HMAS Brisbane and her sister ships HMA Ships Melbourne and Sydney were the first cruisers built for the Royal Australian Navy
Brisbane was launched on 30 September 1915, was decommissioned in 2001, and was sunk as a dive wreck off Mooloolaba on the Queensland coast in 2005. The Wreck lies approximately 2.8 nautical miles (5.2 km; 3.2 mi) off the coast of Mudjimba, Sunshine Coast, Queensland, on 31 July 2005 in 27 metres of water.
The wreck site has been colonised by sponges, soft corals, and hard corals, while over 200 different species of fish have been sighted in the area.
The ex-HMAS Brisbane is a little over 130 metres long and has multiple decks and penetration dives ranging from 5metres (thew top of the stacks) to 28 metres (the sandy bottom)
The original underwater virtual tour was mostly shot over just 2 dives in March 2023 – where we took over 80 still 360° photos and more than 30 x 360° videos. This allowed us to provide a decent c(but still only partial) coverage of the wreck. We expect that additional dives will be undertaken and further areas of the wreck will be added over time – however, even the original partial virtual tour provides a very comprehensive “taste” of the HMAS Brisbane dive experience and provides divers with a real experience of what it is like to dive this wreck.
The initial Virtual Tour offers a “Kiosk” mode designed to be running automatically in the dive shop (but allowing anyone to “take control” and navigate themselves throughout the wreck at their leisure
Lessons learned :
- Challenges associated with lighting in dark, confined penetration spaces
- Challenges associated with inadvertently switching camera modes mid dive (and missing out on some of “the best” footage)
- Less is More –