We chose a spot inside the lagoon a kilometre from shore and got in the water while there was still some daylight, so we could orient ourselves before working in the dark. The first night out was mostly a recce and a rehearsal. But day or night, Ningaloo Reef is fizzing with life. Mostly because the only things moving in the water column are plastic bags or condoms. I hadn’t been underwater at night since the Greek Islands in the 1980s, and the Aegean after dark is a very different place to Ningaloo. Then a cyclone loomed off the coast, and that was that. Thanks to a fresh outbreak on the east coast, our director of photography, Chris Williams, was facing two weeks in quarantine, so he was out. But of course, we were shooting during a pandemic, so few things went exactly to plan. We had to be in the water just after the full moon, which is when this phenomenon kicks off. Originally, our coral spawn shoot was slated for early April 2021. Working at night, and underwater, that just adds to the degree of difficulty.

So, logistically, not an easy place in which to shoot natural history.

The landscape is rugged, it’s nearly always hot and windy. Ningaloo Reef is the longest fringing coral reef in the world, and because of its desert maritime geography and unique collision of oceanic currents, it’s one of the few that’s been spared the catastrophic bleaching events that decimate other world heritage treasures like the Great Barrier Reef on the opposite coast of Australia.

Breath tim winton book