Croton Reef

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A named reef from the chart, not a dive site anyone has told us about. It may be a great dive or a sandbar at low tide. If you dive it, log the dive here so the crew knows.

What you'll see (10)

Humbug DascyllusDascyllus aruanusseen 4× near here

Blacksaddle TobyCanthigaster valentiniseen 2× near here

Barred SoapfishDiploprion bifasciatusseen 2× near here

Yellowtail FangblennyMeiacanthus atrodorsalisseen 2× near here

Flagtail TriggerfishSufflamen chrysopterumseen 1× near here

Staghorn DamselAmblyglyphidodon curacaoseen 1× near here

Bicolour GoatfishParupeneus barberinoidesseen 1× near here

Whitebarred GobyAmblygobius phalaenaseen 1× near here

Bubble-tip AnemoneEntacmaea quadricolorseen 1× near here

Graeffe's Sea CucumberPearsonothuria graeffeiseen 1× near here

Planning a trip

8–12 days

worth going for

Long haul, usually two flights.

5,351km from Singapore — about 24h each way, so two of those days are travel. the only logged site in the area.

When people dive it

Busiest Jun · almost nobody dives it Feb, Mar, May, Jul, Aug, Sep, Nov, Dec.

From 131 logged sightings — when divers are in the water, which is not quite the same as when visibility is best.

Dive Crew is a dive group from Singapore. Members plan trips here, log their dives, and share their photos of each site.

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Season

Prime

October is as good as it gets here.

Southern hemisphere, so the calendar inverts: the good months are the ones that are cold at home.

The year here

JFMAMJJASOND

Best here: June, July, August, September, October.

The Great Barrier Reef and Coral Sea — no monsoon here; the season is rain and water temperature. Written by hand from how the season actually runs, calibrated against what the boats do, since a season that disagrees with the operators is wrong however good the meteorology behind it. It describes most years, not this one: the forecast above is what knows about next week.

Moon and tides

Waning gibbous

69% lit · day 20 of the lunar month

Neap tides

Neap tides — the smallest range of the month, so the weakest currents. Easy conditions and usually the clearest water, though a drift site may barely drift.

New 10 Oct Full 26 Oct

Phase computed here, not fetched. This is the spring/neap cycle, which sets how hard the water moves — not a tide table: no free source publishes high and low water for Southeast Asian reefs, and the range peaks a day or two after the moon does, by an amount that varies with the coast. For times on the day, ask the operator.

Getting there

~16h 54m

door to water, each way · 4 legs

FlightCairns (CNS)~9h 12mFlight time plus the airports at both ends. A connection adds to it.Find flights →
Transferthe jetty~5h 12mRoad transfer to the coast, usually arranged by the resort or liveaboard.Directions →
Ferrythe crossing~2hAt this distance the last stretch is a scheduled crossing rather than a dive boat, so book it before the flight — a missed sailing usually costs a day. Which crossing it is has been worked out from the distance and not from a timetable; ask the operator.
Dive boatCroton Reef~30 minThen the dive boat out from the island.

📍 Croton Reef on Google Maps 🧭 Route from Cairns

Times marked ~ are estimated from straight-line distance and will be roughly right at best. The road legs are the ones Google Maps answers properly; it will not plan the ferry or the dive boat at all. A dive site's coordinates put a pin in open water, so the map link drops you on the site, not on a jetty.

Details

Country: Australia
Marks: 19°3.000'S 148°13.000'E
Position: -19.0500, 148.2167

On Wikidata →

Where it is

Loading the map…

Nearby

Sightings and photographs from iNaturalist contributors, research-grade records within 6km, under Creative Commons licences. Counts are what divers and snorkellers have bothered to log — a common fish with few records is common all the same.