The Wreck of the Ozone
Jan. 11th, 2016 07:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
khiemtranCome with me this week on the first of a series of adventures around Port Phillip Bay. We'll start off with a kayaking expedition to explore the wreck of the Ozone at Indented Head...
Didn't bring a kayak? That's okay, we can hire them from the boathouse by the beach.
These kayaks are quite cool. They each come with a little plastic window so you can get a better view of the seafloor. Although it must be said that the windows are pretty heavily scratched.
Fortunately, the water is nice and clear.
Up ahead, the remains of the Ozone loom out of the sea. The Ozone was one of the last great paddle steamers. She was built in 1886 in Scotland and made it to Port Phillip Bay in the same year, where she started service as a ferry between Melbourne and Queenscliff. Inauspiciously, she collided with the Queenscliff pier on her very first run. Despite this, and two subsequent collisions with other vessels, she survived 29 years of service as one of a number of elegant paddle steamers that carried holiday-makers and pleasure-seekers across the bay.
The paddle wheels were actually amidships, and only the port wheel is still standing, so the bow of the boat would have been towards the left of the photo and the stern towards the right. After surviving her three collisions (as Liem asked "why didn't they just get a better helm?"), she suffered the final indignity of being scuttled as a breakwater by the beach. Although she still potentially had the last laugh, as the small boats her wreck was meant to break the waves for are long gone, and it's her the tourists and holiday-makers still come to see.
Off in the distance, the city of Melbourne can be seen on the horizon. The whole of Port Phillip Bay is one great drowned river valley. Once, the Yarra river, which now joins the bay right by those skyscrapers, would have wound its way down to a swampy marsh not far from where we are now. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the local aboriginal people have stories about the flooding of the valley at the end of the last ice age. Now, the entire valley is a single vast lagoon, with a huge volume of water that flows in and out through a very narrow opening known as The Rip. And that's where we're off to next...
Didn't bring a kayak? That's okay, we can hire them from the boathouse by the beach.
These kayaks are quite cool. They each come with a little plastic window so you can get a better view of the seafloor. Although it must be said that the windows are pretty heavily scratched.
Fortunately, the water is nice and clear.
Up ahead, the remains of the Ozone loom out of the sea. The Ozone was one of the last great paddle steamers. She was built in 1886 in Scotland and made it to Port Phillip Bay in the same year, where she started service as a ferry between Melbourne and Queenscliff. Inauspiciously, she collided with the Queenscliff pier on her very first run. Despite this, and two subsequent collisions with other vessels, she survived 29 years of service as one of a number of elegant paddle steamers that carried holiday-makers and pleasure-seekers across the bay.
The paddle wheels were actually amidships, and only the port wheel is still standing, so the bow of the boat would have been towards the left of the photo and the stern towards the right. After surviving her three collisions (as Liem asked "why didn't they just get a better helm?"), she suffered the final indignity of being scuttled as a breakwater by the beach. Although she still potentially had the last laugh, as the small boats her wreck was meant to break the waves for are long gone, and it's her the tourists and holiday-makers still come to see.
Off in the distance, the city of Melbourne can be seen on the horizon. The whole of Port Phillip Bay is one great drowned river valley. Once, the Yarra river, which now joins the bay right by those skyscrapers, would have wound its way down to a swampy marsh not far from where we are now. As I mentioned in an earlier post, the local aboriginal people have stories about the flooding of the valley at the end of the last ice age. Now, the entire valley is a single vast lagoon, with a huge volume of water that flows in and out through a very narrow opening known as The Rip. And that's where we're off to next...
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no subject
Date: 2016-01-11 12:39 pm (UTC)I think it's pretty funny that there's a wreck called Ozone--it's like the ship namer knew something about the future or something...
No but honestly, what other names did that shipmaker use? HMS Carbon Sequestration?
no subject
Date: 2016-01-11 03:07 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-11 07:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-12 01:21 pm (UTC)Hotel Building [oozing odor]: *shrugs* I dunno.
no subject
Date: 2016-01-12 06:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-11 03:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2016-01-11 07:42 pm (UTC)