Wooli is a small village on the edge of the earth, or so it seems after weaving along a third-rate sealed road (and dodging kangaroos) towards the NSW coast. Wooli’s harbour is on a river, and Easter Monday our group of nine divers donned lifejackets for the treacherous crossing of the sandbar at the river’s mouth. Captain Stan (owner and divemaster of Wooli Dive) timed his exit through the crashing waves, missed three surfers who were riding the swells, and took us 30 minutes over a rough ocean to the old volcanic crater of North Solitary Island. 
Stan claims that North Solitary features the largest congregation of anemones in the world, and the bottom was a virtual blanket of multi-coloured anemone, rolling over the rocks. And this means thousands of brightly coloured anemonefish, each guarding their own little patch: Barrier Reef anemonefish predominate the landscape, blue-lipped anemonefish in several places, and a few blackbacked anemonefish scattered about. 
Kathryn and I also noted the presence of several old wife and red morwong, straight out of the “Sea Fishes of Southern Australia” book, and a reminder of those diving days with the AUSC near Adelaide. So, while the other divers went looking for pelagics and larger fare, we just spent two dives in the Anemone Garden and took dozens of photos: red bigeye, Klein’s butterflyfish, sawtail surgeonfish, dotted sweetlips and the gold-spotted sweetlips, three-spot humbug, hump-head batfish, dusky butterflyfish, black-tipped bullseye, green moon wrasse, Eastern blue groper, red squirrelfish, banded cardinalfish, and then a small school of "Dora" (a blue tang, for those “Finding Nemo” fans). Thank goodness "Bruce" wasn't around to spoil the party atmosphere!David Ford
5 April, 2010
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