This video shows the stunning beach landscape and exotic marine life in and around the Great Barrier Reef captured by a young Spanish woman – who made her home on a remote Australian island when the COVID lockdown happened.

Although she only planned to spend a year in Australia, the global pandemic cut off the possibilities for Claudia Argemi Danti, 24, to go back home as planned.

She told Newsflash: “I moved in March 2020, just before COVID (literally). The day after I arrived they started to ask people to self quarantine if they were coming from overseas. So yes, I just had a week of ‘normality’ and after that, we all know happened.”

She said that when things started to lockdown, she bought a car with a guy that she hardly knew in order to escape the city, and set off with the last of her savings to try and find somewhere to wait it out.

She described it as the most challenging experience of her life saying: “Now it is obvious we took the best decision we could ever make, but at the time, no one knew what was going to happen and that was probably the riskiest decision.”

As places to be stranded go, the young woman known as ‘Clotchi’ to her friends, is not complaining about being left living on Lady Elliot Island, which is in the ‘Green Zone’ of the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park.

It is regarded as one of the best places to set off to study the amazing underwater landscape.

The Great Barrier Reef is the biggest coral reef system in the world, stretching 1,400 miles off the eastern coast of the island of Queensland in Australia where Claudia lives and works as a bartender and barista for tourist visitors.

The young woman, who trained as a primary school teacher, is originally from Bigues i Riells in the Spanish province of Barcelona and when not working devotes her time to capturing images of the amazing place where she lives.

In a conversation with Newsflash, she said: “In my family, travelling is a big thing, we used to do a family trip every year. When I finished Uni, I just felt that I had so much to see, so I decided to start travelling.”

She added that she never planned on making the move to the island, saying: “Before coming to Australia I didn’t know anything about it.”

Since moving to the island, Claudia has dedicated a lot of time to exploring and capturing some of its stunning natural landscape.

One video, which she posted in late April, shows the beautiful Australian beach with its dark blue waters and unique marine life.

In another, Claudia is seen free diving several feet deep as a stingray swims near her which she follows for some time before going off to study an octopus.

The 24-year-old Spanish traveller also filmed a shark which she said “wasn’t dangerous”.

As someone who a month previously had never been diving at all, she has come a long way.

She said: “One of the most important things that I’ve learned on this island is that most of the sharks are not dangerous by themselves.

“Always respect but don’t be afraid.”

When asked about her future plans, Claudia said: “I’m just travelling. I love this country but there’s so much to see around the world.”