Chesterfield Reef II

In spite of the snakes and sharks, I can't seem to stay out of the water here.

I am in love. With Chester. Field Reef. This place is amazing. It's like... there is nothing here. A few tiny sand islands dotting the reef, but other than that there is only an expanse of calm, blue water. Aside from the masses of birds, it has a very empty, isolating feeling. That is - until you go underwater.

A bommie is a coral head. It can be the size of a rock underneath the boat at twenty feet, something of little note unless the anchor fouls on it, or a bommie can be a coral pinnacle that shoots straight up from the sea floor 150 feet down to a few meters from the surface, playing host to all sorts of interesting underwater creatures. And whereas you want to avoid these bommies at all costs when sailing through the lagoon on the boat, they make for excellent diving and anchor spots for dinghies.

Yesterday a little flotilla of dinghies went out to find a bommie to dive on. We had no idea what we would find - sharks? any live coral? big fish? It took a few minutes of skimming along the lagoon before we came across one (look for the light green/brownish color in the water to indicate shallows). I was in a dinghy with Mark and when he stuck his face in the water to find a place to set the anchor without damaging any coral he yelled with delight: "Wow! It's amazing! It's pristine! I already saw a shark!"

At that I threw my dive gear into the water and jumped in. It was like entering another world. From the empty desert of water of the surface of the lagoon to the thriving, lively, city-like busyness of the underwater coral head was stunning. Huge blankets of live coral - soft coral, fire coral, staghorn coral, sponges and much much much more - covered the pinnacle. I swam to the edge of it and my stomach gave a flip as I looked down a 100 foot wall of sheer coral into the blue depths.

Dude. This is by far the most pristine, remote and exotic diving I have ever done. I couldn't wait to descend and see what the depths held. When I got the OK from Mark and our other buddies we descended into a ravine at 20 feet, which spat us out at about 50 feet in the middle of the coral wall. At the mouth of the ravine six grey reef sharks were swimming around. They did not seem bothered with us, only mildly interested, coming in for a closer view every once in a while before swimming off into the blue. I spotted a tawny nurse shark sleeping under a ledge and we all watched until it woke up and, rather grumpily, swam off.

We descended to 70 feet near the base of the bommie, and I must say it is an awesome experience to look up at the crystal clear surface with a sheer wall of live coral leading up to it. It is such a relief to see sharks and healthy coral, but who knows how long it will last.

As we swam along we saw huge schools of travalli and tuna, more sharks (albeit small ones - less than 2 meters), sponges and coral. About half way through the dive I saw a brown sea snake and pointed it out to Mark. He went closer to get a better look but stopped when the snake started swimming at him. He turned around and started swimming away from it, but it followed. He turned to the right, the snake turned to the right. He swam toward me, the snake swam toward me. Now, I consider myself to be brave - much like Indiana Jones - but much like Indiana Jones, I hate snakes. So when Mark and the snake got near me I swam fast to get away from them both, indicating to Mark to stay the hell away from me. It was hilarious to watch the snake - which seemed to have fallen in love with Mark - but absolutely terrifying to know that in a second that snake could take a liking to me.

Finally, after an hour or two (OK, maybe just a minute or two), the snake lost interest and we continued our dive. I couldn't help but look back every few seconds just to make sure it had not remembered us. When we got back to the dinghies I saw a snake asleep in the coral and got out of the water very quietly.

After lunch and an afternoon rest we went for another dive. At one point during the dive Mark pointed out that I had a huge brown sea snake following me, and he laughed his ass off when I tried to hide behind him. He valiantly pulled his dive knife on the snake who then decided that munching on coral was more interesting than us.

Dive three was this morning. There was no wind today and the lagoon was glassy, so Mark decided that we should go dive the pass on the other side of the lagoon, five miles away. We sped across the lagoon with one other dinghy, leaving our small "civilization" of five boats behind. When we arrived at the pass there was no other evidence of humans around, which is cool, unless you run into a 5 meter tiger shark or whatever...

I prefer eel to snake.

As it turned out the current was running very strong out the pass, so Bill offered to follow our bubbles while the three of us dove out the pass so that we all would not get sucked out to sea (without a boat). This means that we dove from the mouth of this very remote reef, out to the middle of this very remote piece of ocean in the Coral Sea. The highlights of the dive, aside from my adrenaline pumping a mile a minute (thanks to a last minute lesson by Mark: if you encounter an aggressive shark, keep your back to the reef), were being circled by a school of 50 barracuda as well as a bunch of sharks. The sharks were mostly small and really, why would they want to eat us when they have so much other delicious food around?

When we came up from our dive I was very happy to see Bill right there with the dinghy, as we were well outside the pass and well into the ocean. It was a pretty wild dive, I mean, after all, how many people in the entire world have dived that pass? We had no idea what to expect, no maps or dive plan... it was kind of nuts but very, very cool.

Baby boobie (or something like that)

After the dive Mark and I explored another bird-infested island. After walking around the island in our wetsuits (so hot!) we went for another snorkel on our way back to the anchorage. The water was glassy calm and the visibility was 150+ feet, which made driving past the bommies absolutely beautiful.

Unfortunately it is not all fun and games because Dad decided that in spite of the paradise we are in, the cap rail needs to be redone. So I spent (maybe an) hour this afternoon sanding in the scorching heat, before going off on another dive. He and Mom worked all day, but really, who does that?! Who would rather spend the hottest, calmest day of the year sanding varnish off the searing decks when they could be having their minds blown in the cool depths of Chesterfield Reef? Not I, said the Corie.
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At 10/31/2012 9:02 PM (utc) Rutea's position was 19°52.96'S 158°27.87'E

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