Montague Island Grey Nurse Shark Gutters

Narooma · New South Wales · Australia

The Grey Nurse Shark Gutters sit on the sheltered western face of Montague Island, a granite outcrop rising from the Tasman Sea nine kilometres off Narooma on the New South Wales South Coast. While the island is famous for its fur seal colony and penguins above water, the true spectacle lies beneath in surge channels carved between massive boulders where one of Australia's most critically endangered shark species congregates in extraordinary numbers. Descending the mooring line into cool green water, I landed on a sandy patch at 18 metres and immediately saw them. Grey nurse sharks, perhaps 40 or 50, hung suspended in the water column inside a wide gutter between two walls of granite. They faced into the gentle current, jaws slightly agape to reveal rows of narrow teeth designed for grasping rather than cutting. The closest was no more than three metres away, its small dark eye regarding me with bored indifference. I moved slowly along the gutter floor, careful not to raise silt. Wobbegong sharks lay draped over boulders, their tasselled chins and mottled skin making them nearly invisible against the rock. A massive smooth bull ray erupted from the sand, its wingspan exceeding two metres as it banked into the channel. Blue groper shadowed my movements with characteristic curiosity, their thick blue bodies appearing at my elbow whenever I paused. Higher up the gutter walls, kelp forests swayed in the surge, sheltering red morwong, cuttlefish, and the occasional weedy sea dragon suspended like an animated piece of drifting seaweed. Port Jackson sharks occupied sandy depressions between boulders. A school of yellowtail kingfish passed overhead in a flash of silver, briefly scattering the grey nurses before the sharks settled back into their meditative hover. Ascending through the final metres, fur seals darted past in corkscrew spirals, their underwater agility a stark contrast to their clumsy shuffling on the rocks above.