Magnetic Island sits just offshore from Townsville, a granite-and-eucalypt hump fringed by some of the most accessible fringing coral reefs on the entire Great Barrier Reef.
The island's fringing reefs are not the vast outer-reef walls that draw divers to the northern Great Barrier Reef — they are smaller, shallower, more accessible, and ecologically more contested, sitting as they do at the intersection of coral, mangrove, and seagrass habitats with the human footprint of a major city just across the water.
What you carry away from a day on Magnetic Island's reefs is the sheer compression of it all.
In a single short swim off Alma Bay you can move over lettuce coral to a cleaning station, watch a blue spotted ray lift off the sand, and find a nudibranch smaller than your fingernail on the underside of a coral rubble piece.
From the Geoffrey Bay wreck you can see pelagic barracuda and a benthic wobbegong within thirty seconds of each other.
Lawrence Scheele is an author, marine biologist, underwater photographer, filmmaker and musician.
He hopes to inspire people about the lesser known species of the oceans.
Here's your chance to meet Lawrence, hear more about his book — A Field Guide to the Marine Life of Magnetic Island, Great Barrier Reef — and view his latest film — Hidden Treasure Magnetic Island — an incredible journey exploring the hidden underwater world of of the Island, narrated by his colleague, Dr. Leon Zann.
Deception Bay Environmental Hub
7 Joseph Crescent Deception Bay Qld 4508
Thursday 13 August 2026 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM
