I think Wonder Reef (or Wonderful Reef) used to be considered separate from the Castor Rock reef. Survey work by the indefatigable Peter Southwood has revealed that it is in fact connected to Castor Rock by a thin neck of rocks. If you look at this map of the area, Wonder Reef is to the south of the Castor Rock area, in the top left hand corner of the map.
We dived this site with Kate and Andrew, who was doing a photography dive for his Advanced course. The water was very green – the colour of an Appletiser bottle and in some of the pictures I took it looks distinctly like a night dive – but I had fun getting some close-up pictures of the very lush and colourful reef life.
The rocks are covered with anemones, feather stars, sea cucumbers, and nudibranchs. I also found an huge octopus – I don’t often spot them anywhere other than Long Beach!
Kate was my buddy, and I kept thinking I’d lost her when in fact she was swimming just above me, looking over my shoulder at the things illuminated by my flash. On the way up, Tony and I were visited by a sea jelly. This picture shows you how dirty the surface layer is – it was taken at the safety stop.
Dive date: 2 May 2011
Air temperature: 21 degrees
Water temperature: 13 degrees
Maximum depth: 16.8 metres
Visibility: 5 metres
Dive duration: 38 minutes
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