‘Out on a swim’ is a coral reef blog that tells the stories of the characters who live under the waves and what has caught my eye when ‘out on a swim’ in the lagoons of Norfolk Island. It is also a record of the difficulties Norfolk Island’s reef faces, like many others around the world, as a result of the poor water quality that has been allowed to flow onto it.
This page shows the most recent blog posts. For the complete catalogue, visit the ‘Out on a swim index’ page.
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Where the land meets the sea, Emily Bay, Norfolk Island
Norfolk Island’s draft Waterway and Wetland Strategy will guide work for the next ten years. I support its intent, but it needs to be clear, practical and measurable – joining the dots from ridge to reef so we know whether public money is improving water quality and helping the reef.
Read MoreThis coral in the Kingston lagoon is overgrown with algae after succumbing to white syndrome* (12 October 2024)
Let the pictures do the talking. This is the reality on Norfolk Island’s reef today, laid out in a two-minute video.
Read MoreThe methane-busting algae, Asparagopsis taxiformis, Norfolk Island
A small red seaweed on Norfolk’s reef has become part of a much bigger story. Asparagopsis taxiformis can look like a delicate red feather duster or, at another stage of its life cycle, like a tiny cottony pom-pom. It is beautiful, easily overlooked, and now being used in the cattle industry to help reduce methane emissions. This post looks at the reef oddity behind the low-methane beef story – and why repeated local observation can be more useful than it first appears.
Read MoreAn aatuti guarding his eggs, Norfolk Island
Aatuti are bold little algae farmers, but how does one of their farms begin? Over the past year, I have been following several coral patches as small white scars became algal footholds, then larger defended patches. I still cannot say what caused the first wounds, but the photo sequences show something fascinating: on a reef where algae is already gaining ground, even tiny changes on the coral surface can become part of a much bigger story.
Read MoreView across the cricket pitch to Old Military Barracks, Kingston, Norfolk Island
A recent Australian Government media release presents investment, monitoring and catchment works as progress on Norfolk Island’s water quality. Some of that work is useful, and some of it was badly needed. But activity is not the same as proven improvement. This post looks at Kingston sewerage, wetlands, cattle, acid sulfate soils, groundwater and reef health, and asks whether Emily Bay and Slaughter Bay are actually being better protected.
Read MoreBluespine unicornfish, Naso unicornis. Note the two scalpels at the base of its tail. These fish have been found to live to at least 50 years old. Norfolk Island
Surgeonfish are named for the sharp little scalpels near their tails, but on Norfolk’s reef their more useful work happens at the other end. Pencil surgeonfish, bluespine unicornfish and their relatives help browse algae across the reef – a small daily job that becomes very valuable on an algae-rich lagoon reef like ours.
Read MoreWhile setting my research cams last week, I swam into what looked like an underwater snowstorm. It appeared to be the aftermath of a mass moulting event, with large numbers of tiny, translucent shrimp-like exoskeletons drifting together near the surface.
Read MoreCorals in western Slaughter Bay, close to the Kingston Pier Dredging Project
This correspondence with DCCEEW is about more than one dredging proposal. It is about what happens when an ecologically distinctive place is assessed through standard tools that do not always make its most important values easy to see. I am publishing it here because that is something we need to be aware of, both on Norfolk Island and more broadly in Australia.
Read MoreCorals in western Slaughter Bay, close to the Kingston Pier Dredging Project
Kingston dredging is edging closer, and the paper trail is growing. This post brings together earlier correspondence with the Department and the latest media release so readers can see what has been asked, what has been answered, and what still remains unclear about the project, its rationale, and the protections proposed for the reef.
Read MoreThe colony in 2025, showing the vivid green colour when healthy (and the surface texture I’m hoping will eventually support a confident ID)
Green Mountain – the name I give this coral in my database – is a coral I’ve photographed for years as I swim past. Then I found its backstory in the Norfolk Island National Parks archives: a rough map, reused paper, a note in the margin – ‘still thriving’. That’s how baselines begin.
Read MoreSlaughter Bay, Norfolk Island
The Kingston dredging proposal on Norfolk Island raises a bigger question than dredging alone: how well do standard environmental assessment tools capture the real significance of a remote and unusual reef system like Norfolk Island’s?
Read MoreHammer corals, Norfolk Island
Hammer corals have unique tentacles that are large, fleshy, and tubular; these terminate in a ‘T’-shaped, hammer-head or anchor. Beneath all these softly waving tentacles is an extraordinary skeleton structure, which helps define them as a large polyp stony coral.
Read MoreJames Stuart’s three-striped butterflyfish, Chaetodon tricinctus. Image courtesy of the Mitchell Library, State Library of New South Wales; PXD 134
Norfolk Island’s fish fauna reflects both connection and isolation. Some species may arrive from elsewhere as drifting larvae, some populations appear to persist locally, and some fishes known from islands on either side of Norfolk have still not been recorded here. This post looks at what old survey work, regional checklists and genetic studies suggest about that more complicated picture.
Read MoreA juvenile flowerpot coral (Goniopora)
They look alike at first glance, but Alveopora and flowerpot corals are not the same. The easiest way to tell them apart is to count the tentacles.
Read MoreFlooding on the Kingston Common, Norfolk Island, 5 November 2020
We now have the 2025 Norfolk Island reef health report, so I’m taking the opportunity to translate it into plain English here. Sadly, it’s more of the same story in Emily and Slaughter Bays – a reef that can cope with some stress, but is being asked to cope with too much, too often.
Read MoreHalimeda with a bright green segment at/near dawn – chloroplasts concentrated in the new growth
Halimeda is a calcareous green reef alga that forms new segments overnight, shifts from white to bright green by dawn, then pales again as calcification begins. A quick look at one of the reef’s smartest algae.
Read MoreA bubble-tip anemone claims its real estate
Reef space is finite, and nothing ‘shares’ it politely. This short photo essay follows one bubble-tip anemone on Norfolk Island’s lagoonal reef as it holds a crater surrounded by Montipora. The coral builds a rim; the anemone holds the centre. Six years apart, and the argument continues.
Read MoreQuality Row, Kingston, Norfolk Island, January 2025. The year began deep in drought.
Norfolk Island’s reef in 2025 – a year in review. From NOAA bleaching alerts and the UN Ocean Conference ‘Warning Signs’ series to post-drought coral recovery and a wet winter revealed in long-term rainfall records, this post captures the wins, losses, and shifting baselines beneath the lagoon. Includes reef photos, highlights from Reef Relief, and standout stories from 2025 – from coral health and disease to boxfish biomimicry, sea urchins, nudibranchs, and heat-stress signals in anemones.
Read MoreForeshore vegetation and historic structures at Kingston and Arthur’s Vale Historic Area abut Slaughter and Emily Bays.
Herbicide use near Emily, Slaughter and Cemetery Bays raises questions about inshore reef health, heritage land management, and environmental protection on Norfolk Island.
Read MoreI took these photographs this morning, Monday, 8 December 2025. A few warm days of settled weather, little cloud cover and low tides in the hottest part of the day have led to some early bleaching on our reef. Bleaching doesn’t always mean death for our corals, but it is concerning to have this so early in the summer season. Fingers crossed the conditions don’t last and the reef can recover.
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