Located about a 1km off Double Island Point, Wolf Rock barely breaks the surface, but what lies beneath is one of the most impressive dive sites in Queensland. I have done a number of wonderful dives around Wolf Rock over the years, but one of my most recent dives was simply spectacular.
You know you’re in for a good dive when you enter the water and are surrounded by a school of barracuda. We hardly had time to enjoy the spectacle before the fish had moved on.
Descending onto the rock, we decided to swim around the southern side, which drops straight into 33m of water. The visibility was around 20m, around average for Wolf Rock. Following the wall we quickly spotted many beautiful deepwater corals, including black coral trees, soft corals and spiral sea whips. The fish life mainly consisted of reef fish; including angelfish, butterflyfish and morwongs.
Wolf Rock is made up of five pinnacles lined up almost north to south, with two pinnacles at the southern end breaking the surface. Heading to the north the pinnacles get progressively deeper. Moving up the eastern side we explored the deep gutters between each pinnacle, finding more bushy black coral trees.
Reaching the northern pinnacle, we found ourselves in the current line and surrounded by an explosion of life. A dozen spotted eagle rays where hovering over the pinnacle. As we got closer they broke formation and started to swim circuits around the pinnacle. It was like being at an air show, watching the best pilots trying to out perform each other.
Looking down to the gutter below, two large Queensland gropers started moving in our direction. These large fish, over 2m long, came in close to inspect the bubble blowing visitors to their realm. Their curiosity satisfied they moved back into deeper water.
Looking around there was a constant influx of fish, schools of batfish, trevally and surgeonfish circled the pinnacles. We could also see sweetlips, bream, angelfish, goatfish, globefish and fairy basslets darting around the corals.
Suddenly, literally out of the blue, a bronze whaler shark zoomed in with effortless grace. I was ready with my camera to photograph this streamline predator, but it shyly turned away about 8m from us. The whaler made two more passes, but always kept its distance.
We then drifted with the eagle rays for a while, swimming in mid-water with these majestic creatures. Heading south we explored the gutters on the northwest side of the rock, which sit in 20m to 25m. Grey nurse sharks can be seen here almost year round, however none were in residence today, but we could see some Queensland gropers.
First one. Then four. Then six. Then eleven gropers. Swimming around us were eleven massive Queensland gropers. It was quite a sight to see so many of these 2m long fish drifting around us. Queensland gropers were once senselessly killed by fishermen and spearfishermen, but are now fully protected.
As we headed back to the anchor it suddenly got quite dark, like a cloud was passing overhead. I looked up to see a dense school of trevally, hundreds of them swimming in a tight formation. But as quickly as they appeared they were gone.
We spent the final minutes of our dive looking at some of the smaller critters that live at Wolf Rock including; moray eels, nudibranchs, gobies, scorpionfish, sea stars, shrimps and coral crabs.
On other dives at Wolf Rock I have encountered one of its main attractions, grey nurse sharks. On one particular weekend there was over twenty of these majestic sharks, all 2m to 3m long, that boldly swam straight toward me, forcing me to duck to avoid a collision.
Wolf Rock is one of the most important habitats for the critically endangered grey nurse shark and was fully protected by the Queensland Government on the 19th Decembe
r 2003.Also commonly seen around Wolf Rock are leopard sharks, wobbegong sharks, manta rays, tawny nurse sharks, white spotted shovelnose rays, turtles and black-blotched stingrays. There is also a resident tiger shark, which is only occasionally seen by divers. On one dive it swam straight over my head. I looked up in time to see the tail end of this 3m long shark disappearing into the blue.
Beside Wolf Rock there are two other interesting dive sites at Rainbow Beach. Nursery Reef is a shallow rocky reef, only 5 to 7m deep, with an excellent variety of reef fish and invertebrate species to be seen. While Round Bommie, 5 to 15m deep, is a large rock monolith home to stingrays, turtles and a wealth of other species. It is a great place to see leopard sharks during summer, with up to a dozen seen lazing on the sand.
Trips to Wolf Rock use to be occasionally run by the dive shops on the Sunshine Coast at Noosa and Mooloolaba, but since Wolf Rock Dive Centre opened at Rainbow Beach it can be dived anytime of the year.