‘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.
Corals 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 flowerpot coral, Genus Goniopora, Norfolk Island, which I thought was a sea anemone (below)!
This is a thank-you note. Five years after my first Out on a swim post – written with zero marine science quals and a head full of questions – I’m still in the water, now as a PhD candidate, because an extraordinary mix of locals, volunteers, researchers and public servants decided to share what they knew. This is the story of how nature – and a very patient community – became my teachers.
Read MoreAerial image of Kingston Pier and the west end of Slaughter Bay, Norfolk Island. This map includes data from Airbus Imagery from the dates:20/06/2023–12/09/2023.
From Miami to Fiji, from Dubai to tiny village harbours on atolls, dredging near coral reefs has left a long trail of scars – even on ‘small’ projects. This follow-up to last week’s Kingston post walks through real examples of what happened elsewhere, and what that should make us think about before we dig up our own reef.
Read MoreA view to the west of the historic Kingston Pier, which directly adjoins the coral reef lagoon system of Emily and Slaughter Bays. The dredge site is on its east and southern sides.
How much risk are we really taking with the planned dredging at Kingston Pier – and how much protection do our corals actually have on paper? This piece walks through what the federal approval does and doesn’t guarantee, explains why sediment and light matter so much to the reef, and asks the hard questions we need answered before we trade a deeper channel for a shallower future.
Read MoreLone Pine, Emily Bay, Norfolk Island
In Day 3 of this blog post series, published while leaders gather at the UN Ocean Conference in Nice, we see Norfolk Island’s coral reef lagoon quietly delivering a stark warning: recurrent land-based pollution, coral disease, and delayed decisions are dismantling this ecosystem in real time.
Read MoreA view across to the inshore reef, Slaughter Bay, Norfolk Island
A personal reflection on Norfolk Island’s coral reef environment, political denial, and what John Wyndham’s The Kraken Wakes can still teach us about slow-moving disasters — and why this election matters more than ever.
Read MoreA 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
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?
Read MoreA Norfolk Island endemic species, the Norfolk Island blenny, Parablennius serratolineatus
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!
Read MoreMy grandson
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.
Read MoreStunning Emily Bay, Norfolk Island.
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?
Read MoreAcropora coral overgrown with algae, Norfolk Island
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.
Read MoreTiny shells collected from the beach, Norfolk Island 1990s
On Norfolk Island, Australian Marine Parks recently issued a no-take area in our coral reef lagoon habitats. My hope is that with these bans in place, in addition to curbing runaway algal growth, there will be an improvement across the reef ecosystem in a number of different species, with subsequent knock effects for others, including for our molluscs, wrasse and octopus species.
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