BUNKERS REVISITED

One of the first articles I wrote for Sportdiving in 1989 was called ‘Cruising the Bunkers’ about a fabulous liveaboard trip to the Bunker Group of islands. I recently returned to the Bunker Group on another liveaboard trip, which gave me a unique opportunity to compare the diving, marine life and health of the coral reefs almost twenty years after my first trip to this wonderful part of the Great Barrier Reef.
    The Bunker Group consists of eight reefs and coral cays located at the southern most end of the Great Barrier Reef. This collection of reefs offers fantastic diving on colourful reef walls, lovely coral gardens and magnificent bommies. The most famous island of the Bunker Group is Lady Elliot Island, which has its own resort and dive operation, but the other reefs of the Bunker Group are best dived from a liveaboard vessel.
    In July 1989, I dived the Bunker Group on Boomerang, which no longer offers dive trips. In January 2007, I returned to the Bunker Group on Big Cat Reality, which usually operates weekend liveaboard trips off Brisbane, but at Christmas and Easter offers special four or five day trips to the Bunkers.
    Big Cat Reality is a 25m long, 10m wide, catamaran that caters for 24 divers and eight crew. She is a very comfortable boat to live on and dive from, with two lounge areas, ample toilet and shower facilities, a licensed bar, a covered upper party deck and a well appointed dive deck. Accommodation is in bunk beds in two large air-conditioned cabins, not the most private set-up, but the beds are very comfortable. The food on the trip was a highlight, the meals were wonderful and after every dive we were offered fresh fruit, pizza, cakes or something else to nibble on. The crew were also excellent, making for a well run and very enjoyable trip.
    For these Bunker trips Big Cat Reality departs from the port of Bundaberg, around a four hour drive north of Brisbane. After boarding late in the afternoon, and receiving a safety briefing on the vessel and the diving, Big Cat Reality departed for the overnight crossing to the Bunker Group. The following morning found us anchored at Lady Musgrave Island.

LADY MUSGRAVE ISLAND
The first dive on both trips was at Manta Ray Bommie at Lady Musgrave Island. This dive site hadn’t changed since the last time I dived it, with healthy coral gardens and a scattering of bommies in 12m to 24m. The visibility on the Big Cat Reality trip was to be 20m to 30m on every dive.
    At Manta Ray Bommie there are always masses of reef fish and quite a few pelagic fish cruising in mid water. In 1989, I encountered one green turtle and enjoyed the company of a manta ray that circled us for a few minutes. No manta rays in 2007, but we did see heaps of turtles. Around a dozen green turtles were sighted during the dive, which may have had something to do with the trip coinciding with the turtle breeding and egg laying season. One thing that I did notice, that became more and more evident with every dive, was the large number of coral trout. This popular ‘table fish’ was only occasionally seen on the Great Barrier Reef on trips I did in the 1980s. I can only assume greater protection for the reef from fishing pressures has allowed coral trout numbers to increase.
    In 1989, we spent two days diving around Lady Musgrave Island, exploring the wonderful drop-off on the southern side of the reef, enjoying drift dives into the large lagoon and also two night dives in the lagoon. In 2007, strong southerly winds stopped us diving the drop-off, but in a day and a half we explored many of the sites in the calm waters on the northern side of the reef, including Radar Fix, The Canyons, Entrance Wall, Entrance Bommie and also a night dive in the lagoon.
    On each dive we saw abundant reef fish; angelfish, butterflyfish, wrasse, parrotfish, lizardfish, anemonefish, surgeonfish, damsels, fairy basslets and rock cods to name but a few. We also found shrimps, crabs, crayfish, nudibranchs, clams, sea stars, featherstars, octopus, turtles, stingrays, moray eels, pelagic fish and also a very large Maori wrasse. The best dive was on the Entrance Bommie, a large bommie in 23m that is riddled with ledges and small caves, and populated with millions of baitfish. Feeding off the baitfish was a swarm of trevally that were constantly zooming around us. I also found a large 2.5m long tawny nurse shark resting under a ledge, and managed to get a few photographs before this shy shark swam off.
    Back in 1989, the night dives in Lady Musgrave Lagoon were very memorable. Only 8m deep, the lagoon is dotted with small coral heads and we saw lionfish hunting, a variety of crustaceans and molluscs, plus many sleeping reef fish. In 2007, I was a little warn out, must be getting old, to do the night dive in the lagoon so missed out on the manta ray that cruised around our divers!

FAIRFAX ISLANDS
The next stop on both trips was the twin coral cays of Fairfax Islands. On the northern side of Fairfax Islands are countless coral bommies in depths from 12m to 24m. In 1989, we found a huge bommie, we called Swim Thru Bommie, that was the size of a two storey house and cut with ledges, caves and several swim throughs. This bommie was sheltering thousands of cardinalfish, tasselled wobbegongs, a huge moray eel, lionfish, sweetlips, gropers and reef fish. Around the bommie we also found turtles, stingrays, Maori wrasse and a leopard shark. We loved this bommie so much that we stayed for three dives.
    I thought nothing could top that bommie at Fairfax Islands, but on our very first dive here in 2007 we explored another fabulous group of bommies. We jumped in to see a large Maori wrasse and then quickly found a tawny nurse shark in a cave. Moving slowly from bommie to bommie we found a massive black blotched stingray, two tasselled wobbegongs sheltering in cave full of cardinalfish, trevally, an estuary groper and numerous reef fish. At the end of the dive a 3m wide manta ray swam by and then hung around under the boat feeding and getting cleaned by the cleaner wrasse population. I could have stayed until nightfall watching this mesmerising manta as it glided around the bommies, but with little air remaining in my tank I was forced to ascend.
    We dived quite a variety of bommies at Fairfax Island, the crew would just find an interesting lump on the depth sounder and we would jump in and explore. Each bommie we explored seemed to offer something new and exciting. We saw lots of turtles, moray eels, tasselled wobbegongs and also a huge black manta ray. We also did a couple of nice wall dives at a site called Tag Wall. Drifting along the wall there were lots of ledges to investigate. We encountered barramundi cod, nudibranchs, octopus, moray eels, crayfish, lionfish, pipefish, ornate wobbegongs and even a leaf scorpionfish. The best part was seeing four smooth-tail mobula rays (a dwarf manta ray species) that performed an underwater ballet while we hung on the safety stop.

HOSKYN ISLANDS
The bommies found on the northern side of Hoskyn Islands also offer spectacular diving. In 1989, this was the highlight of the trip as we saw several manta rays and also encountered white tip reef sharks, turtles and several very large stingrays. In 2007, I was impressed to see four red emperors, another rarely seen ‘table fish’, on our first dive. These striking fish, with their prominent red bands, were gathered under a wide ledge. I was pleasantly surprised to see red emperors on almost every dive at Hoskyn Islands.
    The bommies we dived here were just magic. A number were decorated with spiky soft coral and gorgonians, and all were over populated with coral trout and reef fish. Stingrays, trevally, barracuda, mackerel, sweetlip and barramundi cod were just some of the creatures we encountered. Massive moray eels were also a feature at Hoskyn Islands. On almost every dive we encountered at least one of these 2m long eels hanging out of a hole in a bommie, one was even draped through the staghorn coral and was the perfect model for my camera.

FITZROY REEF
In 1989, we didn’t visit Fitzroy Reef, instead doing several nice dives on the coral gardens at Boult Reef. On our Big Cat Reality trip in 2007, we did three lovely dives at Fitzroy Reef on the reef wall, bommies and coral gardens on the northern side of the reef. This reef had the most degraded hard corals, many covered with algae, that I was to see on the trip. Until then the corals appeared to be very healthy, no apparent evidence of coral bleaching and only a few crown of thorns starfish. Even though the corals looked at little sad at Fitzroy Reef, the fish populations were quite bountiful.
    At Uncle Pete’s Bommie we saw the first white tip reef shark of the trip. Drifting slowly along the reef we also found several anemones full of pink anemonefish and some very large red coloured pineapple sea cucumbers, that looked like some alien being. However, the highlight of this dive was finding a baby barramundi cod, only 4cm long, that was slowly moving through the coral like it was a flatworm. At other sites here we encountered tasselled wobbegongs, moray eels, stingrays, nudibranchs, crayfish, trevally, parrotfish, octopus and a tiny spotted eagle ray.
    After almost twenty years the Bunker Group is still an impressive dive destination. I enjoyed every dive, and was happy to see the coral and marine life appeared to be as good as it was on my first trip. I would have to say that cruising the Bunker Group is still one of the best experiences a diver can have on the Great Barrier Reef.

Article appeared in Sportdiving No.131 Dec/Jan 2009

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