On the Strand Jetty in Townsville is the ‘Ocean Siren’.

“The Ocean Siren is a 4m-high illuminated sculpture modelled on Takoda Johnson, a young indigenous girl from the Wulgurukaba tribe. At night, the sculpture’s changing surface colour visually represents daily average water temperature data relayed from the weather station installed at Davies Reef on the Great Barrier Reef. The young girl holds in her hands a traditional Baler shell, an indigenous communication device. She holds it as a flare or a siren, a warning signal that warm seas could be a risk to the Great Barrier Reef”.   Jason deCaires Taylor 2019. You can read more about it here.

MOUA is on the Great Barrier Reef at John Brewer Reef a 3 hour boat trip from Townsville. The day was perfect, sunny, no wind and the water was as flat as we have ever seen it.

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On the way we picked up someone’s porta loo that was bobbing in the ocean.

Prior to booking we had rung the company specifically to see if it was worth visiting MOUA as snorkelers. It is well recognised as a diving site, but we were concerned we may not see much from the surface. We were assured we would. Sadly that wasn’t the case even with such great water clarity. These pictures are of what we could see.

Thankfully, the John Brewer Reef was beautiful, as is all the Great Barrier Reef. And the corals were spectacular colours.

Please turn your sound on to watch this beautiful compilation of our day’s videos, edited and put to music by Tim. (Music from the Nutcracker Suite, “Waltz of the Flowers”, composed by Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.) Full screen is best.

Cheers til next time, Helen and Tim