From Jennifer Marohasy
By jennifer
The corals in the central region of the Great Barrier Reef have suffered through this last summer with some bleaching and also damage from cyclone Kirrily. There are seasons under the sea, just as there are on land – and in life.
Even though large areas of reef crest are denuded of coral – colonies of clown fish have hung-on including at Lynch reef. These little fishes, they still come out to say ‘Gidday’, at least to me.
That was my experience earlier this week when I had the privilege of diving five reefs off Townsville – Chicken, Wheeler, Davies, Lynch, and also John Brewer Reef.
These reefs are part of the central region of the Great Barrier Reef. I was diving with Paul Crocombe the owner of Adrenalin Snorkel and Dive, and also Stuart Ireland the owner of Calypso Productions. There is a combined 60 years of experience, much of it under the water at the Great Barrier Reef.
Paul and Stuart have seen cyclone damage before, and also bleaching.
We did find one reef, Wheeler reef, that was essentially intact, with an extraordinary diversity of fish, corals, and very little bleaching. We will feature this reef in an IPA-sponsored short documentary about this adventure, soon. (You can find previous efforts online, click here.)
So, yes, it is the case that you can always find somewhere that is flourishing, even if overall conditions have not been so good. In this little clip (click here, and following), that I’ve just now uploaded to Vimeo you can see Paul with the fishes at Wheeler reef on Wednesday 3rd April 2024.
Not a lot of people get to dive at Chicken Reef because it is so far offshore, on the edge of the Great Barrier Reef; quite a way east of Wheeler. (Not quite as far as Myrmidon, that I visited in October 2021 and blogged about back then, including click here.)
Stuart put the drone up at Chicken and got some impressive aerials. But with the choppy conditions it was impossible to make much out in terms of the condition of the corals from above the water, from a drone.
I spent all of Wednesday on snorkel, and while Stuart had the drone up over me, I was taking photographs.
There was good coral coverage at this section of reef crest, at Chicken as you can see from my underwater photograph.
And when Stuart finally got into the water, I photographed him photographing one of the impressive large Porites at this reef, at Chicken reef. There is a large plate coral just below him.
Then Stuart captured me above the same coral, free diving.
Stuart didn’t manage to get everything on camera. Our lookout Robert, from Adrenalin Snorkel and Dive, saw a whale shark go straight over the top of Paul and Stuart at Chicken reef without them noticing. They were looking down, not up! I was some distance away on snorkel, free diving.
Whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) are the largest extant species of fish, and the largest of the sharks and they feed on plankton.*
More about this adventure in my next blog post, Part 2 to come and there will be a short documentary. We have so much footage!
PS. Following is a very short clip of a parrot fish at the crest of Wheeler reef, taken on Wednesday 3rd April 2024 – posting just now for my daughter across the other side of the Pacific in Seattle. The parrots, they often make us laugh.
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Update Sunday 7th April.
I published a link to this post across at my official Facebook page, and my FB friend Dave Ross, another underwater legend, wrote that Whale sharks will eat fish even posting this great link to prove his point:
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