May 7, 2011 was the first day that the HMAS Adelaide was open to the public.  We had secured a 2 hour slot from 08:30 on mooring 2 on the port side forward of the stern.  We were amongst the first 20 people to dive her.

We put the boat in the water, there is no wharf or jetty at Terrigal so we had to drive the boat around until Wayne had parked the trailer.  Unfortunately, he twisted his ankle on the boat ramp.  It was fine and sunny and a slight breeze and the water looked pretty flat.  Not so when we came round the Skillion the seas were rolling in - a good 2m swell.  We got to the wreck site and had to find our mooring.  This took a few minutes but we were still early.   There were 3 of us, Jenny, Wayne and I.  We are required to have some one on the boat at all times so Wayne and Jenny dived first.  Jenny was in quickly and Wayne a couple of minutes later.  About 10 minutes later they surfaced looked around and headed back down again.  It wasn't until they returned that I realised the situation.  The visibility was slightly better than pea soup and they had gone to the bottom, not able to find the wreck and surfaced again to get their bearings.  Eventually they found the bridge but with the surge Jen was getting low on air.  Not a great start.

After a suitable surface interval Wayne and I then headed down.  It took us a while before we found the wreck.  We hit the port side and followed the hand rails to be bow, passing the 01 on the port side.  Around the bow and down the starboard side we got some pics of the 01 then up over the rail.  We swam over the top of the missile launcher - a large round hole that went down into the depths of the ship.  Too dark and surgy to see down there.  We headed into the bridge and got pics of each other sitting in the chair.  Then out the other side and down the port rail past the mast.  We didn't go much further, the water was too dirty so we headed up the mast, finally surfacing beside another mooring and surface swimming back to our boat.

There was little fish life - a few madow was all I saw.  Still, she will be fabulous on a good day.