Carl Roessler - Report on Rowley Shoals!

My first adventure cruise to Rowley Shoals, 166 miles west of the town of Broome in Western Australia discovered a great find.

Rowley Shoals is composed of three small atolls rising nearly to the surface from the deep ocean. There are some modest currents flowing generally from the Northeast resulting in some astonishing density of marine life along the eastern face of the atolls.

One type of diving found here is on a series of vertical walls; from 80-140 foot depths, they are carpeted with gorgeous soft corals in an artist's palette of colors. These walls are so rich that they rival the best of the Red Sea and Fiji, which come as a big surprise to me.

A second type of dive is on the northern tips of the atolls: prolific fish species, more walls and caverns of soft color. Just to spice up the dive, we also had several hundred 80 pound jacks swarm around us - and a whale shark to ride . . .

A third, wild, type of dive was to drift into the atoll through a channel when the clear ocean water was flooding in. What fun! What marine life!

And finally, we had aboard the sleek cruiser True North a brand new shark cage. After putting out some bait for two days without attracting a tiger shark,we set up inside the beautiful lagoon.

Suddenly, about noon of our last day, the immense shadow of a tiger shark prowled along the coral rim of the atoll where we could clearly see it, but it obviously wasn't hungry. We tried to track it in a chase boat, but it eluded us.

All in all, an incredible new destination for an elite, small audience of shark divers. Anyone serious about photography will find new wonders here!

Be sure to visit the Photo Gallery pertaining to Rowley Shoals!

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