411 Dive Log Australasia April 2025

Emperors are ferocious hunters

many dive destinations in the Pacific are denuded of fish. The reasons include massive population growth that depend on subsistence fishing. Some countries can only dream of sharks, Coral Trout and Turtles as a distant faint memory. Australia is a world leader in reef protection. Diving in a Green zone illustrates this point spectacularly. I dived from Agnes Waters and the town of 1770 where Captain Cook landed. We dived in a ten-metre boat with friends for four days. Around Llewellyn Reef and Lady Musgrave. It was mid-January. Violent tropical storms lashed the townships and spectacular lightning storms lashed the skies every evening. Out at sea, the water was calm, the sun was shining as we cruised at over twenty knots out to the reef. We had left the stormy weather behind. Conditions could not have been better! Our first dive at Llewellyn reef was a beauty. One

Crayfish, a Pygmy Wobbegong and a very healthy coral reef greeted us. We had clear water and hardly any current. Best of all the fish were calm and relaxed. A pair of totally fearless Semicircular Angelfish were having a courtship dance before my eyes for five minutes. Two Barramundi cod were hunting and dancing together. I watched as one hovered vertically half a metre above the coral. Its determined gaze fixed on its prey, waiting to pounce on its breakfast. A Black Tip reef shark came in so inspect us and a large 1.5 metre Eagle Ray did the same. It was the biggest Eagle Ray I had ever seen by far. Back on board, I had to answer the call of nature. Regular boaties would know that this happens on the ladder. A seven-foot Tawny Nurse shark passed at speed a metre beneath the ladder and shocked the daylights out of me. My buddy jumped in as it returned with two metres several times obviously staking its claim to its territory. On our final day, we dived at a cave south of Lady Musgrave Island. It had some noce Fan corals and sheer walls. A storm warning alert came across the radio so we decided to head back to port before the wind squall picked up. This has been a real adventure and a very welcome reminder of just how good the wonderful coral reefs of the Southern Barrier reef are. My first trip to Lady Musgrave Island was a twelve-night camping trip in 1977. Over the next few years, we did a total of three of these camping trips as well as five live-aboard trips for a week each. I did not dive in the Capricorn Bunker reefs until three five-day trips on the Big Cat Realty. We dived all the way up to Lady Elliot Island on each of those trips. All in all, I have about 180 dives in this part of the reef.

Chaetodon plebius , the Blue Spot Butterflyfish

37 Dive Log Australasia #411 April 25

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