was a lot of particle in the water) so most of my shots are utter rubbish.
This is sort of what I mean about the shot compositions - a lot of opportunity for silhouettes with fishlife in the background.
The fishlife, while I think about it, was quite good. A lot of short finned pike school around, several bullseyes, a couple of leatherjacket and lots and lots of the usual butterfly perch. I'm pretty sure there were more types around, but to be honest I don't really remember that much because I was slightly narked!
We turned around at the tow-ring. Incidentally, each J Class sub had a different shaped tow-ring for identification purposes, which is how they know which sub is which after all this time.
Heading back along the hull to the stern was pretty quick because we were running out of bottom time and the surge was picking up too, even at this depth. Did a nice slow ascent, a lovely long stop and then popped up where our dive boat picked us up and gave us hot drinks and snacks while we made our way back to shore.
Overall, a brilliant weekend. Melbourne/Victoria is often overlooked as a diving destination because most people see it as a city. They have a variety of absolutely brilliant sites, such as the submarines, the wreck of the Coogee, Eliza Ramsden, Courier etc, and their sponge life/walls and fish life is absolutely amazing. I got a couple of dives in on the Lonsdale wall and was absolutely blown away by the life and colour I found there. Also, I saw a Blue Devil which I've always wanted to see, so all in all my weekend was a huge success and I had a great time.
There are a couple of great operators running out of Portsea and Queenscliff - make sure you do your research on location, pricing and the type of vessels they run because some operations are slightly better than others!!
PS - any information on the subs might be wrong. I've read a lot about them over the years, and this was all off the top of my head. I'm pretty sure there'd be lots of info around if you googled them, so I apologise if I got any details wrong!!! To the best of my knowledge though, it's pretty accurate!
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