Last month, the Australian Institute of Marine Science released its Annual Summary Report on the condition of the Great Barrier Reef (GBR). This report, along with research by members of our Coral Sea Foundation team and the observations by other regular reef users, indicates that recovery of the northern parts of the reef damaged in bleaching events and the cyclones of 2014-17 has well and truly begun. So what is the true state of the Great Barrier Reef at this point in time, and what can superyacht owners and guests expect during a visit to this World Heritage icon?

The media in Australia and overseas has been saturated with images of bleached corals and regular claims that the GBR has been irreparably damaged and is in terminal decline, and human intervention through reef restoration with farmed coral fragments or underwater drones that disperse coral larvae are held up as our only remaining hope of saving the reef. Predictably, there has been a substantial negative impact on the Australian reef tourism industry, which contributes over AU$6 billion to the national economy and employs over 60,000 people.

Perhaps most alarming of all, I have had direct conversations with scores of high-school students participating in our reef education programs, and many said they were hesitant about visiting the reef because the media reports had made them believe that it was already dead and gone – yet after just a single day on the reef they couldn’t stop talking about how amazing it was.