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New life is bursting forth on the Reef. The annual mass coral spawning started last week on the Great Barrier Reef, with its climax on Friday and Saturday.
Quicksilver marketing manager Megan Bell said the best viewing was on Friday night with the Silverswift also travelling out to the Reef on both Thursday and Saturday nights.
"It was quite spectacular. There were a variety of boulder corals spawning and staghorn corals as well," she said.
"Everyone was very happy. We had 39 people on board on Saturday night, 50 on Friday night and 42 on Thursday night."
And when the coral were spawning on the Reef, it also was happening in the backyard of Yorkeys Knob resident Alan Cousland, 25km away from the closest coral reef.
Mr Cousland is one of a few divers permitted to collect live coral from the Reef, and sell it to aquariums around the world.
He said the spawning, which occurred in the tanks where he kept live coral, had been delayed this year by inclement weather.
"Usually, in the aquariums we get a hell of a lot of spawn,’’ Mr Cousland said.
Coral spawning was first observed on the Great Barrier Reef in the mid-1980s.
It is a four-day event, traditionally happening after the first full moon in November, when corals release their eggs and sperm into the sea for a mass fertilisation.
Mr Cousland, who has been collecting coral for nearly 20 years, said it was a phenomenon that had to be seen to be believed.
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