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Trawleys Reef

Submitted by scott on Tue, 11/27/2012 - 21:00
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Tylodina corticalia (Small Umbrella Shell) - Trawleys Reef
Trawleys Reef
Trawleys Reef
Sponges (PORIFERA) - Trawleys Reef
Jorunna parva (Bristly Jorunna) - Trawleys Reef
Chromodoris loringi (Loring's Chromodoris) - Trawleys Reef
Ascidians (Class ASCIDIACEA) - Trawleys Reef
Triphyllozoon moniliferum (Lace Bryozoan) - Trawleys Reef

Trawleys Reef is off Little Head between Whale and Palm Beaches. It is a well known reef for sport fishing but I am not sure that it is dived a lot. I had heard stories in the past of the Brisbane Water Aqualung Club (BWAC) diving it but I am not sure. The area south of Broken Bay off the Northern beaches of Sydney was largely unexplored to me so I have been keen to do more diving in the area.

As I sounded across the reef it was clearly quite flat and seemed to lack the structure that would get divers overly excited about going for a look. Whilst the reef structure looked uninspiring from the sounder there were clearly plenty of fish around. I was constantly sounding over large schools as I was sounding around looking for a spot to dive. I eventually found a spot on the reef that I can only describe as similar to what you would see when sounding over a wreck. A little structure on the bottom but large schools of fish at multiple levels over it. On the assumption that there must be something hold the fish there we decided to dive it to have a look.

Sure enough their were plenty of Yellowtail Scad just under the surface and then a large school of One Spot Pullers over the reef. The reef itself was a gently slope that lacked any dramatic structure but it was made up from plenty of large boulders which provided plenty of places to poke around in and hold interest in the site. The reef is 28m deep where we anchored and it probably slopes up another 3-4m.

The GPS mark for the site is S33º36.185' E151º21.034' (WGS84 hdddºmm.mmm'). To dive the site we just noted the depth of the anchor and navigated along the reef slope ensuring we came back past the anchor at the correct depth.

The fish life encountered at this site includes:

  • Black tipped Bullseye (Pempheris affinis)
  • Roughy (Trachichthys australis)
  • White Ear Parma (Parma microlepis)
  • Half Banded Seaperch (Hypoplectrodes maccullochi)
  • Yellow-Tail Scad (Trachurus novaezelandiae)
  • Blue Wrasse-Grouper (Achoerodus viridis)
  • Maori Wrasse (Ophthalmolepis lineolata)
  • Eastern Hulafish (Trachinops taeniatus)
  • One-spot Puller (Chromis hypsilepis)
  • Sweep (Scorpis lineolata)

More photos and information to follow as I explore this site further.