Numerous green and hawksbill turtles also feed and shelter around the island, and there is a busy cleaning station where the turtles queue up to get their shells scrapped clean of algae by surgeonfish
Red-girdled Glossodoris nudibranch
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or ten minutes I had been searching the sand. Although I was finding many wonderful muck critters like mantis shrimps, nudibranchs and shrimp gobies, I was after a far more elusive prize. Suddenly I spotted it, a small and wellcamouflaged cephalopod, an amazing flamboyant cuttlefish. At first it was a dull brown colour, which helped it blend into the background, but then it started to hunt for prey and changed its colours to a patchwork of vivid purple, white and yellow. You would expect this encounter to happen at one of the famous muck sites of Indonesia or the Philippines, but I was diving in Queensland at a wonderful site you may never have heard of – Mudjimba Island. Queensland’s Sunshine Coast is a popular diving destination, with two dive shops - Scuba World and Sunreef - offering boat dives out of Mooloolaba. Most divers that visit the region come to dive one site - the scuttled navy guided missile destroyer HMAS Brisbane. While the ship is a sensational dive, it is not the only dive site off the Sunshine Coast, as the area also has brilliant reef diving at sites like the Gneerings Reefs
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and Murphys Reef. But for me, the area’s best dive site - and also its least dived - is a small island north of Mooloolaba, the magic Mudjimba Island. Located only one kilometre offshore, Mudjimba is so close to the coast that surfers and kayakers paddle across to the island. Some keen divers also paddle across on kayaks to explore the island. Unfortunately, being close to the coast and only a few kilometres from the mouth of the Maroochy River, the visibility is not always great. As such, Mudjimba is mainly used as a back-up dive when other sites are washed out or for student training, which means this is one of the most under-rated dive sites in southern Queensland. The rocky reef that surrounds Mudjimba Island is covered in corals – hard corals, soft corals, black corals, sponges, sea whips, gorgonians and ascidians. These corals flourish in the shallow water around the island, in depths from 1m-5m, and continue down the reef slope that drops to 12m. Beyond these coral gardens is sand and rubble, which makes the island a fascinating mix of reef and muck, with a maximum depth of 15m. While you can dive right around the island, the most-popular dive sites are on its southern and western sides.
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