Australian Shark and Ray Photography Expedition

May 2024

Easterly Winds

My first stop was supposed to be in Nelson Bay to look for angel sharks, but a strong easterly wind forced me to head further north. I was blown out again in Byron Bay, so I gave up on NSW completely and headed into Queensland.

I finally got a couple of dives in at North Stradbroke Island, where I hoped to dive world famous Manta Bommie; a good spot for Bottlenose Wedgefish (Rhynchobatus australiae). Frustratingly, some of the other guests on the dive boat were not experienced enough to handle the currents at that site so we headed to a more tranquil site called Flat Rock. We did run into some banded and spotted wobbegong sharks and a lot of eagle rays, but nothing new that I could shoot for the database.
The day wasn’t a total loss, because I gathered some important intel about Australian cownose rays, which are apparently quite common in the area during the colder winter months.

Heron Island, a Mecca for Rays!

That evening, I drove north to Gladstone where I boarded a ferry to Heron Island. Heron is a gorgeous little jungle covered bird sanctuary about 70 miles off the coast of southern Queensland. When the captain announced that we may have to return to port because of the wind, my heart sank, but we made it to the island and the sharks and rays were waiting!

There are numerous dive sites around the island, but I soon realized that the best way to encounter sharks and rays at Heron is by snorkeling around the jetty at dawn and in the shallows of Shark Bay at high tide.

The island is teaming with batoids, including porcupine rays, schools of spotted eagle rays, pink whiprays, and cowtail stingrays, but to me, the most interesting rays are the giant guitarfish (glaucostegus typus) which are unusually abundant here.

Common Epaulette Sharks

Everywhere I snorkeled, the ray action was fantastic, but my primary reason to visit Heron Island was to photograph a Common Epaulette Shark (Hemiscyllium ocellatum). Epaulettes are extremely abundant on the shallow reefs around the island. At low tide, they come out of hiding and swim along the sand channels between the coral heads in search of invertebrates. The water is too shallow to snorkel, but if you’re careful, you can walk through the maze of channels and photograph the tiny sharks swimming around, just by lowering your camera into the water.

This was my eighth epaulette shark species. The ninth and final one on my list, lives on the north side of West Papua; not an easy region travel to, but I’m hoping to make a pit stop there in 2025.

Bottlenose Wedgefish!

During one of my snorkeling sessions around the jetty, I came across a very relaxed Bottlenose/Australian Wedgefish (Rhynchobatus australiae). This was the species I had hoped to shoot earlier in the trip at Manta Bommie, so it was great to stumble upon one at Heron Island.

Magnetic Island and the Yongala Wreck

After three nights on Heron Island, I drove 800km north to Townsville and hopped on a charter to the famous Yongala Wreck; reputedly, one of the best places in the world to look for pelagic Smalleye Stingrays. Conditions were pretty good, but sadly I did not see an elusive smalleye before I had to move on.

After the dive, I caught the last ferry to Magnetic Island to look for Blackspotted and Brown Whiprays (Maculabatis astra and toshi). Both species have been spotted there, but they favour shallow, murky water and mangroves, so I knew my chances of running into either species on a short trip were pretty slim. Plus, northern Queensland is saltwater crocodile territory. Even on the relatively clear water beaches there are signs warning people not to go swimming, so I was quite nervous about splashing around in the soupy shallows at the edge of the mangrove estuaries where the rays would likely be. In the end, the viz was so poor that I could not snorkel anyway.

While gingerly exploring an unnamed creek on the north side of Magnetic Island, I found a spot that was teeming with juvenile Mangrove Whiprays. The rays were working their way along the bank, waiting for the rising tide to flood new spots where they could dig for food.
It was impossible to get close to them on snorkel, so I sat like a statue in the mud, ignoring the mosquitos, waiting for the rays to inadvertently swim past my half submerged camera. It was a challenging shoot, but fun to watch the rays hunting for their lunch.
Later, I returned to the same creek with a topside camera fitted with a polarizer. This turned out to be the best way to get good shots of this skittish little species.

Maskrays in the Exmouth Gulf

Once back in Townsville, I dropped off my one-way rental and flew across Australia to Perth, then drove 1300km north to sunny Exmouth.

Most divers visit Exmouth to swim with whale sharks or to dive Ningaloo Reef, but I wanted to look for endemic maskrays which are more abundant in the Exmouth Gulf, on the east side of Australia’s North West Cape.

There are three species of maskrays found in the region: The Australian Bluespotted Maskray (Neotrygon australiae) which looks a lot like most other bluespotted maskrays, the Ningaloo Maskray (Neotrygon ningalooensis) which is expertly camouflaged to blend in with the scruffy seaweed that builds up in gulf’s sandy bays, and the Painted Maskray (Neotrygon leylandi) which is arguably the most beautiful of three and is covered in an intricate snowflake-like pattern.

Local intel suggested I should concentrate my search around Bundegi Beach, so I spent long days transecting the coast, but it was not until dusk that the rays became active enough to venture out of concealment. Then it was a race against time, because there are fishermen’s fish cleaning stations along the shore, and the area is known for tiger sharks, so I did not want to be out after dark. At one point I did see a large dark shape, but nothing came close enough for me to identify.

Australian Whiprays

While chasing maskrays, I did a 2km snorkel along a deserted stretch of beach to reach a large stand of mangrove that looked promising. Although I did not see any maskrays in that area, once I got to the murky mangrove, I ran into a handful of enormous Australian Whiprays (Himantura australis). They were as surprised to see me as I was them, and immediately scattered, but not before I had snapped a couple of shots of one resting on a patch of coral rubble.

Banded Numbfish

The final new species I wanted to track down was a banded numbfish; a tiny species of electric ray only found between Shark Bay and Port Hedland, and very rarely encountered.
In the last few years, there have been a handful of sightings on the west side of the peninsula, so I spent my final couple of days in Cape Range National Park, snorkeling along pristine beaches that are protected from the violent Indian Ocean swells by a fringing coral reef.

It was an exhausting process exploring the inner reef and sand flats due to an unrelenting riptide that threatened to drag me into open water through one of the many channels carved through the barrier reef by the tides.
After 8hrs of furious kicking (while fruitlessly scanning for rays), weary, cold, and dehydrated, I was about 300m from shore when darkness began to fall. By this time, any other visitors that I had run into earlier in the day were long gone, and I began to feel very alone and vulnerable.

The moon was completely obscured by dark storm clouds that chose this moment to release their rain load, accompanied by a stiff breeze that kicked up an uncomfortable surface chop.
With no artificial lights emanating from the deserted shore, I could no longer tell which direction the beach was, so I navigated by my wrist compass, hoping that I was staying far enough from the reef break, where the tug of the outward current would be too hard for me to fight.
This was also tiger shark territory, which made me very jumpy, but I stayed as calm as I could and kept searching, aware that this was best time to encounter the species I was looking for, and possibly the species I wasn’t.

Time passed in total blackness. The only illumination was the narrow beam of my spotlight drawing lines of light across the sand 3m below me. And then I saw it; a tiny ray, smaller than my hand, emerging from the sand 2m below me. The current pulled me away and I almost lost it, but I kicked back into position and watched the tiny batoid as it moved tenuously over the substrate.

Calming my breathing, I duck-dived down to the little ray and started shooting. Before long, I saw another and another. They were quite docile and easy to approach, leading to a nice selection of images.
Initially, I thought they must be juveniles, but a couple were clearly gravid, as indicated by the visible bulges in their paired uteri.

Deciding not to press my luck any further, I kicked back in the direction that I hoped was the beach, and dragged myself back to my car.

Australia and New Zealand 2025

Feeling a huge sense of accomplishment, the next day, I drove another 1300km back to Perth and flew home.

On my next trip to Australia, I’ll be hunting for endemic sharks and rays around Perth, Melbourne, and Tasmania, and continuing on to New Zealand to look for a couple more elasmos.
Look out for a trip report in March 2025.