An impressive bommie some 30 metres off the starboard side of HABA, Bash is the place to be to admire soft and hard coral formations alike. Seen from the surface, Bash appears to be circular in shape but underwater it’s all about the swim-throughs, overhanging shelves and discovering what lies around the next corner.
Digit pentacles – one of which a known breeding ground for cuttle fish – crop up around the base of Bash providing scuba divers with additional areas to explore if their air supply lasts. Four large batfish share a semi cave with the two resident sweetlips and a large barramundi cod, enjoying the absence of current that this shelter provides. Not far from here a giant clam (more than a metre in length and pushing 150 years old) rests in a shallow sandy patch.
A long stretch of soft coral, with the blooms waving in the current, creates a carpeted affect along part of Bash’s west side. Met by a lattice of fragile hard coral mounds, similar in shape to large cream puffs, this coral corridor is what divers expect to see on the Great Barrier Reef.
