One of the Great Barrier Reef’s less known places is Great Keppel and it really does live up to its name. It is sometimes overlooked as it can be known as a party island, this is however, far from the truth. This island is full of beautiful beaches, lots of little islands to explore with amazing walking tracks on each and so much flora and fauna. That is just on land, underwater the fish life is outstanding and with incredible coral cover and marine life everywhere, it really takes it to another level.
I have just gotten back from 8 days diving with Keppel dive, the big blue hut on Hideaways beach. It was a great start to the week with the wind only blowing around 10 – 15 knots which meant we could get to every dive site they had on the island. The first dive was to a site called Egg Rock, a beautiful wall dropping away to around 25 metres. Within the first five minutes I had already counted 7 different species of nudibranch and the biggest olive sea snake I have ever seen at over 7 foot long and around 20 cm diameter at his biggest! What a snake…
The next day we went to another site only accessible in the best of weather, Man and Wife. This site is macro heaven, my camera finger got a great work out on this dive, the marine life just didn’t stop!
By day four, the rain had started to make its way in, so I stuck to the more sheltered bays and the macro lens got a serious workout. After this week of diving, it became very clear that the reefs here are overlooked when it comes to the Great Barrier Reef. This is fantastic place for both wide angle and macro photography with so many things still to discover. From big sharks and manta rays to rare and exotic nudibranchs, I had a wonderful week and will hopefully make this a yearly trip.
Many thanks to the staff at Great Keppel Island for such a wonderful trip. Merry Christmas and a very Happy New Year filled with diving and photography!
All pictures taken with a Canon R5.
