It is not often that human beings get to stand on dry land anywhere on planet Earth and know they are the first to leave a footprint.

Stepping off her inflatable tender on to a sand and coral rubble outcrop at Holmes Reef, 200km offshore from Cairns, photographer Julia Sumerling said: Welcome to the newest islands in the Coral Sea.

The island on which we had stood a little over a week ago at dusk had been forged out of the fury of tropical cyclone Nathan. We were on the first boat to travel to the area after the slow-moving storm passed on, leaving at least six new Australian islands in its wake.

Holmes Reef is a tiny dot in an immense rump of ocean that is widely regarded as one of the worlds most pristine marine wilderness areas.

The dive vessel we were on, Spoil Sport, had arrived there earlier in the day, three days after cyclone Nathan passed, and anchored about a kilometre from the new coral cays.

Since mooring at the reef, Sumerling and the boats skipper, Trevor Jackson, had trained their binoculars on the new outcrops of dry ground and scratched their heads, trying to remember if the islands had been there when they last visited in January. Back then they recalled there was only one very small cay that was so low above sea level that it was almost submerged by the high tide.

The new islands there now, however, had stayed high and dry all day.

Jackson said: Theres definitely more islands there. The cyclone would have driven a massive north-west swell that lifted the sand and coral rubble up above the surface. There must have been massive weather to throw those islands up and there will be massive weather needed to take them away.

He also observed that another coral cay usually nearby seemed to have disappeared after Nathan.

The Coral Sea is exactly the kind of place that can throw up new Australian territory (and take it away) without humans knowing.

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Welcome to Australia's newest islands, thrust from the sea by a raging cyclone Nathan