Giant rays, Coral Trout and a BBQ??: Drift diving the “Pelorus Island Express”

“The sea, is the great unifier, is man’s only hope. Now, as never before, the old phrase has a literal meaning: we are all in the same boat.” –  Jacques-Yves Cousteau

The Pelorus Island express is not a train up the coast. For those in the know it is an illusive current that provides the most exhilarating underwater adventure on the reef.

To jump into the warm tropical water on the Great Barrier Reef, just near the golden beaches of a deserted tropical island is truely one of the most magical experiences on the planet. With its crystal clear azure waters, brilliantly colourful coral and diversity of fish and all manner of sea creatures. They invite exploration and adventure.

Nature finds a use for everything

It is therefore perplexing as to why any body would want to spoil these bastions of diversity and marvels of nature. Who would dump a rusty old barbecue on a pristine coral reef….WTF. But there it was, in fifteen metres of water, completely the right way up, looking like all we needed to do was fire it up and throw the snags on the hot plate.

I don’t really blame anyone for just pushing it off the back of their boat, after all there’s nothing there but sand right……right? From my perspective we should not discount the proposition that large items like this can actually help our reefs not hinder them, anything that makes a safe haven for small fish is always a good thing.

I first put my head underwater to look around when I was 12 years old. The world I saw then was completely foreign to me and I was awe struck by its diversity. Only a metre underwater and you were in a whole new world, I was an avid fan of Jacque Cousteau and his sons. Their adventures on the Calypso were legendary and inspired me to explore the oceans.

From then to now, I see new and wondrous things every time I go underwater, like rusty barbecues, encrusted with coral and algae. These man made disposable objects now complex homes, like public housing for sea creatures. The BBQ sits there, silent, unmoving and completely ignored.

That is until a group of divers comes floating by in the current. Did I say “floating” well it was more like flying. We had gone out to Pelorus Island which is the furtherest island North of the Palm Island Group, just off from the famous Hinchinbrook Island near Lucinda in North Queensland.

The day started as it usually does when going on a dive out of Lucinda in North Queensland, with a 6.0 am start at the Remote Area Dive shop in Townville. This is an important part of the process, we have to sign our lives away and ensure that in no way can Jason the owner, be sued for anything that happens to us, our children, their children and six generations of children that may or may not follow.

Once all the online waivers have been completed we are counted and organised into Jason’s bus for the trip to Lucinda. It’s a jovial time as we meet new people, catch up with old dive buddies from previous trips and listen to various stories of diving of far flung parts of the world. On this trip I learnt about the awesome diving in Palau and how diving in Mexico was the most amazing experience, “great two more items for my ever expanding bucket list”:)….My wife will be pleased:)

It’s not long before we arrive at Lucinda and the crew from Remote Area Dive leave us to prepare the boat and gear we will need for this trip. We pack into the little restaurant that’s run by the caravan park just across from the boat ramp and order bacon, sausages, eggs and tomatoes on toast, along with the largest latte available.

Don’t think this is your McDonalds type service, fast food it definitely is not and on this occasion they actually forgot to order my breakfast, but the coffee was good and Liam (who doesn’t really do breakfast) shared his with me.

Before long we were being mustered to the boat for a safety briefing and gear assembly. But it wasn’t long before all 14 of us plus boat crew were punching out along the sugar jetty towards our dive site.

Today was a special day, as the assembled divers were all experienced advanced divers, therefore Jason decided that we should undertake a drift dive. Now if you haven’t done a drift dive before they can be a lot of fun, although potentially dangerous as you travel a long distance and you don’t really know where you will end up.

Our first drift dive was in a strong current in between Pelorus and Orpheus Islands. The visibility was approximately 10 metres when we started but as we moved further into the channel it dropped to about three metres.

Generally, the current will run along the reef drop off, although this is not always a given and you can get caught in a stronger channel current and end up in the middle of a very turbulent choppy sea.

In a drift dive you don’t have a point to navigate back to and you don’t really appreciate how far you have gone. When you surface its in the deep ocean and you rarely have a point of reference from which to gain a position perspective. At these times you rely on your buddy and your dive computer to ensure you don’t surface too fast.

Once you surface from a drift dive you send up you safety marker buoy (Safety Sausage…….appropriate:) and hope the captain of the ship is not too far away to see you. The role of the ships crew is critical to ensuring the diver’s safety and to ensuring they don’t inadvertently run over you. Mind you I think I signed something saying that I accept that I might be run over while drift diving and that I don’t hold the dive crew responsible……that was fortuitous:) Having surfaced in a rather choppy cross current I wasn’t sure that signing off on that was the most appropriate thing to have done now that I think about it.

Drift Diving at Pelorus Island

The advantage of a drift dive is that it allows you to cover more reef with less effort. There is no swimming against the current or battling surges which takes energy and therefore more air. The disadvantages are that you have to maintain your buoyancy and profile in the water more accurately than you would normally and its difficult to stop and explore.

Seeking baby sharks

You probably already know this, but most sharks do not give birth to live babies, with the exception of a couple of breads, sharks deposit their young in pods in safe areas like Mangrove patches where they can hide from predators until they are big enough to venture into the open sea.

Pelorus Island has many such habitats, and we took the opportunity while degassing from our first dive to snorkel into these unique and wondrous habitats. Usually exploring Mangrove habitats while snorkelling is a dangerous activity. This is because Mangroves are often in murky areas or up rivers which contain all sorts of predatory animals the most dangerous of which are giant Saltwater Crocodiles and Bull Sharks. So having an opportunity to snorkel on and around Mangrove roots at high tide is a treat and as it was shark breeding the time we took the opportunity to go “Shark Seeking”.

The Coral Gypsy was moored in about eight meters of water so during our surface interval where we reduce the nitrogen in our bodies, we decided to snorkel across from the boat to the shore. Due to the nitrogen build up in our bodies we were unable to duck dive lest we pass out from lack of oxygen.

Just to explain, the air we breath is made up of Nitrogen and Oxygen. When we dive the Nitrogen builds up in our body, where as the Oxygen is used to power our muscles. Nitrogen takes time to make its way out of the body therefore divers rest for a set amount of time before undertaking another dive.

If after SCUBA diving you go snorkelling and take a breath of air to duck dive, when you come up the Nitrogen in your body come out of the tissue into the blood stream and displaces the Oxygen. You can pass out from lack of Oxygen, which is not a problem on land but in the water you can drown.

We wished to avoid this, so while the swim across to the Mangroves has a hugh amount of coral and brightly coloured fish, and it would be awesome dive down and explore the massive coral bommies, we had to be content with a view from the surface.

On our second drift dive we were exploring an area that the Remote Area Dive team had not been to before. It was a reef system on the Northern point of Pelorus Island. Visibility was approximately 10 metres and the current was between three and five knots.

The current was slightly stronger than the first dive and we dived deeper along the reef wall reaching a depth of 15.4 metres. This coral reef system went for approximately 10 kilometres.

We glided past fan corals, soft and hard and an array of multi coloured sponges. At times it felt like we were flying, the closer we navigated to the reef wall the faster we went and the more spectacular the experience.

During the journey we came across an abundant variety of corals, fans, sponges and multi coloured fish. We saw turtles, coral trout and shovel nose sharks. So divers even mentioned a mermaid, but I find that hard to believe.

Drift diving is one of the most interesting SCUBA diving activities you can do because you have more time to concentrate on what’s around you rather than fighting the current or having to navigate to a fixed point. You drift by as and innocent observer in a world that is foreign and unique. But all things must come to an end and with gas getting to 70 bar we had to surface. The journey to the surface requires us to perform a safety stop between six and four meters for approximately four minutes. With our dive computers beeping if we come up too fast and then letting us know when we can take the final ascent to the surface. We busy ourselves preparing the safety marker and launch it from the safety stop.

The Coral Gypsy is not too far away and we are soon back on board yabbering about the different fish and corals and how awesome it was. Liam tells everybody about the BBQ he saw at 15 metres. Another awesome dive on the Gypsy with the fantastic crew of Remote Area Dive.

Safe travels and I’ll see you on the road (or in the water)…….Swaggie🙂