A log: Filming a sunken yacht
Someone's yacht sank outside the house. I wanted to see it.
A few months ago, a moored yacht sank in the bay right outside our house in Sydney Harbour. Apparently, salvaging a sunken vessel can be prohibitively expensive, so they are often simply abandoned to become artificial reefs for local marine life. Seeing a sunken yacht teeming with fish right at the bottom... I just had to see it. This is a log of my various attempts to catch a glimpse of that underwater world.
The location was roughly 60 meters from the shore.
Attempt 1: The RC Camera Boat
The plan: buy a cheap RC boat on Amazon (~$30), mount a cheap underwater action cam (~$50) onto it, tie a spool of fishing line to the back as a safety tether, and navigate it out to the wreck.
I set out before 6:00 AM, aiming for that calm window of water right before the morning commuter ferries started running across the harbour.
Around 30 meters out, the remote signal cut off entirely. The off-center weight of the camera made the boat spin in helpless circles, and I had to haul it back by reeling in the fishing line. Midway through, a local man casually paddled past in a kayak to check out the mast, making me intensely jealous...
The range was the bottleneck. Cheap toy-grade RC boats lose their radio connection right around 70 meters.
Attempt 2: A Better Range Boat
I decided to upgrade and bought a slightly more capable RC boat (~$80). This solved the range problem, and the boat easily reached the exposed tip of the mast.
However, peering down into murky harbour water from a camera skimming the surface revealed next to nothing!
Attempt 3: Giving Up and Buying a Kayak
I caved and bought a dirt-cheap kayak ($200). That finally got me all the way to the sunken wreck. Dropping the underwater camera directly into the depths... there it was! The striped fish darting through the frame look like mado (stripey) fish. No wonder the area is always packed with local anglers.
The Epilogue
Three weeks later, the sunken boat was hauled away. I was amazed to watch an excavator on a tiny, precarious-looking barge hoist the entire waterlogged hull right out of the sea.
