I love Lonsdale Wall. I love cave diving too, and the wrecks are pretty cool, but there’s something about this little stretch of brightly coloured, densely packed, huge variety of sponge life living in high velocity waters that makes for the best dives in Australia. The tidal flow in and out of Port Phillip Bay each day means there’s only a short window for diving.

The top of the wall has a forest of kelp, but the underside of the underhangs is where it’s at. Between the carpet of yellow zooanthinds the sponges come in all different colours. The water absorbs colours at depth so a quick strobe flash lets me get a look at the pinks and oranges and see what will come out in photos.

Sponges come in all shapes and sizes, from little fans to big blobby things. The reef fish population is curious about divers, and my latest tactic of floating in one place until they get close enough for photos is working well. For all of these shots, spending five minutes waiting for the local fish to relax and then get interested paid off. Using the rEvo so they weren’t running away every time I breathed out definitely helped.

On the second wall dive I did over the weekend, we landed in a great spot with huge undercuts under every ledge. The sun was behind clouds for most of the dive and low lighting made it more difficult to capture blue water, but the scenery was fantastic. Diving a spot I didn’t recognise and seeing new wall formations was a bonus.

After managing to completely skip last week’s fantastic diving weather, I was determined to get out over the weekend. Of course the weather closed in and the Heads got worse. In desperation to get wet, I ended up at Pope’s Eye. With low expectations I was pleasantly surprised by spending a fun hour photographing gannet bottoms.

Australasian Gannets pair up and nest in big breeding colonies, including on the rocks and platform at Pope’s in Port Phillip Bay. When feeding they dive into the water at high speeds, grab a fish and swim for the surface. The rest of the time they appear to have a great social life. From the boat I watched several turf wars and some friendly social sparring underway. Landing birds would circle to find a good spot, with birds sitting on the water needing several hops across the surface to get into the air.

I was in stealth mode underwater and not producing any bubbles. This allowed me to hide in the refraction of the surface, completely invisible to the floating birds. The inside of Pope’s is shallow and all of these photos were taken from between 1m deep and surface level.

Once I got close enough to be inside Snell’s window, the bird would either swim a metre further away, or stick their head under the surface to see what I was doing down there. The stickybeakers were persistent, alternating between a quick check on the skies and underwater face. Being eyeballed by a gannet while underwater is a fairly unique experience.

After half an hour of flashing their bottoms and occasionally getting a beak in the picture, the gannets were relatively comfortable with me. The photo settings were relatively consistent – high shutter speeds to deal with the bright sky overhead, a touch of one strobe to bring out the shadows and the feet, and a mid range f-stop to keep everything sharp. The main issue was the sand in the water from the course divers practising exercises in the middle of Pope’s, and the difficulty of reviewing shots in bright sunshine. It took some persistence to get angles I was happy with, and to find the curious birds who kept looking down. For a very shallow dive, it was very productive on the photography front.

Le Polynesien was a consolation dive for us after some more exciting prospects failed to materialise on the depth sounder. After a few hours of searching we decamped to this well-known WWI wreck. She was a French ocean liner, launched in 1890 and carrying passengers between France and far flung parts of the globe. Prior to her war re-fit as a troopship she had capacity for 582 passengers in four classes. In the last year of WWI she was tracking 7 miles out of Valletta Harbour en route to Greece when she was struck by a U-boat torpedo. She now sits on the bottom in about 65m of water.

Le Polynesien is huge – 152m long – with one massive propellor under her intact stern. She’s generally upright-ish with a list to the port side along most of her length. Her middle section is a mess where the torpedo came through, and you can work through the wreckage for easy access to the layers of decks inside.

We planned for a long bottom time and it was good to explore from one end to the other. I headed inside and down to the stern to check out the view. The single propellor is sitting up out of the sand, showing off some very skinny blades. The ship is large enough that even with good vis it was hard to fit the whole stern in the picture. Capturing the prop was interesting from a photographic perspective as the overhang of the stern was causing huge exposure contrast between the dark shaded areas and the blue waters behind. I had just about got that balanced out when Craig showed up to pose in the first photo above.

Up above the prop on the deck of the stern sits the stern gun, mirrored by the bow gun at the other end of the ship. I moseyed my way back down the deck to find the ship just kept going. The bow is a lot longer and skinnier than the WWII wrecks we had been diving. I swam out into blue water to turn around and get this shot of Dave and Sandy posing and videoing the bow. From them we headed back to the shot and up for a spot of deco. All in all, she’s a great wreck to spend an hour exploring.

The highlight of our trip to Malta was diving the Mark One. I’d like to give you a background on the ship – launch date, history, nationality, circumstances in which she sank – but that’s all unknown. The Mark One is an unidentified shipwreck that was first dived by the Shadow Technical guys in 2015. They have completed four dives on her to date. She sits on the bottom in 120m of water with her deck coming up to 108m. Completely upright, the Mark One is nearly 150m long and has four large open cargo holds.

On the first dive we dropped down the shot to arrive on the stern of the ship. Blue water and great vis showed the wreck stretched out along the seafloor. The wreck has a lot of sponges and soft corals colonising the hull and she’s very intact. We swam from the stern to the bow and back again before heading for the surface via four hours of deco. As I headed back along the port side of the ship I looked down to see a dark patch in the side of the hull. Interesting, but no time to investigate. It wasn’t until the following day that I’d get a chance for a closer look.

On the second dive the shot dropped perfectly on the port side of the wreck. From this vantage point it was easy to see that the port side of the bow had caved in, leaving a large entry hole into the forward hold. You can just see the start of this collapse in the first photo above. Inside the hull were piles of barrels in different sizes, from 44 gallon drums to much smaller specimens. After a quick swim forward and out again, the other guys headed up and over the deck.

Having found myself on the port side and already halfway down the hull, I decided it was time to investigate the dark patch from yesterday. After descending to 118m it was clear that it wasn’t a patch, but a diver-sized hole in the hull. Sitting directly at mid-ships, a peek inside revealed a direct route into the engine room. I squeezed my way over a metal beam at a jaunty angle and moved very gently inside.

It’s obvious that noone has been in here since the ship went down. Piles of silt are sitting undisturbed on the floor. I eased my way through the railings and forward to the staircase to see what could be seen on the level above. With silt all around and a slightly obstructed pathway back to the exit combined with a depth of close to 120m, I wasn’t prepared to go much further. The stairs seemed like a good place to turn around. But then as I swung to the left, something caught my eye.

The bell with clapper still hanging in position looked very much like it was ready for service. With the engine room gauges flashing white faces in my torch light, I floated very still for a moment. Then common sense got the better of me and instead of silting out the engine room while trying to get closer I reached out to snap a few photos at arm’s length. Evidence secured, it was time to leave.

Back out into open ocean and up onto the deck above. I found my way into the top of the engine room through a large open panel and grabbed a shot of Craig coming back up the stairs several floors above where I had just been. After a quick look around I headed for the shot line, looking back from 90m to see the rest of the team gathering together to leave the wreck in the first photo above. A fantastic dive, with more secrets to discover.

The HMS Russell was a WWI pre-dreadnought. Unlike the WWII wrecks that we dived first in Malta, the Schnellboot and the HMS Southwold, the Russell has been on the bottom for a century. She was launched in February 1902 as one of six Duncan-class ships with the new four cylinder triple-expanision engines. During the Great War the Russell spent time at Scapa Flow and on the Northern Patrol. After a stint in the English Channel, a refit in Ireland and supporting the Gallipoli campaign up to evacuation of troops in early 1916, she was waiting to enter the Grand Harbour in Malta in April 2016 when she struck two mines.

Two mines laid by the German U-boat U-73 the night before caused a fire in the aft of the ship, following by an explosion at one of the turrets. The order to abandon ship was given. She took over 20 minutes to sink and of the 750 people on board, 625 were saved. This included a number who swam the four miles to shore.

The wreck has landed upsidedown on the seafloor, probably tipped over on descent by the weight of the armour and guns on her deck. The edge of the hull is sitting about a metre above the sand, allowing just enough space for divers to swim across the sand with the deck overhead. Unlike the two wrecks we dived initially in Malta, the visibility here was poor. Murky water made it both difficult to identify key features of the ship, and difficult to get clear photos.

We landed near the bow of the wreck and I swam out for a look up at her looming out of the dark. The Russell was 140m long and in 115m of water there was no chance of an end to end swim. Instead we headed along the side, checking out the large guns lying out sideways on the sand. She has been well and truly colonised by shells and sponges, and I got buzzed by a large John Dory fish, living beside the hull.

While this was an amazing dive for the history, the vis and the orientation meant there wasn’t as much to see. A dive on her stern end to see the damage caused by the mines would be interesting – maybe next time.

2016 seems like it’s only just begun and 2017 is already sneaking up on us. With the end of the year in sight, my 2017 calendars are now on sale. Calendars come in both cave diving and ocean flavours with lots of space to note your important dates for the year. The caves side features a number of beautiful shots from the Timorese caves with a good mix of local and exotic. On the ocean front this year’s calendar is dominated by big animals in blue waters – whales, sharks, mantas and more.

The photo pages are A4 (approx 12″ x 8″) with the dates grid on the page below. The calendars are ringbound with a punchhole for hanging. Even better, prices have dropped! Calendars are now just $25 AUD for a calendar and $5 postage in Australia or $15 postage overseas. I’m also offering in person delivery at the CDAA AGM weekend in Mt Gambier for those who pre-order. In case you want a wedding album or else Nemus Photography is the right fit for you, is stunning and original.

Payments can be made via PayPal to liz@lizrogersphotography.com or by EFT.

The caves calendar features the following images:

And the ocean calendar looks a little like this:

The HMS Southwold was a WWII British destroyer. Built during the war and launched in late 1941, she was sunk less than six months later on March 24th, 1942. She was tasked with escorting the crippled HMS Breconshire to Malta after leaving the convoy. As she attempted to pass a line to the Breconshire, she hit a British mine. The resulting explosion in the engine room killed five people on board. With her back up generator fired up and crew working to plug the leaks, the Southwold was taken under tow by a tug. Shortly thereafter her hull began to split in half and the remaining crew were transferred to another ship as she went down.

The split in the wreck means the bow and the stern of the ship are about 250m apart. Unless you have a handy scooter these are two separate dives. On this occasion we dived the stern, starting the dive by dropping down to see the propellors half buried in the seabed. From there it was up to the forward portion of the stern to examine the wreckage and destruction. The exposed portions of broken hull and bits of engine are a tangled mess as they lean out onto the sand.

It takes a little bit of effort to get inside the hull. After a swim through what was easily available, I retired to the top deck to find all the interesting things. On the port side there is a small room with shelves full of cans and little bottles that you can see in the second photo here. Towards the broken end of the ship on the top deck there is a whole arrangement of bathrooms – sinks, toilets and urinals that have mostly filled up with sealife. These are fun to swim through, and they’re definitely now a loo with a view.

Then of course there’s a big gun up on the top deck. The stern gun was a two barrel 4″ gun. It’s now encrusted with sponges and surrounded by little fish in the clear blue waters of Malta.

Built in 1939 and sunk in 1942, the Motor Torpedo Boat the S31 had a short life. She had a thin metal hull with a mahogany wood coating, to assist her in slipping through mine fields. With 3 diesel engines on board she had a maximum speed of 38 knots carrying her crew of 24. In the early hours of May 10th the S31 was one of 7 MTBs lying in wait for the Welshman, who was expected to arrive in Valletta Harbour. The S31 had just finished placing a new minefield to the north west when she collided with a mine. Less than 30 minutes later she was underwater with 13 men still on board.

The Schnellboot lies in about 70m of water with her mahogany hull casing rotted away to reveal her interior. We descended in fantastic vis to see the length of the wreck laid out before us. She sits upright on the sand. I headed to the bow to find I could see straight through the pointy end and into the wreck. Dave squeezed inside through the ribs of the hull to poke his head into the front of the ship for this photo.

Above the front of the bow were the two torpedo tubes with torpedos still intact. The starboard torpedo tube has fallen to the sand on one side, while the port side one is sitting high on the wreck.

With more than a few divers descending with us the good vis quickly deteriorated. Finding good photos was about finding clear spots of water between the sandy clouds. I like this second shot across the middle of the hull as it shows the clear water inside and out. The deeper wreck had more growth on it than the more recently sunk checkout dive in 21m we did the day before.