SS Annie M Miller 11-08-07
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The seas had been flat all week and fine weather for the weekend.
Winds were predicted to pickup. We headed out from Long Bay,
further North than we had previously gone, heading for the Annie M
Miller. She was another collier than sank off Sydney. Six
lives were lost when she went down. We had 3 sets of co-ordinates
for the wreck, and on out first sweep could fine nothing on the bottom
finder. We elected to dive on the set we thought might be right.
We found nothing but sand on the bottom, and even after sweeping around
the anchor using a reel there was nothing but sand. This dive was
on 27% Nitrox. We decided to do a more detailed sweep with the
bottom finder and using Tom Byron's sightings we found it easily on the
bottom finder. Even after an hour and a half surface interval and
on air we know this would be a short dive on the bottom and a long deco
stop. We had hooked the anchor cleanly on the wreck and as we
descended there she was. She has suffered a lot since the drawing
in Tom Byron's book. She is much flatter but the boiler is still
very much in tact. There was no sign of the prop or rudder. There
was a lot of fish life, mostly nanniegai and bullseye. A couple of
gropers hung around - we haven't seen them at this depth.
At the stern we found a strange creature - it looked like a worm with
a big head and about 4 metres long. I have no idea what it is and
have asked the good folk at the Australian Museum about it.
During our surface interval, which lasted 30mins at 5m, we were
briefly visited by a seal and a few minutes later, about 10 metres away
was a small whale. It swam around us for quite a while, and was
still around when we were back on the boat packing up.
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