Side Scan Analysis – Meadowbank and Rhodes – Lost Property Edition
There’s a lot going on in this side scan analysis of this tiny bit of the Meadowbank and Rhodes area of the Parramatta River.
There is a rail bridge, pedestrian bridge, boat ramp and ferry wharf along with a decent amount of “lost property”.
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LOCATION 1 – THE BOAT RAMP
Let’s deal with the elephant in the room. It’s pretty clear we have at least 2 cars in this shot. Apart from some water damage they both look in pretty good condition. Contents of the boot are unknown…
Next we have four (maybe five) boats sitting on the bottom. At least two are right under the pontoon which makes me think that someone forgot to put the drain plug in.
Notice the amount of stuff sitting on the bottom underneath the bridge (bottom right). This concentration is very interesting as the remainder of the bridge is relatively clear.
LOCATION 2 – LOST BOAT
Another boat. This one is upside down and resting near a bridge pylon. Looks like it could have been drifting before coming to rest here.
There are a few schools of baitfish around this section too. Mulloway anyone?
LOCATION 3 – FERRY PONTOON
Meadowbank ferry wharf was recently upgraded so the Google Earth image is a bit deceiving.
Working from the bottom of the image we can see a bunch of hard items on the bottom. I think this may be where the pylons for the old wharf were cut off. There are also a few old car tyres here and a big log on the bottom.
On the left side we can see the row of pylons for the new jetty walkway as a row of very hard returns. We can also see the new pylons for the pontoon (thick concrete ones) casting very defined shadows back toward the shoreline.
The faint white line is the hard face of the new pontoon. I’m not too sure what the two other items are around the pontoon. They could be additional wrecks but they are very difficult to make out.
I also think that is a school of fish sitting under the pontoon (between the top wreck and top pylons). When I zoomed in there were many hard returns clearly separate from the sonar shadow.
That super bright return in the water column at the top of screen is ferry prop wash. Humminbird side scan units are very sensitive to tiny bubbles in the water. Sometimes it can take quite a while for the water to clear up again.
WHAT’S NEXT
So that’s my round-up of the lost property edition of the Meadowbank and Rhodes area. I’ve managed to collect a fair bit of data since getting the new sounder and I’m busy writing this up into new blogs.
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Equipment Used
Sounder: Humminbird Helix 10 MEGA SI G2N
Range: 30m
Sensitivity: 10
Contrast: 12
Chart Speed: 4
Boat Speed: 3kts
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