Ned's Beach
Ty Sawyer
Lord Howe Island, Australia Sometimes the mere sound of a place name elicits a grin, especially a place whose moniker utterly lacks creativity -- like Ned's Beach. Perhaps that's because of it's location in a place where superlatives abound, the remote Lord Howe Island, 600 miles northeast of Sydney, Australia; and to do more than give a geographic location a plain appellation shows a certain amount of superciliousness. If you ask, no one can tell you anything about this Ned (or else they're keeping secrets from inquisitive journalists). Since it seems that no one can really dispute me, I'd love to just make up a doozy of a tale about Ned and a secret society of aliens that originally inhabited this Utopian island and established first contact on this beach. But that would do a disservice to the exceptional quality of Ned's Beach. Resident naturalist Ian Hutton (www.lordhowe-tours.com.au), who has written definitive books on the plants, birds and marine life of Lord Howe, tells me that Ned's Beach was voted Australia's cleanest beach in 2005. So when we show up it's odd to find that the only creatures enjoying this long, lovely crescent of exquisite sand and sea are the resident saltwater ducks. As nice as this beach is, though, we're here to get in the water.
Lord Howe Island, which became a UNESCO World Heritage site in 1982, boasts the southernmost coral reefs in the world as well as a whole pile of unique endemic marine life, the happy result of a mix of temperate and tropical species. The main island is surrounded by a coral reef whose inhabitants live their lives in the 150-foot viz of the protected lagoon and outer islands. It's also home to what seems, in summer, like a zillion nesting seabirds, including frigates and terns -- and a few ducks.
The ducks follow us down the beach. For years, an old man has shown up at this beach around 4:30 each afternoon to toss food scraps into the water. As a result, about 40 large kingfish, along with about three dozen chub, some mullet, a few parrotfish wrasse and spangled emperors cruise the shallows almost all day, fins slicing paths through the surface in anticipation of the next bite of bread. It's become quite the thing to do on an afternoon in Lord Howe, for locals and visitors alike.
I loan Ian my Ikelite D-70 digital housing and he and I spend the afternoon wading in the shallows, taking photographs of these fish as they circle us like hungry Indians around a barbecue wagon train. While we're there, families, honeymooners and locals show up with their pieces of bread, and the shallows are whipped into a feeding frenzy between the ducks and fish. Who really needs TV? Naturally, I make arrangements to dive Ned's Beach the very next day. I hook up with Brian Busteed, the owner of PADI dive shop Howea Divers. Brian's an expert on all things under the surface at Lord Howe. Let me say right here: If you can get to Lord Howe, it's worth every minute of the journey to experience the singular diving -- as well as the island itself. I had just a taste, and I'm already trying to figure out how I can justify going back like sometime tomorrow.
We wade through the kingfish in the shallows and into a narrow, shallow channel in the reef. We're barely three fin kicks into the dive when we stumble upon a hawksbill turtle. I follow it past entire villages of the endemic McCulloch's clownfish, which is black and white, and across thick, lush piles of some of the more than 90 species of coral that grow here. Greens and mauves dominate the color palette, and everything is tremendously healthy. Pristine plate corals spread out just under the surface. An endemic damselfish takes a few nips at my camera and my leg. We find several endemic Lord Howe eels and even some juvenile split-head wrasse, also unique to this island. Flatworms and big turban snails are everywhere. (Notice I use the word "endemic" a lot. Here, "endemic" doesn't mean "hard to find," like it does in the rest of the world; it means "locally abundant.") And if the locals aren't enough, there's a documented total of more than 500 species of marine life off this lonely outpost. We max out at 25 feet after cruising over the fields of shallow coral reefs, and I do three more dives at this site (with the same tank of air, in fact) and never swim more than 50 meters offshore. It's truly a diver's wonderland and instantly becomes my newest corner of the globe to obsess over. After 25 years of diving, it's nice to be overwhelmed. I may have to tell the company that I'm going to the Bahamas next week, but you and I will know the truth. Shhh. For lodgings while on the island, I recommend Capella Lodge (_www.lordhowe.com). Between dives take a breather in their spa -- if the magic of Lord Howe doesn't sweep you away, the spa's relaxing treatments will._ Cheers! Ty
