TOWNSVILLE, Australia (15 July 2003) -- A US tourist has been fined $2000 for scuba diving into a historic shipwreck, an act a Commonwealth prosecutor described yesterday as like desecrating a grave site. Edward Antonovich, 33, of Tarrytown, New York, had been facing up to two years in jail for entering the protected steamship Yongala, which sank off Townsville in a cyclone in 1911 with the death of all on board. Antonovich's arrest made headlines worldwide after federal agents escorted the retrenched information technology worker from the dive boat when it returned to Townsville on June 25. The Yongala is regarded as one of the world's top wreck dive sites and is one of only five protected wrecks in Queensland. It attracts more than 2000 divers a year, many from overseas. President of the Society for the Protection of the Reef and the Yongala, Paul Crocombe, said the wreck was well preserved, and covered in soft and hard coral. It had "the biggest diversity of large marine life that we know of anywhere in the world". "It's got a lot of history as far as Australian history, maritime history, as well as a grave site for 120 people," Mr Crocombe said. Commonwealth prosecutor Natalie Sheridan-Smith told the Townsville Magistrate's Court Antonovich was told by phone when he booked and during a pre-dive briefing that divers were not allowed to penetrate the Yongala. But on a guided tour over the wreck he entered the hull where bottles and human bones lay, she said. After he was ordered out of the hull he entered another area of the hull later in the dive, she said. Defence counsel Wayne Elliott said Antonovich disputed he was told not to enter the wreck when he booked his trip and did not hear of the ban at the briefing. | | He said Antonovich had been allowed to go on an unsupervised second dive and did not realise anything was wrong until the boat returned to port. Mr Crocombe said divers could dislodge coral that coated the ship, exposing the hull to corrosion. Divers bubbles trapped inside the wreck could also hasten its deterioration. He said the dive was a major income source to the local dive industry. "The fact that it's still got glass portholes and other things on it for a shipwreck of that age is pretty unique," he said. "Most people do respect the fact that it is a protected wreck." In sentencing Antonovich, Magistrate Brian Smith said he considered the offence at the upper end of the scale but he did not think a jail term was appropriate. DAntonovich spent a day in custody after his arrest and was not allowed to leave Townsville before the case was finalised. SOURCE - The Courier Mail |
