SS Undola 17-04-10

We hadn't dived the Undola since before Christmas 2009. A long time for what is one of our favourite Sydney wrecks. I had met Leslie from Aquasea that morning to check the sizing of the seals on my dry suit. What she told me as disturbing. The helm has been ripped off and now lies in the sand in front of the boiler, a bollard further up from the boiler is broken and the tiller is now broken. She believes the tiller may have been damaged by deep trawling but the other damage was almost certainly done by people trying to salvage parts of the wreck. The fines are up to $1.3m and what would you do with it? You couldn't show any one. Very sad.

Anyway, we pulled up and were greeted by a young seal. The seal hung around at one stage playing with the float on the deco line. Down we went in perfect conditions and the kind of blue water that the tropics are known for. Viz on the wreck at least 25m. We were hooked up on the starboard side, forward of the boiler. Swimming around to the bow, then up to the toilet and down the port side. I was a small wobbie wedged in the side of the wreck, no way to get a pic of it. Round the back to the stern where the damage to the tiller was evident. The seal visited us here and I got a pic of it as it sped away. Then over the boiler and the front starboard edge showed bare metal. Below it sat a large piece of machinery, clearly it was not in this location before. Then I came to the broken bollard - fresh rust here.

As usual the wreck is covered in fish and a joy to visit. Our 25 min bottom time at an end we headed up and during our deco stop the seal again visited, hovering a metre in front of us for a few seconds before speeding away.