Last Saturday, the diving at Long Reef was incredible. The water temperature was about 25 degrees (someone recorded 26!); the water was blue, and the visibility was amazing. There is a video by Tim Roberts which provides a glimpse of the second dive (late morning) when the vis was still great but not quite as extraordinary as it was on our first dive.
After finishing the first dive, people just wanted to get back into the water to experience again the sights and scenes from our first dive. So following some negotiations with Tony, it was agreed that we would stay there. This meant two dives with sharks around us throughout both dives and massive schools of fish, etc. It was an unforgettable day's diving. Here is the report from that dive. I hope you enjoy it:
(Shelley Xia has kindly allowed us to use her photo of the octopus taken on Saturday and Tim Roberts has allowed has to use the screen shots from his video to help to illustrate the dives).
Today's diving was exceptional. Nobody could have predicted just how good it would be. Nobody could have dreamt what experiences we would have. Nor what enduring memories we would take away from diving today. It was a lovely day out of water, it was sensational underwater. Temperate waters diving in tropical water temperature and tropical water blue. In fact, temperate waters diving at its finest.
Dive 1 Long Reef: Before any neoprene found its natural home underwater, we got an inkling of what to expect. Neil shouted out that he could see the reef below and was almost dumbstruck by the schools of fish he could see swimming around and under the boat. All this before we even started our dive! There was no time to waste, and like ducks, we were soon all dipping our heads underwater, to take a sneaky peek of conditions and what to expect. In reality, sticking our heads underwater was like looking through a kaledescope: dazzling colour and a myriad of forms and shapes artfully arranged.
As we descended, we all succumbed to this 'high' inducing scene, especially when the sea skilfully administered another shot of adrenalin as a shark appeared right next to us. I thought things could not get better than that, when I was immediately proved wrong, again and again, every few minutes of this dive. Because every two to three minutes, another Grey Nurse shark would appear, yet more schools of fish, and then other things to see as well. I stopped counting after at least 10 sightings of sharks. And every time sharks appeared, they managed somehow to provide a different type of scene: sharks next to us, sharks above us, sharks behind us, and so it went on.
Pomfrets ballooned out from a dominant reef structure, and then contracted closer to it, repeatedly and rhythmically, as if this was not a massive collection of fish but was really one single creature, breathing in and breathing out continuously. On closer inspection, the highly reflective, metallic, silver and gold features of these fish, en masse, looked unbelievably beautiful and even more so against a vivid blue background. The magical aspect of such scenes regularly defy being recorded - that is, being recorded either in words or in video faithfully. Nevertheless, those videos often are successful in providing a glimpse of those scenes and the personalities that inhabit them. Personalities, like a Blue Groper, who will often stick his nose into the same narrow crevice that you are inspecting, in case you are looking at something that the Blue Groper does not want to miss out on seeing as well. Which can give you quite a shock when you become aware of something quite large right next to your head. But those Blue Gropers are infinitely friendly, so we always forgive them even if they cause our hearts to skip a beat or two at such moments.
Most of the fish we saw simply swayed gently one way and then another in a hammock of a gentle see-sawing current. Or they would swim slowly short distances as if on a morning stroll. Long Fin Pike sometimes did their own thing, in small circles, and, at other times, wove lines within the larger schools of Pomfrets. The odd Comb Wrasse seemed happy to become lost in the midst of so many fish. The constantly changing shape of the largest schools of fish provided the best psychedelic images one could imagine.
These perfect conditions allowed us to find new swim throughs, so, in addition to travelling slowly through the Cathedral, we also found other tunnels and caves, including one which had a narrow entry and narrower exit but a large chamber within. Light piercing that chamber from several directions contributed to making its exploration well worth the effort.
The striations in this reef include wide and narrow gutters. Swimming through a narrow but deep gutter, we collided with another school of Pomfrets going in the opposite direction. But fish are smart, and they knew how to weave all around us without colliding into us or having to change direction.
Eventually we moved into a much wider channel, and here we saw one shark after another. I was pleased to be able to count four of them all within one scene, then a fifth one was visible and then more. It was easy to count at least seven of them together in that same spot. They were relaxed and so were my divers who had not encountered so many sharks altogether next to us, around us, and in perfect harmony. The sharks we found here, were both males and females, of different sizes and different ages. The exceptional visibility on this dive allowed us to see the smallest detail in these sharks and enabled us to truly appreciate their colouring and minute features. The skin on many of these sharks had a metallic sheen, bronze like in some, and variations in steel grey in others. One of these sharks even had a Remora attached to it. It could be said that you have only arrived underwater when you have at least one Remora attached to you. The best thing of all was the apparent willingness of these Grey Nurses to allow us to be with them for a certain period of time. These sharks were not backward in being forward: often they came up close for a bit of a look before they would give another shark a turn - these were very polite (as well as friendly) sharks!
Dive 2 Long Reef:
The first dive we did was sensational. Nobody wanted to leave this site. Everybody wanted to enjoy once again a bit more of that extraordinary experience we just had. Under the influence of this preternatural atmosphere, a decision was made that we would indeed stay here for our second dive. Maybe, Tony, our skipper sensed the (earnest) mood and wanted to avoid a mutinous Bounty-type situation. The pleasure we had on that first dive would now be expanded yet further by revisiting this scene but now as a 'late morning' dive.
We sought out the Cathedral but this time penetrated it from the opposite direction. Through the stained glass effect we moved slowly through this cavernous space until a Giant Cuttlefish stopped us. By torchlight, it became a beautifully coloured beacon: a beacon which was a good alternative to the luminescent glow of blue and other colours through which was had just passed.
Once again, sharks appeared and then disappeared and then we saw at least seven all together. The scene was as exhilarating as on our first dive. It is with profound regret that one remembered, that in the near future, it was going to be extremely rare, if not impossible, to see this scene again. The Australian Government (Department of the Environment and Energy) advises that a New South Wales Fisheries survey in 2000 revealed that the number of Grey Nurse Sharks in New South Wales could be as low as 292 individuals. In the context of these sharks having the lowest reproductive rate of any shark, this should be of great concern. A female shark only becomes sexually active from about 6-8 years. After mating, the gestation period is 9-12 months, after which, all things going well, she will give birth to two pups and then not mate for at least another year. So this equates to one pup a year, which, after being born, is then often caught in shark nets, by fishermen, by other sharks, etc. So numerically, the odds are against the survival of the Grey Nurse shark - especially when its current declining population is considered to be now so low as to be unviable. This is why they are officially classified as "Endangered" which means they are at risk of extinction. Despite this, the majority of aggregation zones, pockets of locations where small numbers of Grey Nurse sharks hang out, are inexplicably not protected. This meant that seeing these Grey Nurse sharks today at this location was a precious as well as beautiful experience.
As we headed back to the boat, a male Blue Groper had a group of fish hovering around him. They were his response to the Grey Nurse with the Remora: it may not have had a Remora but it had something arguably more impressive, a band of followers, creating a halo effect around him: quite an effect! Two colourful Long Fin Banner fish tried to create their own effect - by doing an underwater dance as they munched on something in front of the Blue Groper.
So great was the totality of the whole experience at Long Reef, that Shelley sat down on an underwater bench-like ledge within a nook and then saw that huge school of Pomfrets quickly envelope her as if drawing her into their world and joining her spirit to theirs. David saw this, ducked under the curtain the school had lowered around Shelley to remind her that she belonged above the surface of the sea: Shelley might disagree with that assertion. And the truth is that, on a day of sublime diving like today, I think a part of everyone would say that they feel that they too belong underwater.
