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From Tom Pritchard . . . [part 1]
If the "big news" is that I'm baaa-aack" then central Pennsylvania is really hurting for news. It has taken me a while to gather my thoughts and decide how to organize the info so that you don't get 26 dive reports that all say the same thing. This "report" (Part 1) will cover the venues and other stuff; Part 2 will cover the underwater stuff. It may not be as sick as some of the stuff I've been sending out. Better grab a beer and put your feet up; this is gonna take a while.
This trip was, if nothing else, truly decadent. For those who have been living in a cave, I decided to present a paper at the annual meeting of the Austalalasia Association for ChemoSensory Sciences which just happened to be held on Heron Island, which is the only reason I went to this meeting. Heron Island is widely considered to be the premier dive destination on the Great Barrier Reef, which is saying a lot. Sixty one people presented 59 papers, which means that two people went and did even less than I did, although that would have been tough. To illustrate what a do-nothing, low life I was at the meeting, on the second day I went to dinner with some colleagues from the U.S. and Australia. There was a couple already sitting at the table so there was a brief round of introductions. As soon as I introduced myself to Emily, she blurted out, "I know you." I doubted that we crossed paths before so I figured she "knew" me from my research, but I asked the obvious question anyway. "Oh really, have we met before.? Without batting an eyelash, Emily said, "Yeah, you're the guy who signed up for every dive this week." In a matter of seconds, I went from famous to notorious.
After spending 4 days in Sydney getting my clock adjusted and enjoying their pizza, I flew to Gladstone where I boarded a catamaran for the 2.5 hr trip to Heron Island. As luck would have it, I anticipated a rough ride on the catamaran and had applied a scopolamine patch early that morning. There were other hints along the way that it might be rough. The first hint was at the ticket counter where they were giving away Dramamine tablets. The catamaran was enormous and lush with circular tables and sofas in the enclosed lounge. The second hint of a rough crossing was the 3 inch stack of barf bags on each table. Of the 70-odd people on the cat, 2/3 threw up. The crew walked around collecting the barf bags and restocking the tables with bags and tissues. As the boat heaved back and forth I did my Stevie Wonder imitation, but thanks to my scopolamine patch, didn't lose my cookies. Scopolamine, don't leave home without it.
Heron Island is a coral cay located in the Coral Sea about 42 miles from the Australian continent. A coral cay is a coral reef that grows tall enough to break the surface of the ocean. Over a few thousand years sand gradually collects on the exposed reef, followed by seeds, plants, and critters. Thus, coral cays are literally part of the reef system. Heron Island is nothing less than a tropical paradise. Even though Heron Island has a circumference of only 0.6 km, most of the island is empty. There are several dozen huts at one end of the island for the 100 guests and the middle of the island has a small marine research station. The resort has a dining hall and restaurant; the rest is sand and tropical forest. And a lot of water. With day trippers not allowed on the island, it's a great place to get away from everything, including the meeting. The reef begins at the water's edge and is about 100 times larger than the island. You can literally walk out of your hut, jump in the water and snorkel with sting rays, reef sharks, and groupers that come right to the water's edge. Diving is a 5-10 minutes ride by boat.
Heron Island is a more touristy than some may like. After 3 weeks in Australia I concluded that the dive staff on the island used the phrase, "No worries mate" as much as possible because they thought that the tourists wanted to hear it. Although "mate" is used by everyone everywhere, Heron Island was the only place I heard the expression, "No worries mate" ad nauseam. They try to set up everyone's first dive with the dive master to access your diving skills. On my first dive, everyone except me had a buddy already so hooking up with the dive master was a natural. I know I "impressed" the dive master. The dive master says, "Go in, I'll see you at the bottom." Of course, on a drift dive in a stiff current, the bottom could be anywhere. By the time I cleared my ears, I was gone, gone, gone on my first solo reef dive. I was 10 minutes into the dive when a 5 foot white tipped reef shark passed me at a distance of 8 feet. Cool! I knew enough about a drift dive to realize that the key was identifying the end point. I hooked up w/ another couple about 5 minutes before I spotted the landmark for the left turn and the mooring line. The current disappeared at the mooring line so I hung with my new dive buddies. When the DM finally showed up, I was cruising around gaping at the fish and coral. The DM later apologized for being delayed on the surface. I told him I hooked up with another couple, but failed to mention exactly when I hooked up with them. The DM decided to spend his time supervising someone who needed supervising and never bothered me again. I was pleased. As a flier, I wasn't able to dive either the first or last day of the 5 days I spent on the island, but I did manage to squeeze in seven dives during the other 3 days. And I gave my talk - whataguy!
I decided that leaving Heron by helicopter would be a lot more fun than getting tossed around for 2.5 hrs. on the barf boat. I made the right choice - what a ride - what a view! With the Australian dollar weak against the U.S. dollar there are bargains to be had. The helicopter wasn't one but two others are worth mentioning. First, a 50 mile private limousine ride from Cairns to Port Douglas for the princely sum of AU$25, which is about US$14. Second, you can buy phone cards in Australia for use in Telstar(?) phone booths. I figured I'd make one of those hasty calls home that cost a fortune so that my lovely wife would forget what a clod I was to leave her in 6 inches of snow with two ice storms on the way. For the princely sum of US$5.60 you get a whopping 44 minute phone call to central PA. My wife was more impressed by my calling from Australia before she found out it cost less than a phone call from Pittsburgh.
There are a lot of dive boats that ply the GBR; picking the Undersea Explorer was just plain lucky. I was looking for a boat that did 4 dives/day and traveled to Osprey Reef, which is supposed to be even better diving than the GBR. Because Osprey Reef is 195 miles from Port Douglas, and almost 250 miles from Cairns, only 4-5 boats make the trip. Undersea Explorer (UE) seemed to fit the bill. Little did I realize the UE is probably THE premier dive boat in Australia. On my trip the UE had a crew of 5: captain, engineer, DM, a cook, and a marine biologist. Normally the UE has 2-3 marine biologists on board who do research on a number of topics including sharks, nautilus, plankton, and water quality. The marine biologist on board for this trip conducted 1-2 informal discussions daily on sharks, fish identification, reef formation, global warming etc. The UE is active in reef preservation, up to and including drafting legislation to protect the reef. Customers are free to use the on-board library to ID fish and "stuff" that defied identification underwater. I figured they'd feed us - I never expected that the chef would make all the meals from scratch and that there would be three true gourmet dishes for dinner and supper. It's illegal for scuba divers to spear fish, but our chef free dives. A mask, fins and a spear gun, a 40 ft dive, and presto, four 2 ft long coral trout for dinner one night. Of course, if you didn't want the trout, you could have the lamb kabobs or the pork chops that night. That's the way the week went: all you could eat, four meals a day - you could go on the UE for the food alone. We had 14 divers on board, including Ross Isaacs who was doing videography for National Geographic with a $250K IMAX camera. Whereas I was easily one of the better divers at Heron, on the UE I was much closer to the bottom of the talent ladder. Of the 14 divers, seven had been on the UE before, some multiple times. Some of these people never dove in a quarry; I was getting ready to have my 7th dive on a coral reef.
[part 2]
Viz and Temp: When I left for Australia I had 43 dives under my weight belt; 42 were in quarries, one was on the Seeker (wreck Mohawk). I thought the 30-40 ft viz on the Mohawk was outrageous - silly me. The DMs at Heron Island were very apologetic for the 40-80 ft viz. It seems the wind had been kicking up the surf for about a week and it's was just killing the viz. I'm happy if I can see my feet in a quarry and even happier if I don't lose my dive buddy. Quarry divers wear strobes for a reason. The viz was about 40-80 ft. as the Undersea Explorer (UE) tiptoed along the ribbon reefs on the way to Cod Hole. At Osprey Reef the viz was so good, it was impossible to attach meaningful numbers to it. Books tell you it often exceeds 150 ft; I wouldn't argue - I couldn't tell. It was about 90 degrees on Heron Island and 81 degrees on the boat. Water temp was 81-82 degrees at depth.
Size Does Count: The little stuff was great. The schools of small fish, the clownfish poking around the anemone, the nudibranchs and the other small fry. The coral was great, but when the divers got out of the water, they talked about the big stuff. The 9 ft. sharks, the 6-8 ft. potato cod, the 6 ft parrot fish, the wrasse and the tuna, and the rays. The small stuff was like a Hollywood backdrop for the celebrity stuff, the big guys.
Jellyfish: Australia has more than its share of jellyfish. Blue bottles produce painful stings. The box jellyfish are downright dangerous, even lethal, but fortunately they don't drift more than a couple of miles off the mainland. Another jellyfish, the Irukandji, is even more dangerous and - more bad news - isn't limited to the coastal waters. I was a little chagrined when I during my ascent from about 60 feet I found myself in a swarm of ribbon jellyfish that stretched from 35 feet up to about 15 ft. Fortunately, they didn't sting, but there were so many, the viz dropped from 80 ft to about 30 ft.
Coral: Coral comes in so many shapes, sizes and colors, it's hard to know where to begin. The was some staghorn coral at Osprey but there were several forests of staghorn coral at Heron that covered the entire sea floor. Gorgonian coral was really neat but you had to look for it and when found, it was truly spectacular. Large coral heads the size of VW looked like bunkers.
The Miscellaneous Stuff: One dive site named Clam Gardens has dozens of,you guessed it, giant clams. These babies were 3-5 feet across and fused into the surrounding coral. The flesh of these clams was a deep blue, which photographed well. It took a while to find sea urchins, but Steve's Bommie had everything including some 12-15 inch specimens.
Moray Eels and Sea Snakes: Moral eels were around but you had to look for them. They were typically sticking their heads out of holes in the reef, too shy to venture out into the open water. The biggest one we saw lived in the "pulpit" at North Horn. You could tell from the size of his head he was large; the DM who has seen him out and about said he's about 10 feet long. We saw only one sea snake, which the captain caught and almost brought on board. As the capt. and the snake were trying to get onto the duck board, the snake wrestled free - the capt. backed off which is what you do when a 10 ft poisonous sea snake gets loose.
Stonefish and Lionfish: At Steve's Bommie we saw four stonefish. Stonefish are generally considered the most poisonous fish on the GBR. What makes them particularly dangerous is that they blend into the dead coral and rocks so well that a diver can easily step on or touch one by accident. From a distance of 2 ft I couldn't tell where the stonefish ended and the rocks began. These guys are permanent residents of Steve's Bommie, clearly the most spectacular site that we dove on the GBR. I saw the lionfish on a night dive so I didn't have my camera. It was a spectacular red and white fish that looked like a float in a parade. The rule of thumb on the reef that covered the stonefish and the lionfish was: If it looks really ugly or really pretty, it's probably poisonous so don't touch it.
How I Got Stung: I used a broader rule: If you don't know what it is, don't touch it. Because I didn't know what most of the fish, coral, and stuff was, I touched very few things on any of my dives. But I knew what a mooring line was: A thick rope covered by fuzzy stuff that led up to the boat. My buddy and I had just finished a drift dive and were tailing a beautiful sea turtle from about 10 ft. After about 3 minutes the turtle began to leave the vicinity of the mooring line so we veered off and started our ascent. When I reached the safety stop, something on the mooring line stung the crap out of my hand. If did a free hang and for 3 minutes searched for the little bastard. The pain subsided and I forgot about it until a week later when it turned bright red. By this time I was on the UE. The marine biologist said the sting was probably from a hyoid, a plant likely to grow on a mooring line and it might be hard to find. Little bastard!
Osprey Reef: Osprey Reef is far enough off the mainland that the only dive boats that make the trip are those that stay out for at least 6 days. And those that can cross the Coral Sea. The UE had to cancel one trip in the last year; several other boats cancel 50% of their trips. I can see why. We left the shelter of the GBR and ventured into the Coral Sea overnight. I slept for 3-4 hrs. and then got tossed around in my bunk around for the next 5 hrs. waiting for things to settle down. When I awoke I had to tap a kidney, but I knew the head would be a death trap. Getting mugged by the porcelain fixtures in the head and being found dead with my pants around my knees wasn't in the travel brochure. The crossing protects Osprey. Unlike some of the sites on the GBR which are clearly overdived, Osprey is pristine. Osprey contains marvelous coral, schools of reef fish, numerous pelagic fish - and sharks. North Horn is renowned for shark action. Most of the divers saw white tipped reef sharks and grey whalers, although there were a couple of silver tipped reefers, a nurse shark, and an epaulette shark. During the winter months, North Horn offers schooling hammerheads. In order to catch sharks for tagging, the UE does what they call a "shark attract." The divers get a 10 minute head start to find a seat in the semicircular amphitheater which is 50-60 ft deep. The captain hauls a milk crate full of fish heads and chicken to the rock pulpit that sits center stage. Then the sharks come and they come. First the reef sharks and then the grey whalers. It's hard to count them as they prowl and dart, poke and wander, around the bait and through the gutter that separates the pulpit from the amphitheater. Most estimates put the number of sharks at 15-20 on the first dive and two dozen on the second. A 6 ft. potato cod fearlessly jousted with the sharks for food. Ross Isaacs had his IMAX camera perched on the pulpit as the sharks damn near bumped into him during the fray. The capt. usually doesn't release the food, but he pulled a few pieces out so Ross could get some extra footage. The twisting and the torque that these sharks put on the bait was unreal. The fish heads held up a lot better than my arm or leg would. On the first dive, the marine biologist identified a small reef shark to catch and the capt., slipped a noose around his tail and hauled him up to the boat - after we had boarded - where the shark was measured and tagged. It was spectacular. Nine ft. whalers and 6 ft reef sharks cruised as close as 2 ft away. Each shark attract lasted about 35 minutes; that's 70 eye poppin' minutes of shark action. It was the highlight of the trip.
Admiralty Anchor: An admiralty anchor is an old time ship anchor, like the one tattooed on Popeye's arm. Decades, perhaps even centuries ago, an unknown ship lost an admiralty anchor along the western edge of Osprey Reef. The anchor is lodged in the coral and you can go down to see it - all you have to do is make it through the swim-through. In my mind's eye, a swim through is a picture window size open in the coral that might be 5 feet long. Some might be; this one isn't. Side-to-side, the opening might be 7 -10 ft.; top-to-bottom it was 3 ft in most places which made it irrelevant that other places were as high as 7 ft. (Right now Dennie is thinking that it sounds pretty spacious, perhaps even a bit too large to be a swim through). The entrance of the swim through was at a depth of 45 ft. The swim through - more like a crawl through - was about 20 ft long. Just as the swim through opened up vertically, a coral crossbar split the opening into top and bottom halves. Embedded in the coral crossbar is the encrusted anchor. Swim over or below and ascend through a chimney to about 25 ft into a coral garden. The weather was great which permitted us to spend 3 full days at Osprey so we dove in the vicinity of the Admiralty Anchor swim through three times, twice at night. If you cover your "torch" in the closed confines of the swim through you can see the blues flashlight fish blinking in the recesses. Spectacular! A couple of bommies away is a 3 ft tall basket starfish which retracts its gorgonian-like arms as the light touches it.
Most Poignant Moment: Fish don't make faces. Fish don't have expressive eyes. Neither do sea turtles. I swam with a bazillion fish and every one of them seemed indifferent to my presence. The sharks were especially bland. During the night dive at Steve's Bommie I spotted a 4 ft sea turtle resting on a ledge about 10 ft below me. As my buddy and I descended several other divers spotted the turtle. We were told not to shine our lights directly on the fish and turtles at night because most were holed up for the night in a safe crevasse that would protect them from hunting sharks. We saw many 6 ft parrot fish nudged into crevasses and other fish holed up in small caves. This turtle was just resting, but now he had lights all over him and he was trapped on the ledge. Several of us kept some distance and kept our lights off him; others moved in with their lights. The turtle started to shuffle his feet and turn his face away. He was edgy and clearly wanted to get away but there was no way out. It was the only evidence I saw in 26 dives of an emotional response by any tenant of the reef. Several of us left to clear some space for the beleaguered turtle. I later found out that after I left one diver parked in front of the poor turtle and started taking pictures (with flash). As the turtle made his break, one diver jumped on his back. It turns out "rodeoman" was the owner's son. On a boat that prides itself on protection of wildlife and reef conservation, this was worse than bad form.
The Wall: Osprey Reef is a mid-oceanic seamount, essentially the tip of an ancient mountain that rises from the sea floor. The sea floor around Osprey ranges in depth from 3000-5000 ft. On the first dive of the day three of us headed from the boat to the base of the reef at 75 ft., then reversed course and swept down along the sandy and rocky floor to the edge at 95 ft. It was a true wall, as vertical as the side of a skyscraper, or five skyscrapers to be more precise. The wall, covered with coral, plants and critters, plunged into the deep blue where you could see sharks patrolling their turf. Looking sideways into the deep blue, more sharks. We descended to 131 ft where there was still enough light to support life on the wall. I will never forget how it felt to soar over the edge of the reef and see the wall fade into the depths of the ocean. Outrageous beyond words!
It was the trip of a lifetime. Whereas all of the people on the UE had been divers for years, I learned to dive just to make this trip. I had so much energy invested in this trip that my expectations were probably unrealistic. It's hard to believe that the trip exceeded my expectations. But it was a lot of diving, at times too much. Four dives the first two days, then three and then four. On the fifth day I considered skipping a dive, this time not because I was tired but because I was getting bored. I couldn't believe it. I made the dive and it was awesome, as usual, but I was beginning to find the ooohs and aaahs too superficial. I didn't know the names of enough stuff. I didn't understand the ecology of what I was seeing. It was beautiful but superficial, like those Playboy playmates who have enough stamina to kill healthy men but have the IQ of a turnip. (Sorry, I lost myself for a moment. Probably just a flashback). I wasn't going to devour the books in the boat library; that's not why I went to Australia, but if there is a next time, I don't want to be a diving turnip who ooohs and aaahs at beautiful underwater stuff that might be pretty interesting if it had a name, a life cycle, a feeding pattern etc. Until then, I'll just refer to it as the trip of a lifetime, a trip that was almost too preposterous to think about when I met John Gross, Beth, and Kathy Stevens at Golden Meadows 18 months ago.
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