EXMOUTH’S AMAZING NAVY PIER

Ningaloo Reef has some of the most outstanding diving in Australia. The reef is located off Exmouth, Western Australia, and attracts divers from around the world to explore coral gardens and encounter manta rays, whale sharks and other prolific marine life. However, the most famous dive site at Exmouth is not on Ningaloo Reef, but is a shore dive under a small jetty known as the Navy Pier.
    The Navy Pier was built at Point Murat, at the tip of North West Cape, in the 1960s by the US military. It was constructed to provide supplies and material for one of the most sophisticated military listening stations in the world, the Harold E Holt Naval Communication Station.
    For decades the Navy Pier was off limits to the public, but after the Australia Government took control of the Communication Station they allowed limited access for divers. Thank god they did because it is one of the most amazing dive sites in the world. Exmouth Diving Centre run daily shore dives to the Navy Pier, which is only dived at low or high tide to avoid strong tidal currents. After passing through base security, picking up a gate key, we finally arrived at the Navy Pier in the Exmouth Diving Centre’s bus. The pier is around 200m long, with a T section at the end and doesn’t really look anything special. Gearing up we headed down a set of stairs to a lower platform, about 2m above the water.
    In the water below we could already see masses of fish, we quickly jumped into the water and descended into a fishy fantasy land. As we headed to the sandy bottom, we were engulfed by a school of bigeye trevally. The fish swirling around us and then disappeared amongst the pylons. The visibility was quite nice, around 12m, and the water temperature was a wonderful 26C.
    Arriving at the bottom at 13m, all we could see were fish, fish and more fish. Around us we could see wrasse, rock cod, parrotfish, pufferfish, tuskfish, toadfish, butterflyfish, angelfish, morwong, sweetlip, bream, rabbitfish, surgeonfish, catfish, squirrelfish, cardinalfish and many, many other fish species.
    Moving from pylon to pylon it was hard to know which way to point your camera, at the fish, at the colourful corals on the pylons or at the abundant invertebrate species. We moved up beside a school of many lined sweetlip, the fish would hardly move allowing us to take some very close photos. As no fishing or spearfishing is allowed on the Navy Pier the fish are bountiful and unconcerned by divers.
    We next found a huge tasselled wobbegong lying next to a pylon, its head surrounded by dozens of ring tailed cardinalfish. Nearby several black spot tuskfish where picking through the rubble for food, and had several thick lipped wrasse on hand trying to steal titbits.
    Above us a massive school of yellowtail snapper were swarming around a pylon and beyond them we could see a large estuary groper hovering on a cross beam. As we got closer to the groper we could see it was getting serviced by several cleaner wrasse. The groper was completely unconcerned by our presence, allowing us to get extremely close.
    Looking down a white tip reef shark could be seen resting on the sand, but the shark took off when some other divers approached. On the pylons and bottom throughout the dive we found masses of sea stars and nudibranchs, and also octopus, shells, feather stars, shrimps and crabs. Other highlights were moray eels, flatheads, more estuary gropers, lionfish, scorpionfish, stonefish, boxfish, batfish, blennies and some lovely gobies.
    We both had two rare animals we really wanted to see. For Helen it was a northern frogfish and Nigel a northern wobbegong. Well you wouldn’t believe it, but we found both at the same time. We were then torn about which one to photograph first, a very rare shark or a very cute frogfish. We had seen so much amazing marine life, but the staff at Exmouth Diving Centre later informed us that they also regularly see dolphins, barracuda, stingrays, sea snakes, turtles, eagle rays and anglerfish.
    Heading back to the exit point the surprises continued when a huge Queensland groper loomed up beside us. We then stumbled across a pair of bizarre looking fish lying on the bottom, they looked similar to a cockatoo waspfish, but were much more colourful and with frilly growths around the head. With help from Neville Coleman and Rudie Kuiter they were later identified as bearded velvetfish, and much to our surprise this was the first time they had ever been photographed alive! After an hour and shooting close to three hundred photos between the two of us, we reluctantly headed to the surface. We ended the dive as we began it, surrounded by masses of bigeye trevally, as we did our safety stop amongst the pylons.
    After this amazing dive it was easy to see why many people have rated the Navy Pier as one of the best fish dives in the world.

Information and bookings - : Exmouth Diving Centre

Article appeared in Dive Pacific No.125 Aug/Sept 2011