C-130 Hercules Wreck

The dive starts on the beach with a long surface swim: the aircraft lies about 300 m out on flat sand, and with only the lightest of currents on the site that swim is steady work rather than a fight. Descent is easy, because the visibility here usually leaves the wreck visible from the surface, and it resolves into 30 m of fuselage with a 40 m wingspan sitting upright and almost level in 12 to 17 m of water.

Most divers go to the nose first. Hovering outside the cockpit at 12 m the flight deck looks improbably small, and a plastic skeleton in a flight suit and helmet is strapped into the pilot's seat, the most photographed thing on the aircraft. The flight deck is open and can be entered either from inside the fuselage or through the cockpit windows, with the basic controls and steering columns still in place.

The doors have been removed, so the cargo hold behind the cockpit is open and well lit: roughly 12 m long and 3 m wide, and big enough that centres run wreck specialty courses inside it. The tailgate was opened to serve as an entrance, but taking out the engines and the nose electronics left the aircraft slightly tail-heavy and its own weight has since closed it, with the nose gear raised clear of the sand.

Swim back over the fuselage at around 10 m and the tail fin rises to about 5 m below the surface, then work out along a wing and turn for the beach with gas in hand: the 300 m swim back is the part of this dive that needs planning, not the depth. Schooling reef fish are moving onto the airframe, and the M42 'Duster' tank a few metres away and the Cedar Pride nearby are easy additions to the day.