ARTIFICIAL REEFS
Over the years many artificial reefs have
been sunk in the Darwin harbour area and also out in the "blue
water". Some of these are impounded Vietnamese Refugee boats
and more recently Chinese Refugee vessels. Others are old disused
trawlers, barges, reefs made up of old commercial bottlewashing machines,
mining equipment, tyres, even a bus stop shelter or two! All of them are great havens
for fish life and have excellent coral growth.
WORLD WAR II WRECKS - 19 FEB. 1942
Most of these wrecks were sunk in the famous Japanese
Air-raid on the 19th February, 1942. Although heavily salvaged by the
Japanese for the valuable steel in the early 1960’s, the wrecks of the
mainly American Warships are extremely interesting. They lie as twisted
metal and rubble, with the deck cargo strewn across the seafloor.
Click here to see a sketch of 2 of our favourite World War II wrecks, the
"Meigs" and the "Mauna
Loa" as they are now.
LOCAL CORAL REEFS
Contrary to popular belief, we have some very pretty
coral reefs within Darwin Harbour confines itself. Most of our reefs are
made up of rock, soft corals and sponges. Due to the enormous amount of
plankton and algae in our warm waters, the coral growth is prolific with a
great diversity of marine life in a small area. Molluscs, ascidians,
nudibranchs, flatworms, small crustaceans and the usual colourful fish
abound.
CYCLONE TRACY WRECKS - 24 DEC. 1974
Cyclone Tracy hit Darwin with vicious ferocity on
Christmas Eve, 1974. Many boats were caught unawares - some came through
with luck, but many did not. Those that went down,
did so taking their crew and passengers with them. Recently the last
2 undiscovered Cyclone Tracy casualties, the "BOOYA" and the ‘DARWIN PRINCESS"
were located. These 2 wrecks are have now been opened for diving
under a special "Permit" system.
DIVES "DOWN THE TRACK"
Occasionally, when the time, tides and weather are right
- it’s possible to go "Inland Diving". We have discovered many
good dive sites "down the track". Some are easy shallow dives to
get you wet when the tides aren’t right for diving in the harbour.
Others are more difficult and require advanced diving skills and local
knowledge of the site to do the dive in safety.
Please ask us, if you want to dive a new spot and are
unsure of its possible dangers. We will be only too pleased to give you
some information.
