We flew into Lady Elliot Island from Hervey Bay on the morning of Saturday 14 Jan 2023. The weather was sketchy with lots of rain squalls around, some of which we flew through so our view was obscured for large parts of the flight.
These rain squalls were caused by a huge weather system that had moved across the northern part of Australia from WA, where it had caused extensive flooding as a cyclone, across the NT and into North Queensland. We experienced the bottom end of it as it moved out to sea to the east. The consequence was that we had strong southerly winds blowing along with occasional squalls of rain for almost the entire length of our stay. No sunshine to be seen anywhere for our whole trip. We didn’t feel like complaining though as this system had caused extensive flooding and misery for people in WA.
There were a huge number of sea birds nesting on the island – Black Noddy’s, Sooty Terns, Eastern Reef Egrets, a pair of magnificent Sea Eagles, Lesser Frigate birds and cheeky Buff Banded Rails. The Frigate birds were constantly cruising in the sky above the island, day and night. Unfortunately I didn’t have my camera gear with me so didn’t get any good shots of them.
The nesting birds had no fear of humans, we would come to within a meter of them and they wouldn’t fly away. This put me in mind of Mauritian Dodo’s, which apparently just passively sat on the ground as a salor walked up and clubbed them on the head. These birds would have been the same had anyone on the island been of a mind to do this. It must be a sea bird thing.
Frev did 3 dives while on the island. Dive 1 on Spiders Ledge to a max depth of 18m. This was our first post-qualification dive with our new gear, we were a teeny bit nervous in case we made some silly mistake. In the end, it all went well and we had no issues. The dive was, of course, awesome, and we saw White tip and Black tip reef sharks, a big Eagle Ray, a few Green and Loggerhead turtles, and lots of colourful little fishies, the equivalent of LBJs, but colourful!
Dive 2 was an afternoon dive on Maori Wrasse Bommie to a max depth of 18.3m with a bottom time of 51 minutes. The dive master showed us a Moray Eel hiding in a crack on the bommie, more sharks, and a BIG Loggerhead turtle. Apparently, others saw a school of Eagle Rays but Frev wasn’t so lucky, we must have been looking the other way!
Dive 3 the following was on the Severance Wreck. Apparently, there is a suspicion that this wreck was an insurance job. The wreck itself lies in about 20m of water which was our maximum depth (19.8m), a bit naughty as we’re only supposed to go to 18m but oh well. We seem to be getting better at breathing as our bottom time was 53mins. Feature creatures spotted: a big Spotted Sweetlipm beautiful Lionfish and a school of Big Eye Trevally. I love seeing the schools of fish, big or small, cruising around the joint.
We couldn’t dive anymore, as we were flying the next day, but that was okay because we wanted to go snorkelling with the goils. We went in at Sandy 2nd’s and checked out a large part of the shallow reef. Elley and I saw a beautiful Chinese Football Cod, and a big Maori Wrasse. I spent some time just floating on my own in the deep water and was rewarded with a siting of a bull ray, turtle and magnificent Eagle ray. Elley and I also saw a Black Tip reef shark in the shallows. While swimming back towards the southern end of the island, I saw a number of turtles feeding on the coral in the shallows. While observing these guys I looked down and there was a cheeky deadly Cone Shell, waiting for prey. This would have been in about 500mm of water so it’s a good thing that they insist that people wear reef shoes.
The water was clear and warm and just awesome to be in, especially with the shitty weather above. I really wish we had the go-pro with us to record the scenery and creatures.
All in all, this was a great trip, despite the weather. Frev plans to go back in late Winter or Spring in 2024, this will hopefully avoid the incessant noise and smell of the sea birds and also give us a better chance of enjoying nice weather.
