Top Sydney Wreck Dives
Coolooli
The Coolooli bucket dredge has a LOA of 50m, the ship wreck is lying on her starboard side in a west to east direction with the bucket train to the east. The wreck has several areas that divers can enter, but caution must be observed due to the continual degradation of the wreck. In the last two years the ship wreck has really started to open up and now many areas that were not accessible to technical divers are now really to be explored. Technical divers can be inside the Coolooli for over 15min. Most of the wheelhouse or control station for the bucket dredge is completely gone now with only a few large “I” beams still standing erect. Just aft of this area tech divers can enter the power plant void, the main power coil has now collapsed as it was suspends from the roof or deck. One of our favourite ship wreck dive sites.
Quick Facts about the Coolooli Wreck Dive
- Location: Long Reef Artificial Reef Area. 2.5NM offshore
- Diver level: T1 / Tec45
- Depth: 47m
- Recommended Gas: 21% & 50% / 21/20 & 50% / 21/35 & 50%
- Dive time: 25-30min BT / 60-75min TRT
- Visibility: 5m to 40m
- Season: All year
Apollo
Technical divers will want to dive this Sydney wreck dives many times as she is a fully intact barge, approximately 60m long, 10m wide and 6m high, the Apollo was scuttled on sand and rock, which will be exposed from time to time due to the strong currents sometime passing through this area. Tech divers can checkout the length of the main hold, penetrate the wreck in two areas, the bow through the foredeck hatch combing located behind the large anchor winch which is covered in colourful Gorgonia and soft corals or aft via a hole in the rear hold bulkhead, this hole will get divers into the power plant room, which is one of the best features of the dive as this large void is usually filled with large Blue Morwong fish, with the generator still in place and accompanying bilge system equipment and piping its the perfect spot for a few tech dive photos.
Quick Facts on the Apollo Wreck Dive
- Location: 3NM offshore Long Reef Artificial Reef Area
- Diver Level: T1 / Tec45
- Depth: 47m
- Recommended Gas: 21% & 50% / 21/20 & 50% / 21/35 & 50%
- Dive time: 25-30min BT / 60-75min TRT
- Visibility: 5m to 40m
- Season : All year
Hopper Barge 656
This is a very interesting dive with most of this Sydney wreck still fully intact; however it is starting to show signs of its age, with some large holes in the port and starboard deck plating in several areas. The bow is particularly showing a lot of brake down, but this enables Sydney technical divers to enter the bow void easily. The wreck lies is sand and is quite large, around 50m LOA and was scuttled by the Maritime Services Board of NSW sometime in the 1980’s. This is just one of many of these types of barges that have been scuttled off Sydney.
Quick Facts on the Hopper Barge 656 Wreck
- Location: 3NM offshore Long Reef Artificial Reef Area
- Diver Level: T1/ Tec45
- Depth: 45-51m
- Recommended Gas: 21% & 50% / 21/20 & 50% / 21/35 & 50%
- Dive time: 25-30min BT / 60-75min TRT
- Visibility: 5m to 40m
- Season: All year
Birchgrove Park
The Birchgrove Park was one of the many ship wrecks loss at sea not scuttled, with only three seaman surviving this tragedy. The wreck is usably shrouded in large school’s of fish when technical scuba divers arrive on the ship wreck, a large debris field has formed extending from the ships superstructure in the area of the boiler towards the bow out in a westerly direction in to the sand. It is said that divers used explosives in this area sometime in the past to access inaccessible areas. This is a must technical dive for divers able to dive to 51m.
Quick Facts on the Birchgrove Park Wreck
- Location: 2.5NM offshore, Bangalley Head
- Diver level: T1/Tec50
- Depth: 48-51m
- Recommended Gas: 21% & 50% / 21/20 & 50% / 21/35 & 50%
- Dive time: 25-30min BT / 60-75min TRT
- Visibility: 5m to 40m
- Season: All year
Dee Why Ferry
The Dee Why ferry was striped of everything of valve prior to her scuttling and as she was an old ferry with wooden deck which is completely gone, the bow and stern sections still stand quite high, and are connected by a large keel beam. The western end section is the most interesting to explore as this is where Sydney scuba divers will see the four large boilers and accompanying machinery, tech divers are able to work through many sections of overhead structures. During winter months Port Jackson sharks are encountered in large numbers throughout this ship wreck. The Dee Why ferry lies around 15m from the bow of the Meggol and both these ship wrecks can be dived in the same dive.
Quick Facts on the Dee Why Wreck
- Location: 2.5NM offshore, Long Reef Artificial Reef Area
- Diver Level: T1/Tec45
- Depth: 42m to 46m
- Recommended Gas: 21% & 50% / 21/20 & 50% / 21/35 & 50%
- Dive time: 25-30min BT / 60-75min TRT
- Visibility: 5m to 40m
- Season: All year
SS Myola
The Myola ship wreck wreckage lies in 46 metre of water a top an offshore reef with the main structure being a huge single engine block and associated machinery connected to the stern hull, with two huge boiler lying to the south east, the hull and deck plating extend off to the south with not much structure extending up until the bow is reached. At the stern one of the blades is broken with others bent and technical scuba divers can easily swim between the rudder and props. This ship wreck is located further offshore to many other ship wrecks and technical scuba divers can experience stronger surface currents but can rewarded with clear visibility while on the ship wreck itself.
Quick Facts on the SS Myola Wreck
- Location: 5NM offshore, Long Reef Headland
- Diver Level: T1/Tec45
- Depth: 42 to 46m
- Recommended Gas: 21% & 50% / 21/20 & 50% / 21/35 & 50%
- Dive time: 25-30min BT / 60-75min TRT
- Visibility: 5m to 40m
- Season: All year
Trio
We could not find any information about this wreck and agreed to call it the Trio when the owner of Sydney Dive Charters and two of his friends found the wreck in 1988. The wreck lies closer to shore, in sand and is well out of the artificial reef area off to the south towards Sydney, the ship wreck is a Hopper Barge with a LOA of around 50 metres, the wreck is fully intact, has some hull plating deterioration around the midship area. The Sydney ship wreck appears to of been loss at sea at some unknown date and when we first dived on the wreck there was a concrete (Ferro-Cement) yacht in its hold which has all but disappeared now, with the only trace it ever existed being the small engine block lying in the bottom of the hold. The picture above is of the power plant room from the aft hold hole which is too small to use as an entry point. The ship wreck lies quiet close, (a few 100m’s) to another wreck found years later, now called the Danny J.
Quick Facts on the Trio Wreck
- Location: 2NM offshore, Mona Vale Headland
- Diver Level: T1/Tec45
- Depth: 46m to 51m
- Recommended Gas: 21% & 50% / 21/20 & 50% / 21/35 & 50%
- Dive time: 25-30min BT / 60-75min TRT
- Visibility: 5m to 40m
- Season: All year
Himma
The Himma was scuttled in 1980 by NSW Fisheries to create an artificial reef for local fisherman but I have not seen large amounts of fish on the wreck, the usual Morwong can be seen in the hold but Kingfish or Jewfish have been rarely encountered. The Himma tug worked in the Middle East before operating in Sydney Harbour around 1951, she worked for many years here in Sydney Harbour before being made fast to one of the many old wharfs before being towed out to be scuttled. The Himma has had a few technical diver deaths in the past, before the more current diving practises of twins with stage tanks, and now that the main superstructure has completely collapsed their is little change of getting trapped below deck which is what was a contributing factor or previous scuba diving death. The wreck lies in sand on the outer edge of the artificial reef area of Long Reef on Sydney’s Northern Beaches and is only a 30min boat ride from our pickup locations.
Quick Facts about the Himma Wreck
- Location: 3NM offshore m, Long Reef artificial Reef area
- Diver Level: Open Water Qualification
- Depth: 13m to 24m
- Recommended Gas: 21% or Nitrox
- Dive time: 35 to 70 mins
- Visibility: Over 10m to 30m
- Season: All year
MV Bellubera Ferry
The MV Bellurbera is the northern most scuttled wreck in this artificial reef area and now lies in two pieces, the eastern end and the western end. The ferry was striped prior to scuttling not only of its heavy machinery but larger parts of its upper hull.
Quick Facts on the MV Bellubera Ferry Wreck
- Location: 2.5NM offshore, Long Reef Artificial Reef Area
- Diver Level: T1/Tec45
- Depth: 43m to 48m
- Recommended Gas: 21% & 50% / 21/20 & 50% / 21/35 & 50%
- Dive time: 25-30min BT / 60-75min TRT
- Visibility: 5m to 40m
- Season: All year
Canoe Barge
The Canoe Barge is so names as it’s ends are shaped like a canoe, this barge is fully intact and has all the deck winches still aboard and on many a dive large school’s of Jewfish can be encountered in the vessels hold.
Quick Facts on the Canoe Barge Wreck
- Location: 3.5NM offshore, Long Reef Artificial Reef Area
- Diver Level: T1/Tec45
- Depth: 45m to 51m
- Recommended Gas: 21% & 50% / 21/20 & 50% / 21/35 & 50%
- Dive time: 25-30min BT / 60-75min TRT
- Visibility: 5m to 40m
- Season: All year
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I had an awesome couple of dives on the Ex-HMAS Adelaide for my 100th dive. It was an amazing experience thanks to Jason’s excellent boat and service, his detailed briefing really helped me navigate the ship wreck.
We dive regularly with Jason. He really looks after us. Great diving. Love the boat. Dives run on time which let’s us get to work after our dives.
I’ve chartered Sydney Dive Charters for my company’s annual Christmas party and we had a great time, the boat is great and Jason really went out of his way to accommodate our needs. I will definitely be back on board this year!
“I’ve been diving with Jason aboard Sydney Dive Charters dive boat for nearly 3 years now and I keep coming back. I’ve had the pleasure of exploring and enjoying some of the best technical wrecks in the Sydney Region. The boat makes for comfortable, easy diving – which when coupled with Jason’s local knowledge provides a complete service. There is nothing better than diving on a boat when you know the skipper is first and foremost a diver himself”
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