Lighthouse Bommie

You go down the site's own descent line rather than swim to the mark. The bommies sit roughly 100 metres out from the lighthouse in 14 to 16 metres, a group of coral heads on sand rather than one pinnacle, and the dive is spent low and still around them. That is the point of the site: the rays come back to the same coral to be cleaned by wrasse, so there is no reason to swim anywhere.

The mantas are here all year, and the resort describes animals around four metres from wingtip to wingtip gliding over divers' heads and returning to their favourite bommie for another pass. Around them the sand does its own work — garden eels standing out of it, cowtail rays and shovel-nosed sharks tucked under it. Trevally cut in and out of the glassfish covering the coral, and green turtles rest in beds of soft coral.

Smaller residents round out the dive: coral trout, moray eels, schooling barracuda and small whitetip reef sharks are all logged on these heads. The whole island lies inside the Green Zone of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park, the highest classification the park authority designates, so nothing is taken and nothing is handled — with animals that come to you, staying put is also what keeps them there.