What it is like to nighttime dive on the Great Barrier Reef

The first time an enormous trevally fish hits me on the brow, I freeze. We’re 39ft under the floor of the ocean at nightfall, the inky black water lit solely by our torches. Thick with plankton, the beams minimize by means of the white-speckled darkish like headlights in a snowstorm. Enormous fish of their a whole bunch — silver, coral pink and coal black — all dart previous my face, shut sufficient to really feel the coolness of their scales on my pores and skin.

I swing my torch into the abyss. Red, white and amber eyes blink again. Whitetip reef sharks — some the size of my arm, others bigger than me — patrol the 98ft coral wall, their bellies swollen from a recent kill. Moray eels crane their heads from deep cracks in mind and staghorn coral, tooth glinting within the gentle like knife blades. The solely sounds are my brief breaths and pounding coronary heart as I kick my means by means of the feeding frenzy, praying my bubbles are sufficient to maintain bigger predators away.

It’s 7pm and I’m night time diving off the coast of Queensland, miles from the mainland. We’ve been crusing for 2 days on Spirit of Freedom, a liveaboard boat sure for the white sands of Lizard Island on the far northern tip of the Great Barrier Reef, residence to a world-renowned coral reef analysis station and an opulent resort.

I’ve wished to see the Great Barrier Reef since I used to be a baby, largely because of the 2003 movie Finding Nemo. But once I lastly obtained the prospect to go to earlier this yr, I wasn’t positive what to anticipate. Wasn’t the reef dying? Would there be something left to see? More importantly, would our presence right here solely add to the stress on an already fragile ecosystem? I joined a three-night expedition to seek out out.

The morning after our night time dive, we’re travelling deeper into the distant Ribbon Reefs — a series of 10 coral formations stretching alongside the outer fringe of the Great Barrier Reef, far past the attain of day boats from Cairns or Port Douglas. “The Ribbon Reefs have cooler currents and more resistant coral species,” says Mel Alps, the PADI grasp teacher main our dives and one among 4 Master Reef Guides on board Spirit of Freedom. “Out here, we’ve seen corals recover from cyclones and bleaching much faster than elsewhere on the Great Barrier Reef.”

Mel is likely one of the Great Barrier Reef’s 146 Master Reef Guides, an initiative created by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority to assist guests higher perceive and defend the reef. To qualify, guides should have intensive native expertise, work for an accredited eco-operator and full rigorous coaching in reef ecology and conservation. As effectively as decoding what we’re seeing underwater, they contribute to scientific monitoring and lead citizen science initiatives like Eye on the Reef, the place leisure divers can contribute to analysis knowledge by recording what they see.

For our dives off Spirit of Freedom, we’re handed waterproof slates to document sightings of key or invasive species, together with any seen bleaching or harm to coral. On a reef that’s roughly the scale of Japan, this citizen-collected knowledge helps scientists pinpoint which areas are healthiest, the place threats like crown-of-thorns starfish are spreading and the place conservation efforts must be centered subsequent. “Very few patrol boats come out this far,” says Mel. “That’s why tourism is so important to the Great Barrier Reef. It’s what allows us to be out in remote areas collecting data and reporting any illegal fishing boats.”

In latest years, Mel explains, there’s been a big drop in customer numbers to the Great Barrier Reef, threatening tourism-supported conservation efforts. “People think there’s nothing to see anymore, so they’re not coming,” says Mel. “That’s actually bad for the reef. Less tourism means fewer patrols, fewer surveys and less funding.”

The subsequent day, we anchor at Lizard Island, 150 miles north of Cairns, the place we’d began our journey 4 days in the past. This densely forested and wildlife-rich island was as soon as a sacred Aboriginal ceremonial web site. Today, you’ll discover the award-winning Lizard Island Resort, in addition to Lizard Island Research Station, the place scientists and naturalists from the around the globe have come to check and doc the reef since 1973. Staff inform me that Sir David Attenborough — who first visited the island in 1957 and has made a number of return journeys, together with one to movie components of wildlife documentary collection Blue Planet II — stated this was his favorite place on Earth. I discover out precisely why over the subsequent three days. I dive with potato cod, spot big clams and turtles and watch dolphins breach the floor of the water from an empty seaside teeming with lizards and backed by swaying palms. This is an island that really seems like paradise.

As I fly again to Cairns in a tiny propeller airplane — the one means in or out of Lizard Island apart from by personal boat — I start to understand the true scale of the Great Barrier Reef. From up right here, it’s mind-bogglingly huge, but in addition heartbreaking and exquisite. A wave of disappointment rises on the considered it disappearing. Even with the cooler, extra resilient waters of the Ribbon Reefs, scientists warn the Great Barrier Reef is struggling to deal with rising ocean temperatures and will quickly attain a tipping level.

But for Mel and the opposite Master Reef Guides I met aboard Spirit of Freedom, there’s nonetheless hope for the world’s largest reef system — so long as we proceed to flight for it. “Yes, parts of the Great Barrier Reef are struggling, but it’s still a living, breathing coral reef,” says Mel. “The best thing you can do to save it is to see it for yourself.”