About Heron Island

Heron Island is a sand cay located some 40 kilometers from mainland Australia, in the territory of Queensland. It lies smack dab on the Tropic of Capricorn, and is located on the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef.

Heron is a small island that can be circumnavigated at a pokey turtle's pace on the pristine white sand beach in less than an hour. It is completely surrounded by an impressive coral reef that offers both spectacular snorkeling on and drop dead gorgeous diving off its edge. Adjacent to the island is another huge reef system, the Wistari, on which a new island is in the process of being born. Between these two reefs, a swift current channel provides great opportunities for some heart-pounding drift diving with large pelagics. The diving is so varied and extensive that you could dive for several weeks and never hit the same site twice.

The island is located in a large area maintained as an Australian Marine Reserve, and as well the island is a turtle sanctuary and a bird sanctuary that is home to literally hundreds of turtles and thousands of birds.

Given its distance from the mainland, it is basically inaccessible to day-trippers, and so the only divers in the water here are the guests of the resort. Because of its remoteness and limited visitation, the reefs are in pristine condition the corals are intact, vibrantly alive, and abundantly varied; we saw no evidence of coral bleaching or blight.

And there are critters. Swarms of fish huge populations of angels and butterflies and tangs and wrasse and big white barramundi cod (that have dalmation dots!) and sweetlips and queensland grouper and fairy basselets and lionfish and puffers and impossibly coloured clown triggerfish. Clown Anenome fish in various hues. Nudibranchs. Turtles. And there are sharks: black and white reeftips, nurse sharks, and the occasional tiger (which thankfully we didn't encounter, although one was sighted by another diver while we were there). And there are rays: eagle and shovelnose and blue-spotted and stingrays. Oh yeah, and there are mantas. Mega mantas. Friendly, curious, interactive flying behemoths. We sighted over 25 of these most graceful of creatures in our twenty-one dives on Heron Island - many at depth and still more on the surface.


Getting There

Herein lies the catch. Gladstone (the closest mainland city and only departure point for Heron Island) is an industrial town with a minor airport that is not serviced by international flights. The two closest international entries are Cairns to the north, and Brisbane to the south, both of which are serviced by non-stops from the west coast of the USA. Once there, a short commuter flight in a Dash 8 is required to transport you to Gladstone.

From Gladstone you can cross over to the island in one of two ways: on a forty foot high speed catamaran that takes two hours in often bumpy seas to make the journey (AUD $80/US$42 one way), or you can spoil yourself and hop over on a half hour helicopter ride (AUD$274 /US$143 one way). We chose the helicopter to get to Heron Island, to avoid an overnight stay in Gladstone, since we couldn't make the connection to the once-a-day 11 am departure of the cat. Heron Island arranges transfers to and from the airport for the catamaran. The helicopter departs directly from the airport. Weight restrictions for luggage apply if you are flying (but they will send your overweight luggage across on the boat at the soonest). We made the return journey on the rock 'n roll cat.

I highly recommend going at least one way on the helicopter as the views of the Great Barrier Reef from the air are mind-boggling, and on approach into the heli pad on the island, we saw two large sharks darting up over the reef into the shallows just feet from the shore. That sure got our hearts started after an exhausting long-way-around, five segment journey from British Columbia.

The Resort

Heron Island is not just a dive destination. People converge from all over the world to enjoy the snorkelling, bird watching, and turtle activities. In December the mammoth mothers lumber up onto the beach to lay their eggs. And in February the hatchlings crawl out of the sand and head for the blue, dodging both winged and finned predators. With all those birds in the air and so many sharks in the water, it is miraculous that any baby turtles survive.

         

          

The resort has about a hundred rooms, offering travellers accommodation choices ranging from the modest Turtle Cabins to the luxurious Point Suites.

There is a very nice pool area and bar (Pandanus Lounge), where Aussie beer is served on tap for AUD$5.00/US$2.60 a pint, and since we were bagging three dives a day, we stuck with the brew and gave all the exotic, umbrella-clad drinks a miss. Live entertainment was offered every night in the bar, and what we stayed awake to witness was pretty good.

Out on the extensive patio there are plenty of chaises for baking in the sun (or lazing in the shade) and for taking in the sensational sunsets. There is also a huge open-air chess board for those who still have functioning cerebral matter after diving their brains out during the day and drinking in the bar before dinner.

There is a facility called The Wistari Room where there is a revolving menu of movies and talks given about the reef and its inhabitants, turtles, stars etc. We didn't take any of these in, so I can't comment. There are no televisions or telephones in the rooms, so this is the only place you can plug in to the news. But when you are that far from civilization, who really cares? There are (radio) telephones available near the bar for which you must buy phone cards in AUD$10/US$5 increments. Fax is available thru the office (at a whopping AUD$10/US$5 a page), and internet is only available if you bring your own laptop.

There is a well-stocked gift shop where you can buy the usual touristy items such as t-shirts and caps with turtle logos, as well as a limited supply of sunscreen, film, toiletries etc. They do sell some very nice reef books. We found out afterwards we could have bought our purchase for about half the price at Amazon.com, but hey, it's nice to support the local economy.


Accommodations

The resort offers many levels of accommodation, from the modest Turtle Cabins in which we stayed, right up to the posh Reef Suites. Prices start at AUS$180/US$94 pp for a Turtle Cabin. The price includes accommodation and meals. Many budget-minded divers stay in the cabins which are very comfortable (couples will want to ensure that they request the double bed units at the time of booking, since many cabins just have four bunks). There is no air conditioning, but each cabin is cooled by a ceiling fan. Showers and toilets are located in bathroom blocks just a minute's walk (or less) away from the cabins, but the cabins do have a sink with running water for ablutions. We have absolutely no complaints about our cabin (#17) it was romantic, clean, and far enough away from the pool area and restaurant that we weren’t bothered by noise. Other than the birds that is. Those guys squawk all day, and chortle and moan all night, so ear plugs are a must for light sleepers.


               

   


Meals

Guests are assigned to a table on arrival at the resort, and there you sit for your stay. I kind of missed the russian roulette table seating of Club Med-type all-inclusives where you get a chance to share a meal with so many different people, some of whom are actually interesting ;^) The meals were generally very good, served in a very nice dining room. Breakfast and lunch were buffets, both offered plenty of choices of cold and hot foods. Breakfast appeared with perennial fruit, juices, cereals, breads, eggs, bacon, pancakes, as well as such Australian oddities as breaded brains or fried kidneys (yuck!). Lunch offered up soup, several salads, cheeses, bread, fruit, desserts and a rotating menu of hot food that was all very palatable.

Dinner was the only disappointment. It is a sit down affair, and was trying to be a bit posh. I guess the people staying in the $$$$ a night Point Suites are looking for haute cuisine. Dinner was served a la carte, at the table, by one of the friendly Australian kids working at the resort. There were usually three or four choices for entrees and the same for mains, with such extravagant offerings as steak tartare (apparently they haven't heard about Mad Cow disease downunder) and Kangaroo and Ostrich mixed grill (I gave Skippy 'n Ollie a miss). I habitually forgot my reading glasses at dinner (sucking back a pint o' Victoria Bitter or two at the bar during Happy Hour makes a girl a bit foggy, I guess), so my buddy Dave would have to read me the menu. He stumbled over such terms as coulis and compote, and if a guy with a degree (albeit in accounting ;^) can't read the menu, you can figure it's a little over the top. When the food came, it looked like art, but generally tasted like pulp. 'Nuf said. It’s my only complaint about the place, and it's pretty minor in the big scheme of things.

The only exception was the Saturday night sumptuous seafood buffet (read: pig out) with iced whole prawns (I like them in Thai dipping sauce - yum), Moreton Bay Bugs (naw, not really bugs, more like critters - a cross between a lobster and a crayfish), crab, oysters, mussels, smoked salmon, yada, yada. On the hot table there was baron of beef and crown roast of pork and all sorts of other stuff for which I could find no room on my plate or in my tummy. It was the best meal we had there, bar none. If you are going, make sure you include Saturday night in your stay.

And now, to the heart of the matter:

The Dive Operations

Heron Island has two large dive boats, each capable of accommodating up to twenty divers for a two tank dive, as well as a six pack for adventure diving which involves taking intrepid divers away from the island and on to other more remote reef locations. Adventure diving was not available during our stay due to rough water conditions kicked up by a typhoon north of us. When offered, it costs UAD$160/US$85 for a three tank, one full day excursion.

Each boat is equipped with radio, oxygen, first aid, life jackets, fresh drinking water, between-dive snacks, sun cover and dual props to speed you out over the reef and onto the buoyed dive sites. Most sites are ten minutes or less from the dock, and in poor weather they generally will return to the dock for the surface interval.

                

Heron Island is a PADI 5 Star facility, and offers a full menu of scuba certification courses, referral dives and resort courses.

Nitrox is not available at Heron Island. Tanks supplied are AL80's.

Behind the dive shop there is a fresh water rinse for gear and a separate tub of wetsuit wash. There is ample storage space for gear in lockers and lots of room for hanging your squeaky clean wetsuits.

Most divers wore a 3 ml shorty or full. I wore a 3 ml full and wished I had brought my shorty or a vest to layer over top, since I was distinctly chilled after an hour under. A warm water hood would also have been a good thing. The water temps were a consistent 80 degrees at depth, slightly warmer on the surface. This is as warm as it gets. In Australian winter (our summer) a 5 ml or semi-dry would be the preferred choices, since both water and air temps do drop quite a bit.

To earn your place on the boat, show up the first day at the dive shop and show your credentials. They were not particularly interested in our logs (as a matter of fact, not one dive operator of the many we have used has ever asked to see my highly descriptive dive records ;^) I guess they figure they are too easy to fake, but then, why would ya? But you better have a c-card, or it's resort diving for you. Once you've shown your card and signed the waiver, all that is required is to sign up on the boards outside the shop for the following days for the dives you would like to do.

The resort offers both a single tank and a two tank dive at 9 am, and a single tank at 3 in the afternoon. One night dive was offered during the week we were there, but apparently before that they had not been out for a few weeks due to poor weather and strong currents. They will not do a drift dive at night (for obvious reasons), but almost every dive we did during the day ended up as a drift. If you complete 10 or more dives during your stay, dives are a steal at AUD$35.00/US$18 each. Less than ten means that each dive is slightly more expensive. We noticed that gear rentals were quite pricey (see link below into Heron's website), and some clever divers rented their gear in Gladstone for much less and brought it across with them.

The dive profiles are conservative - they advocate 45 minutes max 60 feet, with a 3 minute safety stop at 15 feet. Divers are expected to be on the boat with 500 psi in their tanks. And they check. At the end of every dive, as we climbed up the ladder, they eyeballed our gauges and computers and wrote down the numbers. We were then required to sign off on those numbers. I guess they are taking no chances since those two American divers were lost off Cairns a while back.

The depth limitations are unnecessary . The reef maxes out at about 60 feet at the bottom of the wall (with the exception of the Wistari channel where I easily hit 70 feet), and our biggest challenge was finding enough depth on the first dive to allow us to dive reasonably deep on the second and third dives of the day. They do not permit reverse profiles, and ask that each dive be at least 3 feet shallower than the previous dive. If you blow it, you're on the beach for 24 hours. For some divehard divers, this may all seem a bit restrictive, but I respect that they are committed to running the safest diving program as they can. These conservative diving practices and shallow reefs make it an ideal place for newer divers to enjoy terrific diving in a very safe environment. For more experienced divers and photogs, there is more than enough life on the reefs to keep ya mesmerized for the duration.

We were required to accompany a divemaster on our first dive at Heron Island - not such a bad way to get acquainted with the reef and its inhabitants. After that first dive we were given the choice of buddy diving or diving in a small group with a DM. A DM is in the water on each dive, and is very welcoming of any divers that would like to tag along. We chose to buddy dive, and after the first day or so figured we needed to be in the water first or last for the most secluded diving possible. Once the dive crew realized that we were good on gas (and were following the rules) we were invited to extend our bottom times, as long as we climbed back on with 500 psi. We managed to log several dives over an hour. One wiseguy on the boat commented that 45 minutes American was like an hour and five Canadian. But really, we had the last laugh ;^)


The Dive Staff

I really have to put in a good word about the dive guys ('n gals) at Heron Island. They are a motley crew of Aussies who were, without exception, very polite and professional. There was none of the sarcasm or ennui that we have encountered at other diving resorts (are you listening Club Med?), and their enthusiasm for their jobs and for the great diving was infectious. They went out of their way (literally) to accommodate us when we said that we wanted to see the mantas. These guys come in on six months contracts, but don't seem to get island fever. They are given a couple of days off a week, and they appear to get enough sleep (the bar closes at midnight). Diving with them was a pleasure.


The Dive Sites

Where to begin? There were many dive sites at Heron Island that were simply spectacular, both in terms of terrain and in terms of the life that was burgeoning on them. The ones that come immediately to mind are Pam's Point, Heron Bommies, Harry's Bommie, Tenements 1 and 2, Hole In The Wall, Plate Ledge, Gorgonia Hole, Wistari 1, Coral Grotto and The North Bommie, most of which we dove at least twice during our week of diving at Heron Island. For the uninitiated, a bommie is a huge coral boulder resting on the sandy bottom.

Heron Bommies and North Bommie are Manta cleaning stations and buzzing with life, and offer the best chance to get up close and personal with the mighty winged wonders. We saw numerous sharks and turtles on every dive, at every site. A school of seven lionfish was located under the mooring bommie at the site called The North Bommie. This is a bit confusing because there are actually two important bommies at this site - the one to which the mooring is attached (apparently permanent home of the lionfish) and the real North Bommie (the Manta cleaning station) which is located about 50 meters away, off the reef.

Coral life everywhere on the reef is colourful and picturesque, but the best sites for coral gawking were Harry's Bommie, Plate Ledge, Tenements 1 and 2 and Wistari 1.

For masses of fish, the drift from Pam's Point to Heron Bommies offered the most prolific life: clouds of damsel fish and herds of unicorn tang and sauntering sharks looking for a quick snack up on the staghorn reef. It was here that we saw four turtles on a flying picnic - munching on a huge jellyfish, windmilling over our heads as the current swept them down the reef edge. At the bommies large spotted sweetlips tucked themselves out of the current, along with a mammoth lurking queensland grouper and a moray eel that was tucked into a crevice.

We were somewhat limited in sites that we could dive due to strong weather blowing in from the north (typhoon season) that produced some pretty big swells and strong currents, but I was impressed that the dive guys took us out (no cancelled dives due to weather, even on the one day of torrential rain and squalling wind) and found a place to plunk us in, usually in a drift dive to the next mooring. On some days, the current was blowing so big that we did a two mooring awoosh dive. Diving on the moorings was essential since descending (and doing safety stops) in the often very strong currents was much easier on a mooring line.


The Manta Dives

There were actually two memorable dives with the mantas at Heron Island, among many dives in which we sighted them above us or beside us, out in the blue, off the wall, soaring by in an a seemingly effortless pilgrimage against the current….

On the first, D and I were bubbling along on a lazy afternoon drift between Coral Grotto and Hole in the Wall, swimming up into the small coral canyons and swim-thrus that allowed us to get out of the current for a bit. The rest of the group had gone ahead, and we were deliberately loitering behind, enjoying the quiet companionship of this dive together and scrutinising the coral for tiny nudibranchs.

Catching something in the limited periphery of my vision, I looked up in time to see a manta gracefully winging his way against the current above my head. I don't know what possessed me, but I began to mimic his slow flapping wing motions with my own arms. He looked down as he passed over me, and then slowly circled back in for a second look. I looked up in amazement as I realized that I had somehow connected with this strangely lovely animal. Keeping my arms moving gently in the current, I watched as he circled curiously over me again and again, each time a little lower than the last. On his finally circuit he swooped down low, just over my head, inviting me to touch his belly. And what a funny feeling that was, his skin a rubbery, smooth, slippery surface. With one last languorous flick of his wings he left us, moving again effortlessly against the current and out of our sight.

Days went by and we encountered mantas many times again on our dives, but there were no more takers on my invitations to come and play.

And then, on the second to last day of our trip, we were first in the water on an afternoon drift dive from Hole in the Wall to North Bommie. The visibility was not great, limited to about 50 feet as the receding tide pulled sand off the reef and into the depths.

But the dive along the meandering wall was beautiful, and knowing that everyone was still behind us gave us the freedom to believe that anything was possible. As we neared the mooring that marked the far end of the dive, I could just make out the shadowy outline of the large North Bommie, a huge coral boulder easily twenty-five feet in height, that sits out on a sandy bottom away from the wall.

I beckoned to Dave that I wanted to swim out to it, not really knowing why, but curious to explore it since we had missed it in the low viz of a previous dive at the same site.

When we were about halfway across the sandy channel, I became aware of some sort of motion on the bommie - some large shadowy shapes moving at the top. After a few more kicks the picture became clearer: six huge black and white mantas were circling over the pinnacle of the coral structure. Dave's and my eyes met in an astonished glance.

We approached slowly, not wanting to scare them, and lurked near the bottom of the bommie, our heads tilted back as we stared up at the sight of those surreal creatures soaring in a ballet above us, blocking the bluewashed sunlight with their great wings. They circled over and under each other in tight formation, amazingly never seeming to touch each other, while the small cleaner fish picnic'd on their parasites. Larger fish were circling farther out, hoping to catch some leftovers, I guess. We noticed that several of the mantas were sporting remoras, and one had a remora glued to his head, right beside his eye. I would have liked to have plucked it off for him.

Slowly, over several minutes, we swam our way up the bommie, getting closer and closer to the action without disturbing it. As our heads became level with the top of the bommie we were buffeted by the liquid turbulence generated by all those great wings beating together. It was the best, the most glorious of massages.

We stayed there for forty-five lost minutes; we were there when the other divers from our boat found us and came to share in the spectacle. We stayed as the others ascended, out of air, to snorkel on the surface above and enjoy the show from a different perspective. The mantas continuously swooped down over our heads - it was as if they enjoyed being tickled by the bubbles of our exhaled breaths. Two of them caressed my head with their great wings as they flew over.

It was with the greatest regret that we finally ascended ourselves. We had stayed so long that I was down to 600 psi even before my safety stop, so I borrowed D's octo (the guy doesn’t breathe!) to do our three minutes as 15 feet. Even with all the excitement I knew I better get on the boat with the required 500. As we lightly held on to each others bc's and hung there in the shallow water, the mantas swooped below us, inviting us to come back down to play, now that the housekeeping was finished. I was sad that we couldn't.

I will never forget that glorious dive that clocked in at 64 heartwarming minutes, and I will never forget the magnificent mantas at Heron Island.

(sigh) Back to reality. So the final synopsis : if you're looking for steep and deep, with no restrictions but those dictated by your computer, this probably won't be the place for you. But if you are into big critters, knock-out corals, easy diving and/or photography, this is a fantastic place. We will most definitely go back one day.

 

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