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Date: September 2005
Location: Noosa, Queensland Australia
While Noosa is one of Queensland's
most popular holiday destinations, this Sunshine
Coast hot spot has long been overlooked by divers.
There are several excellent dive sites located off Noosa, and one of the best features of diving this area is that most of the dive sites are close to shore, meaning no long boat rides for those who get seasick.
Jew Shoal is a large reef complex in the middle of Laguna Bay, and I recently explored the most popular dive site here, The Pinnacle.
From the boat we could see the top of The Pinnacle, and lots of fish, in the clear blue water 11m below. After gearing up and a dive briefing, we were in the water and following Brendon, one of Resort 2 Diving's experienced Divemasters.
The site is made up of a complex maze of ridges and gutters. Brendon was hoping to find the resident tawny nurse shark, a large but harmless bottom dweller that rests in caves.
Reaching the top of The Pinnacle, we were soon engulfed by fish; schools of yellowtail and silver batfish. We then followed Brendon across a series of small gutters, each covered in colourful hard and soft corals. Reef fish were all around us, including angelfish, butterflyfish, surgeonfish, globefish, rabbitfish, soapfish, morwong, sweetlip and bream.
Brendon then spotted an olive sea snake swimming along the bottom, we moved over to investigate this marine reptile. Though highly venomous, olive sea snakes are quite docile and are rarely aggressive.
The coral gardens here boast an impressive array of invertebrates and I spotted sea stars, feather stars, shrimps, hermit crabs, urchins, brittle stars, cowries and nudibranchs. The number and variety of nudibranchs was particularly impressive, with well over 100 of these colourful sea slugs on this patch of reef.
We then drifted over the side of The Pinnacle and descended to 18m. Here we followed the rocky wall and explored small caves and ledges. Brendon was poking his heading into every cave, looking for the tawny nurse shark but it proved elusive on this day. We did however see wobbegong sharks, painted crayfish, lionfish, catfish, scorpionfish, squirrelfish and a number of moray eels.
Returning along the wall to the anchor, we were again engulfed by schools of yellowtail and silver batfish. As the fish swirled around us they suddenly dived to the bottom as a Spanish mackerel cruised overhead. The mass of fish then dropped again when a school of large kingfish swam through them like silver bullets.
The last ten minutes of the dive was spent just swimming amongst the fish, watching the beams of sunlight reflect off their silver scales.
Another wonderful dive site off Noosa for the
more advanced diver is Sunshine Reef.
Sunshine Reef is a rocky reef, south of Noosa Heads, ranging in depth from 25m to 33m. Being in an open location, the site can only be dived in calm conditions, however the visibility at Sunshine Reef is usually good, averaging 15m.
Descending down the anchor line the water was warm and blue, perfect diving conditions. Below me, I could see the rocky reef starting to take shape. As I got closer to the bottom fish started to appear, and lots of them.
Once on the bottom, fish surrounded me. Swimming around were a large school of sweetlip and several red emperors. The school of sweetlip circled my dive buddy, Helen and I for a few seconds before moving off to another part of the reef.
As I looked around I could see a very healthy population and variety of reef fish. Angelfish, perch, gobies, scorpionfish, fairy basslets, goatfish, morwong, hawkfish, surgeonfish, parrotfish and wrasse were just a few of the species I could see.
I then got a big surprise when a large coral trout appeared out of a crevasse. The fish was even bold enough to swim straight over to us. This was the largest coral trout I had seen on the Sunshine Coast in the last ten years. Its curiosity satisfied, the coral trout then disappeared back under its ledge.
We then set off to explore this rocky reef, as there were numerous ledges and gullies to inspect. The coral growth on Sunshine Reef is excellent; soft corals, hard corals, gorgonians, ascidians, sponges, black corals and lots of swaying sea whips. On closer inspection each of these 2m long sea whips was home to a family of tiny sea whip gobies.
On one rocky ridge we found a large anemone, with several resident anemone fish. We watch these bold little fish for several minutes as they darted back and forth amongst the waving tentacles. In the next gully we surprised a large estuary cod that was resting on the bottom. Annoyed at being disturbed, the cod swam off to find a new bed.
Exploring the ledges we found several painted crayfish, their antennae twisting about as we looked in on them. Under one ledge, I was also fortunate enough to see a slipper cray, a less common relative of the crayfish.
The reef was crawling with invertebrate species, including sea stars, brittle stars, feather stars, crabs, shrimps, urchins and the most interesting of all were the nudibranchs. We must have seen close to a hundred of these colourful sea slugs as we explored Sunshine Reef, leaving a lasting memory of one of Noosa's top dive sites.
- By Nigel Marsh
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