Bart Bear's Blog

Guess what, I went in a submarine. Or a sort of a half-submarine. At least the part where I was was down under the water and I could look out the window at fish and things. The boat behind me in the picture is the semi-sub, tied up at the Rottnest Island jetty and waiting for passengers. I am sitting on a post waiting for the sub crew to let us on board. When you get onto one of these boats you go down a ladder to the seats, which are about 3 m below water level. The day we went it was a bit gloomy because the wind had stirred up the shallow water and put lots of sand into it, but we could see things OK. We went out to some reefs where there were lots of fish. The fish have gotten used to the boat and know that when it visits them there is food tossed overboard so they all come to get some. That means that small bears and people get a good look at them. There are also some shipwrecks on the reef. You can just see some of the iron frames of ships called "Macedon" and "Denton Holme" in the bottom pictures. The ships were wrecked in 1883 and 1890 so there is a lot of seaweeds growing on the wrecks now. I like these semi-subs. It gives me a chance to see some of the stuff that the Oldies see when they go snorkelling. And I do like fish but shipwrecks make me feel awfully sad when I think of the sailors and cargo that were lost.

Labels: boats, fish, Perth, Western Australia