Description

Coffs Harbour was originally the home of the Gumbaynggirr tribe. The name was changed by Captain John Korff who was seeking safety from the storm that prevented him from entering the river at Urunga in 1847 and called the place "Korffs Harbour". A spelling mistake when it was gazetted led to the name Coffs Harbour being recorded.

With the arrival of the railway in 1915 & the completion of the link through to Sydney in 1923, the tourism industry in Coffs Harbour developed rapidly. Today Coffs, A small coastal city in New South Wales, is one of the most popular destinations on the New South Wales north coast. Coffs Harbour is blessed with a wonderfully diverse marine life, which makes it a dreamland for divers.

One of the best diving sites is the Solitary Islands, which is located just south of the Great Barrier Reef and north east of Coffs Harbour. The Solitary Islands are the

southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef. The whole area is reserve and made up of

Muttonbird Island, South Solitary, Split Solitary, West Solitary, North West Rocks and North Solitary. The Solitary Islands are good for diving and viewing dolphins, turtles and whale watching between may and June and again in October and November as the whales move south. The Solitary islands cover 100,000 hectares of protected beaches and islands and combined with the mix of warm tropical waters and the cool temperate waters of the south creates a diversity of marine life.

And if you have the training for it, don’t miss the underwater cave Fish Rock, off South West Rocks. This remarkable island, a 25-minute boat ride south-east of South West Rocks, features an underwater cave that runs for some 125 metres right through its middle. You swim into the 12-metre-deep ‘shallow’ entrance, and drop down through two chimneys to a depth of 24 metres, before emerging out to sea. The water is a few degrees warmer inside and for most of the journey you need a torch to pick out Spanish dancers, nudibranches, tropical crayfish and rare reef lobsters. In recent summers, up to 15 giant grey nurse sharks have made their home around the shallowest entrance. Last summer they even swam inside the tunnel. It also has the largest populations of green and loggerhead turtles in the area.

There are more than 30 wrecks to dive: The Wrecks vary greatly from shallow ones with Coral galore, like this picture of Deb on the Fujikawa Maru. The deeper wrecks are not hard to dive, it's like diving in a warm swimming pool. The deep ones do hold some fantastic relics though, from Planes and Tanks on the decks of the Nippo and San Francisco Maru to a Bulldozer and Traytops utes in the Hoki Maru. There is quite alot of fishlife on the wrecks, the deep ones usually have patrolling sharks and Pelagics, whilst the shallow ones have lots of colourfull tropicals.

WDR.