Today was one of those days that when you look back on it, it’s hard to believe everything that happened only happened in one day. We started the day off watching the phenomena of Montgomery Reef come 3 metres out of the ocean. At over 400 square kilometres, Montgomery reef is the largest inshore reef in the world. It is such an amazing thing to watch as the tide lowers because as the water level drops drastically it creates an optical illusion that the reef itself is coming out of the ocean, rather than the water lowering around it . Today we had an 8 meter tidal range and the reef sure came out of the ocean, with enough water gushing out to create what looked like waterfalls coming off the side of the reef as we travelled into a channel on the reef. We saw a variety of birds taking advantage of the newly accessible food sources and we lost count of how many sea turtles we saw.
We relocated in the National Geographic Orion to Raft Point for our afternoon expedition. When we went over to the beach, where we were welcomed by some of the local traditional owners of the area. We were lucky enough to be brought up to see the famous Wadjina art by the traditional owners and were able to learn about the history behind the Wadjina art and what it means to their people.
It was such a fantastic day with two very different and memorable expeditions.
