The coral spawning at the end of November created an abundance of food throughout the entire length of the Great Barrier Reef, which in turn created the ideal environment for the inhabitants of the marine environment to reproduce. We saw a large amount of marine spawning in October and early November.  Now, in December, we have been watching the fabulous results appear.  Hosts of juveniles are inhabiting our favourite dive sites.  Everywhere we look there are baby Coris’, tiny Clownfish and mini Coral Trout.  Tucked inside the corals are amazing baby Lionfish, tiny Moray Eels and even little Porcelain Crabs.

The visibility has held up all month with regular days of 15 metres plus, providing great days with sighting of Malabar Cod, huge Coral Trout and even Manta Rays at so many of our favourite sites, as well as some new ones, including the awesome new one “Sunny Rocks”, which is so pristine, it feels untouched and just takes your compressed air away!!

Towards the end of the month we were excited to find that the resident female White Tip Reef Shark at Whaler Reef has given birth to a brood of 12 babies.  It is so amazing to see them swimming through the corals, around the bommies and across the sand patches at Whaler Reef.

December has also been a great time to watch Cuttlefish spawning: the males standing off against each other whilst trying to attract all the females.  After which we watched them lovingly placing their eggs into the Acropora Corals whilst Angelfish plunder their precious eggs at every opportunity.

Haba Dive was honoured to host the Port Douglas Surf Life Saving “Nippers”, parents and friends aboard Evolution during December.  They picked a perfect day to visit the reef and all had a great time.  We are sure they will agree that the day at the reef was a great way to end to 2007.