Pretty as a picture on Lord Howe Island

The waters around Lord Howe contain the southernmost coral reefs in the world – a ­result of the mixing of warm and temperate waters. Rarely has the reef looked as good as this.

Wow: the corals at Lord Howe Island. Picture: Jordan Robins

How’s this for a bit of photographic eye candy? Jordan Robins shot it on a recent trip to Lord Howe Island, the dazzling beautiful blip of land that lies in glorious isolation in the Pacific Ocean 600km off Australia’s east coast. The waters around the island are exceptionally clear – visibility is up to 30m on a good day, he says – ­because there are no nearby river systems disgorging sediment. And it’s a place where different water ­currents mix, making it a biodiversity hotspot in which temperate, subtropical and tropical species co-exist.

Robins, 31, grew up in Jervis Bay, NSW, spending all of his free time fishing and diving. And in adult life he has made a career as an underwater photographer, creating images that he sells at weekend markets in places like Huskisson and Kiama. (What are the big sellers? ­“Anything with a turtle in it,” he says. “For some reason people identify with turtles.”) The over/under shot is also a favourite technique. He has his camera inside an underwater housing – “It’s nothing fancy, I bought it second hand off Gumtree in 2016” – with two flash units attached to it on extendable arms. He got to this spot, a couple of hundred metres offshore, in a kayak, jumping out into the waist deep water. Even though it was a bright sunny day he dialled the power right up on the flashes, to make the coral colours really pop. The waters around Lord Howe contain the southernmost coral reefs in the world – a ­result of that mixing of warm and temperate waters.

Robins has a restored, 1970s-era Haines Hunter boat that he uses to get around his stomping ground of Jervis Bay; he’s out a couple of times a week shooting new content, and is still finding sea caves in the cliffs that he never knew were there, he says. And early next month he’ll be towing the boat (accompanied by his border collie Barney) across the Nullarbor to get to Ningaloo – a 55-hour journey – for something special. “Whale shark season!”