I love diving Flat Rock, exploring its walls, gutters, ledges and caves always provides a surprise or two. Over the last 17 years I have been exploring Flat Rock I have seen some amazing sights. A massive aggregation of fifty breeding leopard sharks, squadrons of several hundred cownose rays, bronze whaler sharks, a huge gatheri
ng
of spotted eagle rays and also giant gropers, turtles, grey nurse sharks,
stingrays, manta rays, dolphins, an abundance of reef fish, pelagic fish and
colourful critters. My most recent trip also provided a few surprises.This trip was in late August on Nautilus, an 18m charter boat run by Nautilus Scuba Centre. This boat is one of the most comfortable dive boats I have had the pleasure to dive from. Each weekend, and midweek on demand, Nautilus explores the best dive sites off Moreton Island and North Stradbroke Island. The boat is also staffed by a great crew that cater for your every need.
Arriving at Flat Rock with cloudy conditions we found the southerly swell was just a little too big to dive Shark Alley, where the grey nurse sharks generally reside at the south-east corner of the rock. Instead we anchored up on a very calm section on the northern end of Flat Rock. I was more than happy with this, as this end of the rock has some fabulous terrain and marine life.
I buddied up with fellow photographer Peter Reissenweber, and we were first into the water. The visibility on the surface was only 6m, with the water very greenish and full of particles. As we descended we passed schools of fish feeding on these particles, including fusiliers, surgeonfish, bannerfish and even bonito.
Once on the bottom the vi
sibility
improved to 15m, below average for Flat Rock where the visibility is usually 20m
or more. All around us were boulders decorated with hard and soft corals and a
range of tropical reef fish. We photographed angelfish, butterflyfish,
anemonefish and hawkfish before heading down the rocky slope into deeper water.We were soon in 20m and could see a large brown spotted rock cod hovering over a ledge. As we got closer we could see this large fish was busy getting serviced by a team of cleaner wrasse. I went one side, Peter the other, and captured some very close photos of this rock cod enjoying the cleaning service.
We then headed down to 25m and could see the reef dropping down to 30m plus. A spotted wobbegong had my attention until I saw a rather large grey nurse shark heading our way. It was a very pregnant female, close to 3m long and as wide as a hippo. She must have relocated to the northern end of Flat Rock to avoid the swell. She slowly glided past, her black eye watching, as we observed her with awe.
As we watched the grey nurse disappear into the distance I looked up to see six mobula rays and four cownose rays soaring in formation in the green water above us. We tried to ascend to get a photo, but the group of rays quickly disappeared into the green water.
We explored a few more ledges, finding a number of wobbegongs, nudibranchs, sea stars and shrimps. Busy photographing a shy anemonefish I glance to Peter to see him photographing another grey nurse shark. This one was a 2m long male that quickly disappeared over a ridge.
By now we were almost on the eastern side of Flat Rock and the current was starting to pick up. This is usually a good place to see spotted eagle rays, none today, instead we where surprised to find a very large Queensland groper resting in a gutter.
I have often seen Queensland gropers at Flat Rock, but they are always shy and I have never got close enough to get a decent photo, until today. For al
most
five minutes we got to photograph this 2m long groper as it slowly moved up and
down the gutter accompanied by a group of juvenile silver trevally. At times I
was less than a metre away from its thick lips, very glad to have my zoom lens
on to frame some wonderful portraits of this massive fish.We reluctantly had to leave the groper as we were getting low on air and close to deco, so returned to the boat. From the conversations on the boat it sounded like everyone had a great dive. Between dives we had a chance to warm up, spot humpback whales and turtles on the surface and enjoy a filling lunch of ham, chicken and salad rolls, all part of the wonderful service on Nautilus.
As we were already anchored at the calmest location at Flat Rock it was decide to do the second dive at the same spot, so this time Peter and I headed west and explored the shallows. There are lots of wonderful caves and ledges here in 10 to 20m. Each cave housed black coral trees and soft corals.
In one cave was a huge banded wobbegong, over 2m long, surrounded by a school of bannerfish. In other caves we found cleaner shrimps, moray eels, cowries, crayfish, sea stars and more wobbegongs.
The highlight of the dive came at the very end when we had a close encounter with an octopus sneaking across the reef. This octopus was the perfect photo subject as it changed colour and texture while swimming from outcrop to outcrop. A great way to end a fantastic day at Flat Rock.