Reef ambassadors
Descending 30m to the base of Steve’s Bommie, just as the morning sun breaks the horizon, I’m filled with trepidation about whether this undersea setting is still a splendid visual palette of colour and life.
It’s been two decades since I last visited this celebrated dive site on Ribbon No. 3 Reef, east of Cooktown, on the outer edge of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). During that time this World Heritage-listed natural wonder has suffered a series of environmental threats, ranging from over-fishing to agricultural run-off. Many of these are now better managed. But the reef continues to face its biggest threat by far – climate change. Well beyond the realm of local management, this global phenomenon has caused four major coral bleaching episodes since 1988, killing huge swathes of coral and degrading the habitat associated with it (see AG 142). At the time of going to press another major bleaching was underway.
As shafts of sunlight reach down to the ocean floor, the night shift of large, pelagic fish retreats into shadowy deeper water. Dark blues and greens are illuminated, and the reef begins to come alive. I slowly rise with my dive buddy, spiralling up around Steve’s Bommie. At 10m below the surface it’s teeming with tiny schooling fish and iridescent hard and soft corals. Lionfish in all their grandeur glide past. Near-invisible stonefish lurk in crevices, and dolphins frolic above. Just before surfacing, at my 5m safety stop, I see perched on a rock a truly exquisite nudibranch – a tiny, psychedelic, shell-less gastropod.
“The reef is dead” or “dying”, headlines, including some
