My journey to a reef on the abyss (if gas drillers get their way), by Tim Winton

September 19, 2026 — 3:00am

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When you finally reach Scott Reef, way offshore from the Kimberley, it’s like arriving at an oasis. You can feel the atoll’s influence before it’s even visible. The sea state changes. More fish and dolphins in the water, more birds overhead. Then it rises from the ocean deep, in scalloping white lines of surf over shoals, suddenly too vast to take in.

But when you reach the shining calm of the lagoon you see just what a refuge this is. Everywhere you look, startled turtles pop up, manta rays roll and swirl, their black shapes sharp against the rippled white sand below. You haven’t even got into the water yet, and you’re counting off species like the sea-nerd you are.

Like any oasis or billabong, Scott Reef is a magnet for biodiversity. It draws life to itself and creates more in return, and the sight of all that vigour erupting at the surface, so far from land, makes your blood fizz.

Just beyond the reef wall, everything falls away to the purple abyss. Because you’re quite literally at the peak of a seamount. And when you finally dive in, you know you’re experiencing a mountaintop moment.

You’ve swum in many coral gardens, but this is next level: the riot of colour, the intensity of life, the overwhelming remoteness, the sheer scale of it all. But like it or not, every sight and sensation is loaded with jeopardy. Because you know what this place is facing. If Woodside and BP have their way. If federal Environment Minister Murray Watt and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese – and yes, Western Australian Premier Roger Cook – put the reef’s fate in the hands of the fossil giants.

You’re one of the lucky ones: you’ve lived long enough and were born early enough to see more than your share of marine wonders. But your grandkids and their kids won’t see a fraction of what you have. And the injustice of that kills you.

The world’s coral reefs are dying. This is no longer a dire prediction – it’s something we’re experiencing together in real time. They’re being cooked by climate breakdown.

And it’s not........

© WA Today