DIVE LOG AUSTRALASIA FEB 2026

View from the Bridge Trevor Jackson - Spoilsport Skipper www.mikeball.com/blog Great Barrier Reef on the January

PHOTOS FROM NOVEMBER/DECEMBER

Gigantus Gorgonia – A Living Legend of the Coral Sea By Captain Trevor Jackson

You can scroll through a thousand Google images and not find its equal. I know this because I’ve just done it. The day after the trip ended, for hours, trying to find the equal of the aptly nicknamed Gigantus Gorgonia - a spectacular soft coral assembly, 42 metres down, way, way out in the Coral Sea. Exactly five years ago to this day, Trip Director Kerrin Jones and I measured this whopper at an astounding 5.25 metres across. There wasn’t a tape measure on board long enough to do it in one hit, so we had to take two down with us. This week, we were expecting a different result and we got one. But let me start at the beginning. Gigantus Gorgonia is at Flinders Reef, about 130 miles north-east of Townsville. Beautiful and remote, it rises out of a thousand metres of water to just break the surface at high tide. It’s a spectacular destination that was damaged by coral bleaching about ten years ago. Our main mission this week was to see how the recovery was progressing to assess whether the area had regained the coral and fish vibrancy that once made it a world-class destination. Five years ago, things were improving nicely. This time, the reef delivered in spades. The corals and marine life are back with a vengeance. For more reasons than I can count, Flinders Reef has returned to the big leagues. For three days, we explored, mapped, and documented both old and new sites. Our final day took us to the southern section of the reef and a chance to check the growth on that famous fan. New Trip Director Shona Whittaker and I geared up and located the two tape measures, eager to see how much Gigantus had grown in the past five years. The visibility? 50 metres. So nothing had changed there. As we reached the fan, Shona pulled out the first tape. I ran it across the face of Gigantus, but as she reached for the second, I waved her off. I didn’t need it. The fan had “shrunk”. It now measured just five metres across. An hour later, back on deck, our photos revealed the truth. The apparent shrinkage was due to mechanical damage—something had broken a section away. Perhaps a large cod had been using the fan as camouflage and dislodged part of it. We’ll never know. Our disappointment was short-lived. One dive later, after drifting along a nearby wall, divers came back aboard buzzing with excitement. “There’s another fan… a bigger one!” I quietly placed the tape measures into a bucket of fresh water to rinse them off. I had a feeling we might be needing them again… soon.

1st. Alison Smith

2nd. Julia Jones

3rd. Kevin Lee

Coral Sea & Great Barrier Reef! The Best Diving on the Dive with giant potato cod, explore deep walls, witness shark action at Osprey Reef.

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