‘Awesome’ moment a military submarine cruises past a fisherman in his tiny tinny just off the coast of Queensland
- Fisherman left stunned after an ‘awesome’ military submarine cruised past
- Charter boat operator Greg Pearce leading fishing trip off Queensland coast
- Came as Australia began conducting large-scale military exercises with US
- Mr Pearce said the unexpected sight was a ‘pretty awesome’ sight to see
A fisherman has been left stunned after seeing an ‘awesome’ military submarine move within metres of his boat off Australia’s eastern coastline.
Charter boat operator Greg Pearce was leading a fishing trip off Queensland’s south-east coast when he saw the half-submerged submarine travelling back towards the mainland on Wednesday morning.
The sighting came as Australia began conducting large-scale military exercises with the US this week as part of the biannual Talisman Sabre 2021 war games.
Mr Pearce told Daily Mail Australia one of his passengers spotted the submarine cruise into view about 7km from land near Fraser Island.
The Tianwangxing vessel, is scheduled to arrive on Friday ahead of large-scale military exercises beginning this week
Charter boat operator Greg Pearce was leading a fishing trip off Queensland’s south-east coast when he saw a half-submerged submarine travelling towards the mainland
‘We were having a fish and one of the guys just said “that’s a funny looking boat” and we watched as it approached,’ he said.
‘You could see a couple of crew moving around on deck up the top as well. They were doing their thing and we were doing ours.
‘It was pretty awesome – just amazing to see.’
He said the submarine looked like it was doing a reconnaissance mission to familiarise the crew with the mainland before going back out into the Coral Sea.
Australian military activities with the US this week are being closely by a Chinese navy surveillance ship, which is making its way towards Queensland waters.
The Tianwangxing, which translates as ‘Uranus’, is scheduled to arrive in local waters on Friday to monitor large-scale Australia-US military exercises beginning this week, defence sources told the ABC.
Defence Minister Peter Dutton confirmed the Australian Defence Force (ADF) has been closely monitoring the Chinese military ship ahead of the war games.
In 2019 the same type 815 vessel was monitored by the ADF for the biennial Talisman Sabre games
‘We are aware that the People’s Liberation Army (Navy) general intelligence ship Tianwangxing is approaching Australia’s east coast via the Torres Strait,’ Mr Dutton said.
‘We have been monitoring its approach to Australia for several days as part of Australia’s broader surveillance effort.’
This is not the first time the Chinese ship has been spotted in Australian waters.