Description and Photographs
of My
Lizard Island Australia Adventure

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The trip to Lizard Island was long - 33 hours from Chicago including layovers - and that was the only negative thing about the trip! The climate of the island was temperate; water was about 75ºF and in the lagoon (back reef) 30-feet maximum depth. We were pulling 60- to 80-minute dive times and diving on the average twice per day. On the fore reef, we could go as deep as we wished.

Moorish Idols

We were part of a group of 11 college students studying coral reef ecology. As such, we filled our own tanks, captained/crew our own boats. The tides at the island are of the mixed type, with two highs and lows in 24 hours. (That meant that at times the difference between the day's high and low tide was small, while othertimes the difference was great.) Some days there were six-foot tides, some days the tide was about one foot, which made boat anchoring interesting, let me tell you! The position of tide at the end of your dive must be considered before you can anchor or else the boat will be left high and dry not in deep enough water to carry you back home. When that much water is pulled/pushed into/out of a lagoon, there will be a lot of particles in the water, except for the few hours of slack tide, but it may or may not be feasible to dive at that time. There is an almost constant westerly wind; however, there are many sheltered coves around the island with great beaches for waiting out surface intervals.

Crown-of-thorns starfish

Going out in a small boat was never a problem, but coming back from the north into the wind made for a very bumpy ride home. Even the worst visibility was still good, but the visibility was never as clear as what I experienced at Cod Hole on Ribbon Reef #10. Along the Great Barrier Reef there is not the amount of sediment as found near a lagoon. That was a good haul from the Island, too far for our small (15') dive boats. Luckily for us, though, a charter dive boat does go out there a couple of times a week, and it is only a day-long trip, well worth what it cost to do that dive!

Potato grouper

The abundance of marine life and variety of species just blew me away! I had wanted to dive the far Pacific for 20 years, and had a life list of marine animals I wanted to see. I would have considered the trip worth while to have seen only oneTridachna clam, oneLionfish, oneClown anemonefish, onePicasso triggerfish, oneUnicornfish and oneCrown-of-thorns starfish. Instead, I saw literally dozens of each in a variety of species. My companion does not dive, yet with the exception of the Potato Cod and Maori Wrasse, she saw almost everything that I did and in only five to 20 feet of water, to boot. The only fish none of us saw was the Clown triggerfish - guess we'll have to go back!!

Monitor lizard

On Lizard Island was named for the monitor lizards found there; the locals refer to them as "Goanas", and they are related to the Komodo dragon. There ae also birds and flying foxes (fruit bats) on this island, which is a granite (volcanic) portion that drifted off the mainland about 10 miles away (the mountains are still visible over the horizon)..

After a week of intensive diving and oceanography, our group headed for the mainland and split up. Some of the younger travelers went directly home, while others like Canidlover and I stayed a bit longer to see more of Australia, or traveled on to do even more diving.

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Images © Neal Skrenes 1996, 1997. Please do not use without permission.

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