Snorkelling Wildside Central, Norman Reef

This post is about snorkelling Wildside Central on Norman Reef, located on the Coral Coast on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

If you haven’t already, make sure you read about snorkelling the outer Great Barrier Reef. It gives details about the Great Barrier Reef, and Norman Reef, getting there and the tour operator we chose. 

Visiting the Norman Reef, our tour operator took us to three spots: Norman Fingers, Playgrounds/Shark Mountain and Wildside Central.

Snorkelling Wildside Central

Wildside Central is great for divers but crappy for snorkellers. Wildside Central gave us a good idea of what’s happening to the reef, from cyclones and climate change. There was plenty of dead coral in the shallows. We asked the staff to allow us to to leave the 80 metre snorkelling zone, with a staff member with a lifebuoy, so that we could at least see some great corals and marine life on the other side of the mooring.

Conditions

Not so good. Visibility was poor – it didn’t make for taking good photographs. Other than that, the current was very very strong at times. It was advisable for snorkellers who aren’t strong swimmers to wear a life jacket. If anything, the tour operator can see your bright jacket in the slim chance that you find yourself floating away in the current and they’ll be able to collect you. It’s why they have the 80 metre snorkelling zone, so that they can keep an eye on the snorkellers.

The reef

The Wildside Central part of Norman Reef was bare in most places and it wasn’t a good place to snorkel. The photos below should give you an idea of the lack of corals, the growth of algae and just plain bareness of the reef. The divers were better off because there was plenty to see on the dropoffs. 

It was seriously disappointing – and sad.

A very sad state of affairs …

Fish and coral

There were still plenty of fish poking around and we negotiated with the tour operator to let us swim out of the 80 metre snorkelling zone with a staff member with a life buoy. Ultimately it meant we were able to explore some lovely corals.

For one of our 6.30am snorkels before breakfast, the first thing we saw was a big school of Humphead Maori Wrasse (unfortunately our pics are too dark and aren’t worth showing here). It was surprising just how big they are! But, as you’ll see in the pics below, we came across palette surgeonfish, goldband fusilier, scissortail seargeants and schools of humpnose unicorn. Other beauties were sling-jaw wrasse and black tip sharks amongst others. It was very exciting to see the turtles nonchalantly mosey around. And of course, there were the black tips sharks, something I’m (Mel) still getting used to.

A mixture of fish and corals past the 80 metre snorkelling zone our tour operator took us to.

Our recommendation

Our recommendation is based on a comparison with other sites we’ve visited, the snorkelling guide, the abundance of corals and fish life. It also includes environmental factors such as damage to corals by tourists and/or climate change. 

We’d give this snorkel 1 out of 5. But you have to see it just to see the damage from climate change.

Other places we visited on Norman Reef are:

• Fingers, and
• Playgrounds/Shark Mountain.

Don’t think that Wildside Central is typical of the Norman Reef, it’s not. Both Fingers and Playgrounds/Shark Mountain were spectacular.