Incredible image reveals little-known reality in northern Australia

An epic photo of a massive freight ship marooned by the tides in northern Australia has highlighted nature’s truly unstoppable power.

According to one of the country's leading oceanographers, the striking image, taken at Ugar Island in Queensland — also known as Stephens Island — serves as a timely reminder that no matter how we try to shape our surroundings, nature will ultimately prevail, and it's exactly why we should let it.

Uploaded online this week, the incredible shot shows the Sea Swift vessel temporarily stranded by low tides on the island, just some 53km south of Papua New Guinea. The ship delivers scheduled freight and cargo throughout the Torres Strait, Cape York Peninsula and Northern Territory, bringing crucial supplies to the few inhabitants of the many tiny islands in the area.

On Ugar, there's reported to be as little as 64 permanent inhabitants, with most trips in and out of the region conducted by air. Sea Swift said the picture of crew on Stephens Island "excellently" demonstrates that it "works with the tides" and not against them. "Sea Swift go above and beyond to deliver to the remote communities of Northern Australia," the organisation said.

Why it's so important to preserve our coral reefs

Speaking to Yahoo News, oceanographer Ruth Reef commended the fact the area remains largely unaltered by people, unlike most other coastal ports, wharves, and maritime infrastructure, which undergo extensive dredging to allow large vessels safe access.

"In the Torres Strait, we have many islands. Some of them are inhabited but others are not. In many along the Coral Sea where we have shallow waters, we have reefs which circle these islands," she told Yahoo.

"They grow in the light to the high tide mark, and unless you carve your way through the reef, you can only access these islands at high tide. So what you're seeing there is the finger jetty and though they dug up a little bit, the island has not been bombed or cleared in any way."

Reef, an associate professor at the School of Earth Atmosphere and Environment at Monash University, said when you dredge a living organism like a coral reef, it has a "huge destructive impact" on the area and surrounds. She said particularly in parts of the country's north, coral reefs are intrinsically linked to Indigenous communities, making it all the more important to preserve them.

How do the tides actually work?

Of the "dramatic image", she said "it's really nice to see a very healthy reef behind the ship". "It's supporting the local community that relies on it for fishing and for other kind of marine proteins. It's culturally linked to to the animals and environments that are there," Reef said, adding that tides are essentially the earth's response to the gravitational pull of the moon and, to a lesser extent, the sun.

"The tide is a really interesting concept that we've been thinking about for millennia, and most of what's driving them does not occur on earth," she said. The moon’s gravity pulls on everything on earth — which is what keeps people grounded and not floating around in the air — but it affects water most noticeably because liquids move more easily.

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As the moon orbits Earth, its gravitational pull causes water to "bulge" out on the side of earth closest to the moon. This bulge creates a high tide in that area and a second bulge occurs on the opposite side of the planet, away from the moon.

This is because, on that far side, the moon’s pull is weaker, allowing water to "stretch" outward there as well. These two bulges result in two high tides on opposite sides of earth, with low tides in between.

"The tides are always reliably there, so you'll have a high tide typically twice a day. It's not that hard to kind of factor it in [to delivery planning]," Reef said.

Australia's quest to preserve our endangered coral reefs

Australia’s coral reefs are some of the most significant and diverse ecosystems in the world, covering around 50,000 square kilometres, with the Great Barrier Reef alone stretching over 2,300 kilometres along Queensland’s coast.

The UNESCO World Heritage site contains about 3,000 individual reefs and over 900 islands, providing habitat for thousands of marine species, including over 1,600 species of fish, 400 types of coral, and six out of seven species of sea turtles.

Despite their importance, Australian coral reefs face significant threats, mainly from bleaching events linked to rising ocean temperatures, cyclones, and the crown-of-thorns starfish, which preys on coral. A report from the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) indicates that 2022 saw the highest recorded levels of coral cover in some areas of the Great Barrier Reef, thanks to a period of recovery; however, ongoing bleaching events, especially during warmer months, continue to pose a major risk.

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