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31/08/2007: "SEA MERMAID ....... Dugong at Corbett Reef"

In the far north of the Great Barrier Reef, Ben Cropp and I followed this sea cow for half an hour rolling tape for a sequence in one of Ben's forthcoming TV documentaries.

For me it was a first-time opportunity to photograph one at close-range. This adult specimen has a mouthful of seagrass.

All around us were perhaps a hundred green turtles scattered over a few kilometers.

Every 100 meters or so a turtle would race from the shallows toward deeper water.

Due to these shallow conditions the movement of the reptile would reveal a wave on the surface making it easy to spot them.

Ben was silently amazed at these numbers. For a man who has spent decades on the sea this says a lot.

Corbett Reef is well out of the tourist travel zones.

The few humans to visit this area are on prawn trawlers, beche-de-mer dive boats, and live lobster fishermen-divers.

The far north of the Queensland coast is a frontier everyone should experience with a boat trip from Cairns to Thursday Island. No longer a cheap journey as in the era of Queen of the Isles.

The empty vastness of the northern east coast of Australia is quite amazing.