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Lynne Fry with a Bynoe Harbour spanish mackerel

Matt Flynn's Northern Territory
fishing report: May 30, 2004

Also available in the Darwin Sunday
newspaper, Sunday Territorian

There's plenty of fish life on the Darwin Princess wreck, say Coral Divers' Sash Muller and Suzie Lack, who identified the wreck after a tip-off from a fishing charter operator.

They said a massive cod lived on the wreck, as well as jewfish and huge toadfish.

Sash and Suzie revealed all they could about the final missing 1974 Cyclone Tracy wreck after just two recent dives on it - one dive in dirty conditions, the other in darkness.

Suzie said that in 2003, local fishing charter operators Ian and Sue Froos of Tinkerbell Wilderness Fishing Adventures, found a great spot to take their fishing charters and named it Mushroom Bommie.

"They were curious to know what the 'bommie' looked like and what fish were actually there and asked us at Coral Divers to go down and take a look at it, last week,'' Suzie said.

"Unfortunately, on our first exploratory dive, only two of our team managed to find the "bommie" and that was right at the end of their dive time, but great excitement back on the boat, it was definitely the lost Cyclone Tracy wreck of the Darwin Princess! This of course meant that we had to go out again the next day for a proper look.

"We had much more success on our second dive even though it was dark - as it is a deepish dive (28m), we all opted for Nitrox (EAN38) to give us plenty of time to look around and take plenty of photos.

"The wreck is upside down, yet virtually intact. It has buried itself about a metre into the bottom and the top deck chairs, canopy and wheelhouse are lying smashed up beside the hull.

"Inside the hull, you can still find many of the plastic chairs used as seating on the ferry, and what we believe were life jackets stowed under the chairs.

"Penetrating inside the upside down ferry is dangerous as silt has built up inside, which means as soon as you start to move, visibility drops to less than zero. It doesn't leave a lot of room for manoeuvring around either.

"Getting in under the stern, which would have been the open stern deck, is quite easy though, giving good photo opportunities. The rubble lying off to the side, which is obviously the wheelhouse is also worth considerable time.

"The Princess obviously flipped over as she sank and wiped all the top deck off to the side as she settled."

Sash said: "On my first dive I finally found the wreck when I was doing my second search pattern - I was actually inside the wreck before I realised we had found it and I suddenly realised I was in a confined area ... and I was low on air, which was a bit of a worry.

"On the second dive the water was clearer but we had to dive at night because it was rough during the day, but we were able to spend more time on it.

"It was hard to tell it was a wreck on the sounder, as it looks quite like a huge coral bommie. It's sitting on a gentle slope close enough to where the Booya wreck lies that the two boats would have been able to see each other's lights that night.

"They may have rendered each other help and then the situation got bad.

"There is a lot of really thick rope around the propeller of the Princess.

"The rope has destroyed the rudder and there is also a big dent in the bow rail area.

"The whole upper wreck is crushed as the vessel sank upside down and the upper part of the vessel is spread over a wide area.

"It is just the strength of the upper deck which is causing it to sit proud in the sand.

"It's a huge boat though, and there are two or three levels to it.

"What is really interesting is the spread zone where the impact has broken up the vessel, or its movement through time has spread the pieces.

"We reckon this zone is going to yield more interesting finds.

"I also think there is still air in the hull because of the noise it makes when you are down inside it.

"And there is a giant cod living down there - and it's really big.

"There are junior jewfish under the back part and opposite there are the big mother jewfish, just like it used to be on the Mandorah Queen.

"There are a lot of really big spanish flag and a lot of batfish.

"Interestingly the wreck has some very large toadies about a metre long - huge toadfish with big scary buck teeth at the front.

"It's a pretty good dive - the area is good for clear water on neap tides but now, while they are dumping material from the LPG project, it seems to be silting up on the incoming tide when it should be clearing up.

"The Booya and Princess have obviously been great feeder wrecks for the harbour where young fish from the big resident adults will have been displaced into the harbour."

Sash says he does not mind if the new wreck eventually becomes a fishing zone, although he sees merits in the Booya wreck - which was also discovered this year - being a fish sanctuary.

"Once upon a time when spearfishing was popular they were going to make the Zealandia wreck in the harbour a spearfishing free zone to allow the many cod there to breed and feed other areas," Sash said.

"Fish stocks on the wrecks are down across the board but I don't know if making a wreck a no fishing zone will make much difference.

"Jewfish are not as abundant as they were in the harbour which is a shame as they are spectacular underwater as they are a friendly fish that interact with divers.

"We have not seen many jewfish lately until the last month. They seem to have areas they like to meet. The Mandorah Queen was one of those spots; some days they were there and sometimes not.

"You now see the same at the Darwin Princess - the smaller jewfish are always there, and the big ones probably come and go."

Sash said he would like to see decommissioned patrol boats in Darwin used as artificial reefs.

"Perhaps they could put them off Lee Point,'' he said.

"The Lee Point reefs have worked well, except the mining ore (Tippers) reef - the ore tipper have sunk into the clay and disappeared.

"The Mills Reef has been very good though - there is even the spectacular lionfish there - you used to get them on the Song Saigon wreck in the harbour but not any more - my gut feeling is that water quality in the harbour has deteriorated.

"There used to be coral on the Song Saigon and there is not now. It's the same with other deep wrecks in the harbour.

"It's not caused by fishing but by impact from dirtier water."

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