Deborah's travels: John Brewer Reef

The John Brewer Reef is due east of Magnetic Island, which makes it east of Townsville, the largest city in northern Queensland. It was selected as the site of the Museum of Underwater Art in Australia. It doesn’t have an indigenous land claim, and the community and the governments of the area got behind the project. “The museum of underwater art is said to be the only underwater art museum in the southern hemisphere. By sharing stories of the Great Barrier Reef and the local aboriginal people, the museum hopes to inspire reef conservation and help to preserve this natural wonder.”

There are nine installations of sculptures that have been attached to the ocean floor at this site - one is called the glasshouse, and the others are based on selected people from the area metamorphosing into corals. They are all concrete, to encourage coral and marine species formation on them. The glasshouse is lower, suitable for diving, while the other sculptures are about six metres down on the edge of the reef. The site was also selected because it didn’t have a very high number of corals and fishes. Since the museum has been established, the area of the museam has attracted many fish and corals. From our visit, glasshouse appears to be being used by a number of larger predator fish as a home.

We visited both sides of the lagoon (half the museum is on each side), and I accompanied the afternoon trip to the second side. When I plunged into the water, the divers were already below me checking out the glasshouse.

Soon I was passing an incredible number of sea slugs on the sea floor. Unfortunately they were too far away to photograph well. After a while, I came to the coral. I mainly snorkelled on the edge of the reef.