Out on A Swim

‘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.

This blog is rated in the Top 20 Coral Reef Blogs in the world.

A juvenile Hawksbill sea turtle, *Eretmochelys imbricata,* inside Emily Bay lagoon, Norfolk Island, listed as critically endangered, according to the IUCN Red List, and vulnerable under the EPBC Act

'Barometers of life' – National Threatened Species Day

September 7, 2024

Today's National Threatened Species Day post discusses the conundrum of Australia's threatened species list and the IUCN Red List as they relate to vulnerable and threatened species here on Norfolk Island in the Marine Park. How, for example, do we offer protections to something that hasn't been formally identified yet, let alone listed as threatened?

A Norfolk Island endemic species, the Norfolk Island blenny, *Parablennius serratolineatus*

Atlas of Living Australia recognises iNaturalist observations for Norfolk Island

August 16, 2023

After about 18 months of asking, and with the help of some wonderful people from the data department of the Atlas of Living Australia and the Australian Museum, the Atlas of Living Australia website now recognises iNaturalist citizen science observations for Norfolk Island. Which is definitely something worth celebrating!

For the sake of our grandchildren

March 26, 2023

What will my grandson see when he is old enough to snorkel on Norfolk Island’s reef? Will there be anything left as I know it? Or will he think it is all great because of that hoary old phenomenon called ‘shifting baseline syndrome’? This record of all my photos and observations will give him some idea of what we had in our bays in the 2020s.

Tiptoeing through the government silos

March 19, 2023

In the 1960s we had reports voicing concerns around water quality, but nothing was done. When the Commonwealth of Australia’s EPBC Act came into force in 1999, nothing was done. Surely it is high time the issues of failing and inadequate infrastructure, deficient Norfolk Island laws and unsatisfactory protections were fixed once and for all?

Acropora coral overgrown with algae, Norfolk Island

We can't say we weren't warned

March 18, 2023

Today’s post for the March focus on Norfolk Island’s reef is a letter. Just that, and nothing more. The authors of this letter have very generously given me permission to reproduce it here. In it, Dr Kellie Pendoley and Dr Martin Goldsmith warn us about the future of Emily Bay. Written nearly eight years ago they give the coral reef habitat five to ten years before it is gone as we know it.

Bait fish, Emily Bay, Norfolk Island, September 2020

Where have all the bait fish gone?

March 2, 2023

For 2 March I've chosen to feature a ball of bait fish photographed in September 2020. There is something awe-insipring about being encircled by a huge seething mass of tiny fish all moving in unison. It takes your breath away. The question is, where have these bait balls gone?

May 28, 2026

A shrimp storm

While 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.

Kingston dredging: what happens when a reef does not fit the framework

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.

May 24, 2026

Kingston dredging: the project advances, the questions remain

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.

May 17, 2026

The lime-green coral in Slaughter Bay – a 40-year paper trail

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.

April 5, 2026

What Norfolk Island’s reef tells us about environmental blind spots

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?

March 30, 2026

Hammer coral time!

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.

March 24, 2026

Norfolk Island’s fishes: drifters, residents and the ones still missing

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.

March 7, 2026

Alveopora or flowerpot coral – how to tell the difference

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.

February 27, 2026

Norfolk’s lagoonal reef – the 2025 report, in plain English

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.

February 20, 2026

Halimeda’s night shift – why this reef algae changes colour

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.