my happy place … part one

What a wonderful week of weather we’ve just had …  outer reef here we come!

After sitting out a few days of rain and wind at Magnetic Island, obsessively checking Meteye and Windy for any sign of an upcoming reef window, one came. Yippee!!

The first thing that strikes you at the outer reef is the colour.  As you approach the reef particularly with a clear blue sky overhead, it’s the different shades of blue that are so striking. The shallows appear azure and turquoise with the sun reflection of the white sand and coral reef. The water is so clear. It’s like anchoring in a swimming pool. If there’s little breeze, it’s so peaceful, almost mesmerising.

We had a week of perfect conditions, and the low tides were in the middle of the day.  How lucky we were.

A week of photos … yes, lots of sorting, editing and selection decisions. It was so difficult limiting my selection of photos, so I’ve split this outer reef visit in to two posts … part one and two. I think the photos will do the talking in these posts. Remember, if you’d like a larger view simply click-on or touch each photo.

keeper reef …

Keeper Reef is about 30 nautical miles from Horseshoe Bay, Magnetic Island. We’ve visited Keeper before, but this time we had time to spend a few nights and explore several snorkeling locations.  We stayed three nights with our friends on Skedaddle.

The very first thing that hit me when I entered the water for the first time, was the water clarity. It was so clear.

Perfect conditions for the drone …

And the colour under the water …

The coral was patchy but the fish life healthy.  Keeper Reef is a fishing zone but nevertheless I saw big fish including mackerel, coral trout and trevally, and a school of large humphead parrotfish.  Two black tipped reef sharks wandered by too. Maybe it was one shark visiting twice? Either way these are quite harmless.

Anemonefish are always a favourite. Anne on Skedaddle mentioned she’d found a colony of Anemonefish on a ledge above a deep gutter, so I went searching and found them. These Blackback Anemonefish are quite common and I’ve often found larger colonies of them. What is striking about this colony is not so much their shallow location (perfect natural light), but the vibrant yellow soft coral that was scattered among their host anemones allowing all the colours to really ‘pop’.

On the top of the right-hand side of this gutter I found the colony of Anemonefish.

I also found this Spine-cheeked Anenomefish.

The tides kept us entertained too.  Not only did we luck midday-ish low tides (the perfect snorkeling time), we also had neap tides which means less water movement.  On one occasion we had a 1.3m low followed by a 1.4m high! On our third day at Keeper we had a glass-out, zero wind. It really was a swimming pool.

I hope this captures the ‘swimming pool’ look! These six tiny squid were lazing by The Bossa most days.

Our next stop … Kelso Reef.