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Great dive trips in SA

GONE is the fear that storms brought to sailors as they roared past the southern tip of Yorke Peninsula.

Now surfers ride the surging southern swells and scuba divers come to explore the many shipwrecks those storms left in their wake on South Australia's coast.

In times past, many ships floundered and sank at the mercy of vicious winds and rough seas.

Between 1849 and 1982, more than 26 vessels were wrecked in Investigator Strait, (the passage between Yorke Peninsula and Kangaroo Island), resulting in the loss of about 70 lives. Only a few fishing boats now ply the waters of the once busy strait.

Diving 700m offshore, an eerie darkness envelopes as you descend on to the Clan Ranald wreckage that lays 20m below, strewn on the sandy bottom.

Goose bumps rise on the back of your neck as its huge boilers appear in the gloom.

The ribs of the ship lay uncovered like the skeleton of a corpse, leading a trail to the bow of the ship from the boiler room.

Peering under the huge plates of the collapsed hull, you begin to wonder whether the remains of an unfortunate sailor lie buried forever nearby. The ghosts of the lost seem to follow behind as you respectfully swim over their grave.

The Clan Ranald is a part of The Investigator Strait Maritime Heritage Trail, one of nine maritime trails within South Australia. Maritime archaeologists have documented and collated wreck information and have created this trail, from Edithburgh to Innes National Park.

The trail has six land-based interpretative signs and comes with a waterproof booklet so divers have a handy guide while underwater exploring the ship wrecks.

There are many sites to visit, from the wreck of the Ethel, whose hull is slowly disintegrating on the spectacular Ethel Beach within Innes National Park, to the wreck of the SS Willyama, which sank very close to the shore near Marion Bay, allowing both snorkelers and divers the ability to visit this site from the shore.

Then there's the wreck of the Yatala Reef - built for the RAAF in the late 1940s to supply coastal landing strips in Papua New Guinea - which lies hidden off the isolated coast near Pt Gilbert.

The towns of Edithburgh and Marion Bay are ideal bases to explore this area. Edithburgh has charter operators that will take divers out to explore the many excellent dive sites.

These small townships rely heavily on tourism, providing excellent services for the people who visit. The Edithburgh jetty is renowned as one of the best jetty dives in Australia. Safe and very easy to access, it is popular with many first-timers.

Beneath the historic jetty lies a huge diversity of marine flora and fauna, thanks to a combination of factors - the St Vincent Gulf, Investigator Strait and the open ocean currents.

From schools of old wives and seahorses anchoring themselves to sea grass, to tiny nudibranch living their lives among the jetty's pylons, it provides an amazing microcosm.

About 14km to the west is the Troubridge Hill aquatic reserve, which also has a great diversity of marine life along its walls and drop-offs.

Winter is a great time to learn to dive, as dive operators offer very good packages of excellent value. You can obtain the skills here and experience some of the best temperate diving in the world, then head to the tropics fully qualified to visit the coral gardens.

But diving in South Australian waters is hard to beat.