Latest News
30.01.23 – Turtle Tracks
Another reason to love the Whitsundays! Summer on the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park means it’s turtle nesting season! 6 out of the 7 species of turtles call the Great Barrier Reef home, and from October to March, the female turtles will drag themselves up on the beaches to lay clutches of over 100 eggs. […]
Reef Protection Initiative
Protecting our patch! The team at Ocean Rafting is proud to be selected to take part in the Tourism Reef Protection Initiative. This initiative allows tourism operators along the breadth of the Great Barrier Reef to conduct in-water Reef Health and Impact Surveys, remove pest species from local reefs, clean marine debris from beaches and […]
18.01.23 – Grass Tree’s
Did you know, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park is not just coral reefs? In fact, only 7% of the park is made up of the reefs that make this area so famous! So what else fills the park? Another key habitat is the 600 islands spreading across our 230,000km² playground, here in the Whitsundays […]
12.12.22 – Starry Pufferfish
The Starry Pufferfish (Arothron stellatus) is a very large pufferfish which grows up to 120 cm (47 in) in length. This week our team was lucky enough to encounter this beautiful fish on one of our Reef Protection Days. Its body is oval-shaped, spherical and relatively elongated. The skin is not covered with scales but is prickly. The fins on the […]
24.11.22 – Bamboo Shark
A Rare Sighting! This week on our Southern Lights tour, Eco-Host Heath and his guests got to hang out with this usually elusive Whitsunday resident! Unlike more well-known sharks, the bamboo shark is a small, slow-moving bottom dweller. Their common name is “longtail carpet shark,” and for a good reason. They have extremely long tails […]
26.08.22 – Return of Reef Guardian
Welcome back Reef Guardian! Winter in the Whitsundays never fails to disappoint, we’ve had beautiful weather and encounter after encounter with some of our favourite seasonal visitors, both the Humpback Whales and these beautiful Reef Mantas! But this interaction was something a little bit special. First sighted in 2020 during a coral restoration program ran […]