Heron Island lies 72 kilometres off the Queensland coast at the lower end of the Great Barrier Reef. It was discovered by the British ship HMS Fly in 1843 and named after its large number of resident reef herons. It became a turtle canning factory in 1925 but predictably turtle numbers went into a steep decline making the venture economically unviable. Then in 1973 P&O Australia purchased a lease for Heron Island and the island was developed into the present day tourist resort. 

In May 2015 Mary and I spent five nights on Heron Island meeting up with Jake Miller, former dive instructor at Lets Go Adventures, my local Nelson Bay dive centre. Jake had become an instructor at the local Dive Centre, Heron Island Marine Centre and our expectation was that we would enjoy four days of diving and snorkelling with Jake, this to include a specific goal of mine: finding and photographing epaulette sharks. Our checkout dive went well and Jake showed us a manta ray, turtles and white tipped Reef Sharks. Afterwards Jake and I snorkelled for two and a quarter hours in a fruitless search for epaulette sharks. 

The next day Mary and I had enjoyed an “I Spy” semi-submersible ride spotting several mantas through an underwater viewing platform as we passed Heron Bommie. Unfortunately when Jake and dived Heron Bommie an hour later, there were no mantas to be seen but there were plenty of turtles and white tipped reef sharks. After that Jake and I dived North Bommie but underwater visibility had deteriorated to 7 to 8 metres. Jake posed for a “rodeo shot” and then put a cleaning shrimp into his mouth, inviting it to clean particles of dead skin around his lips.  Jake and I also looked for epaulette sharks in the shallows but without success. Unfortunately there was to be no more diving, southerly winds of 20 to 30 knots ensureing all diving for the remainder of our holiday was cancelled and Mary and I then endured a memorably rough sea crossing back to the Queensland mainland.