Our third destination for this Coral Sea Atolls trip is Frederick Reefs, 80nm WNW from Kenn Reefs, which we reached after an overnight sail. We ended up spending five days there.

Frederick has a rim of reefs in the shape of a J with a series of cays. The Anchorage Sound is located at the southern end of the atoll. At the northeast end, there is a separate reef with a cay, the dot on the J, where a lighthouse with an unmanned weather station stands. Here is what the atoll looks like on Navionics.

Most days spent at an atoll consist of a similar routine: find an anchoring spot for the conditions, send the drone up to see our world from above, venture ashore to the cays, marvel at the birdlife, search endlessly for decent snorkeling sites, catch a tasty fish to share with our friends. And like anywhere, there are the chores: the bird poop cleaning routine every morning, water making, laundry, keeping our home tidy, fixing broken stuff.

At Frederick Reefs we anchored in two different spots. While the wind was easterly, we dropped the pick halfway along the reef wall, then when it switched to the southeast and got a little stronger, we moved right down to the bottom of the J.

While we still had a light easterly and sunny conditions, we visited Lighthouse Cay at the northern end of the atoll. The four of us studied the charts, debated whether to take the big boats there, and in the end decided to do the reconnaissance by dinghy, a 4nm trip each way. This is where having two capable dinghies gives you options.  We took our snorkeling, fishing and camera gear, and set off at near low tide dressed in our wetsuits for the day’s activities. It was a stress free and very enjoyable day.

The Lighthouse Cay goes to a dizzy height of 2m above sea level and is a 300m islet in the form of an S, surrounded by shallow reef. It is not vegetated but noddies and boobies nest on it with their little chicks at various stages of development.

Here is what the cay looks like from the air.

Peter Sayre’s book (Australia’s Coral Sea Islands & Marine Park) talks about a beautiful lagoon on the eastern side of the cay with coral gardens. The book was published in 2019. Things have unfortunately changed a lot. Underwater was not wonderful, but interesting nevertheless. The lagoon is one or two meters deep at the most, rich in fish life, but its coral has been repeatedly bleached and nothing much is left. We still enjoyed ourselves, thinking ‘thin thoughts’ as we were creeping over the bottom in very shallow water observing all sorts of little fish, and eventually reaching the deeper areas where Triggerfish, Unicornfish and Trevallies lurked.

It was also the ideal opportunity to take over/under shots as you could just kneel on the bottom in the calm water and capture a view of the lighthouse above with the clear water below, although just showing rubble rather than colourful coral.

Over the next days, we snorkeled at different spots around isolated bommies in the Anchorage Sound, with very mixed results. Many spots looked like a graveyard, with shapeless grey coral outcrops impersonating blocks of concrete.

We eventually found a group of bommies in deeper water, where there was some coral recovery and a lot of big fish: Giant Trevallies, Drummers, Paddletail, Red Bass, and of course the compulsory Grey Reef Sharks and Sea Snakes.

By the fourth day, the wind shifted to the Southeast and strengthened to 15-20 with bigger gusts, so we moved Anui and Roobi to the very southern end of the Anchorage Sound in front of the large cay – another one called Observatory Cay – for a little more protection. The light was very different to the previous two weeks, with a moody sky and beautiful teal water. The anchorage was active at high tide, but safe in only 4m depth.

Naturally we checked out those cays! Life on the long winding cays was chaotic with hundreds of nesting noddies, birds flying low, coming and going. It is a wonder they did not collide into one another. It is always a cuteness overload when you see the little downy chicks, one of which was hatching as we were watching!

The shallow lagoon at the back to the long winding cay was fun to snorkel at, the last of our dives at this atoll. The coral was in recovery with a colourful garden of Fire Coral and we saw a few interesting critters.

Having seen as much as we could and with a couple of days of stronger conditions developing, we were ready to move to our next destination.

Next Destination

The forecasts ahead continue to be kind to us, alternating between light days of 10-15 easterlies and stronger ones of 15-20 south easterlies, with gusts over 20 knots but only lasting for a day or two. 

With a change on its way and stronger easterly winds building mid week, we have decided to track back to Saumarez while we can, for our fourth Coral Sea Atoll. See you there next Friday!