Great Barrier Reef Far Northern Reefs Lizard Island Ribbon and Osprey Reef
Port Douglas Cairns Holmes Reef Townsville Flinders Reef
Outer Coral Sea Whitsunday Islands Swain Reefs Southern Coral Sea
Keppel Islands Heron Island Lady Elliot Island Bundaberg Sunshine Coast
Moreton Bay Gold Coast
Amongst all the fantastic reefs along the Northern Great Barrier Reef there are two which hold a special place in my heart due to the absolute extravagance of the marine life located there.
Yonge reef is out from Lizard Island. Huge schools of giant trevally and hammerhead sharks cruise by in the deep azure blue depths and 2 metre high pastel pink gorgonian sea fans reach out into the currents.
The coral formations go on forever. The deeper walls have purple - tinged masses of elegant hydrocorals hanging down from the rooves of submarine caverns while exotically coloured fish are everywhere.
Terraces of brightly coloured stony corals 'drip' down the reef slopes and provide a thousand havens for the mobile invertebrate creatures and small fish that live in them. ( photo: Neville Coleman)
Amongst all the fantastic reefs along the northern Great Barrier Reef there are two which hold a special place in my heart due to the absolute extravagance of the marine life located there.
White - tip Reef Sharks Triaenodon obesus patroll everywhere along the reef edges, but during the day some can be seen holed up in caves resting on the bottom with their heads lined up in the direction of the in - flowing current. ( photo: Neville Coleman)
Yonge reef is straight out to sea from Lizard Island. Inside the reef and inside the pass there is some incredibly good diving, but outside, down over the front terraces where huge schools of giant trevally sweep from nowhere and hammerhead sharks cruise by, is even better.
Huge schools of Purple Queenfish Pseudanthias tuka swarm above the corals, flitting around like so many living jewels. The males spend great efforts trying to keep other males away form their hareum of females . ( photo: Neville Coleman)
The deep azure blue depths becon and 2 metre high pastel pink gorgonian sea fans reach out into the currents and the coral formation go on forever. The deeper walls have purple - tinged masses of elegant hydrocorals hanging down from the rooves of submarine caverns while exotically coloured fish are everywhere.
Every sea fan is host to many commensals such as crabs, shrimps, egg cowries, spindle cowries, isopods, long- nosed hawkfish, sea fan gobies, flatworms, creeping ctenophores and squat lobsters. Just to check out a single sea fan can take up half a dive. ( photo: Neville Coleman)
The Potato Cods Epinephelus tuka are not quite as tame at Yonge Reef as those at the Cod Hole but they are certainly approachable and not scared of divers. ( photo: Neville Coleman)
The stony corals formations at Yonge Reef are magnificent with over 400 species being recorded from the area. ( photo: Neville Coleman)
Although this colony of Ellegant hydrocoral Stylaster elegans only measures around 250 mm in size those colonies down at 35 metres under the overhangs were enormous. One giant colony was over 750 mm across. It made a magnificient visual in the light from the torch. ( photo: Neville Coleman)
Even though we observed the Blue - girdled Angelfish Pomacanthus navarchus on the Northern Great Barrier Reefs it was impossible to get close enough with our old underwater cameras to get a picture. It wasn't until I changed over to an SLR Nikon and a 105 Macro - Nikkor macro lens in a modern day housing that I was able to get shots of them in Milne Bay, PNG. ( photo: Neville Coleman)
Great Barrier Reef Far Northern Reefs Lizard Island Ribbon and Osprey Reef
Port Douglas Cairns Holmes Reef Townsville Flinders Reef
Outer Coral Sea Whitsunday Islands Swain Reefs Southern Coral Sea
Keppel Islands Heron Island Lady Elliot Island Bundaberg Sunshine Coast
Moreton Bay Gold Coast
Neville Coleman's diving expeditions, fauna surveys, photographic fauna surveys and marine life identification courses include every major group of marine life.
Neville Coleman's expertise in living taxonomy and marine life identification extends to the identification of Algae, Sea Grass, Forams, Sponges, Stony Corals, Soft Corals, Sea Anemones, Sea Jellies, Zoanthids, Corallimorphs, Black Corals, Flatworms, Segmented Worms, Crustaceans, Barnacles, Shrimps, Rock Lobsters, Hermit Crabs, Squat Lobsters, Molluscs, Chitons, Univalves, Bivalves, Cephalopods, Octopus, Cuttlefish, Squid, Opisthobranchs, Nudibranchs, Sea Slugs, Bryozoans, Sea Mosses, Echinoderms, Sea Stars, Feather Stars, Brittle Stars, Sea Urchins, Sea Cucumbers, Ascidians/Sea Squirts, Marine Fish, Sharks, Marine Reptiles, and Marine Mammals, all found in the waters around Yonge Reef.
( Copyright Neville Coleman/Nigel Marsh)
