Our first coral atoll for this trip was Wreck Reefs, a chain of nine separate reefs. It is always a delight to arrive after a long 220nm passage, find a comfortable anchorage, crystal clear water and calm conditions, and of course have the place to ourselves.

Wreck Reefs stretch from West Islet, where we anchored, to Bird Islet over about 16 nautical miles.

West Islet

West Islet was our arrival point. It is made up of three reefs in a shape reminiscent of a clover leaf when seen from above. Both Roobi and Anui dropped anchor in the centre, in 7m over clear sand. Access was straight forward, with no obstruction to worry about. We were anchored comfortably with full swing room to clear all reefs. Even in the light conditions, there was a little movement with current funneling through the channels in between the three reefs.

The cay is made up of crushed coral, without any vegetation, but we found an abundance of noddies and a few boobies resting there during the day.

We checked out the reef for a dive and underwater photography and as we expected the coral was very disappointing, especially for Graham and Helene who had not seen as much damage before. There were a few patches of regrowth… we called it stubble, because there was so little life and colour. This is one of the more pleasing patches:

But it was nice to get in the water, which was not too cold at 21^oC. Interestingly the night air temperature was mild: over 20^oC – one of the surprises we noticed as we were sailing overnight from chilly Bundaberg with its 9^oC start!

Porpoise Cay

On our second full day there, we had a great little ‘outing’ on Roobi and visited Porpoise Cay, leaving Anui with Bengie guarding at West Islet. Porpoise is a protected site and the anchorage is fairly tight amongst the bommies. Armed with satellite maps and proposed anchorage points, we motored 10nm there and back. We checked out the cay and its multitude of birds including tiny little fluff balls, the girls flew the drones, then we all went for a snorkel amongst the bommies you see at the back of the boat!

Porpoise Cay is where a dozen ships met their demise and were wrecked in the 1800’s. When you approach the Wreck Reefs, the depth goes from several thousands of meters to shallow in a very short distance. The ocean appears dark blue, it is hard to see the low lying cays and you can very well understand how ships would come into trouble when sounding were taken with a lead weight rather than by glancing at a depth sounder!

The coral life was extremely poor, with most of the bommies off Porpoise Cay looking like a grey cemetery. We guess the further away these reefs are from the Great Barrier Reef, the more difficult it is for them to recover from multiple bleaching and cyclones, far from the reach of healthy spawning of coral larvae. At least that is our attempt at understanding what is happening out here.

It was shocking for our friends who had never seen anything so devastated. We knew what to expect so although sad, we focused on the redeeming features: the incredible water clarity, the totally calm conditions and some of the fish we saw, although there were not as many as we expected. An eagle ray circled around us repeatedly, a few olive sea snakes appeared out of the depth surfacing for air, a white tip shark and a school of Surgeonfish patrolled the shallows not at all perturbed by the snorkelers.

With the weather continuing to be kind to us, we have just moved onto Kenn Reefs, a 68nm passage further to the northeast. We will tell you about this new atoll in our next post as it looks like we will be there for a few days. We keep crossing our fingers the weather gods will continue to be kind to us.