Teaching future generations about life under the water gives them something to relate to and something to respect and treasure. The work that organisations such at GBRMPA conduct at school level means that every year new Reef Guardians graduate and take their knowledge away with them.

Daydream Island in the Whitsundays held a Eco-Conference for Kids whilst we were there highlighting themes such as coral bleaching and marine debris. We joined in, I gave a presentation about the reef itself, fed the stingrays and helped coordinate the lessons about waste and recycling.

Libby Edge from Eco-Barge Services highlighted one of the main causes of concern being storm-water drain run-off.

Imagine a thunderstorm dumps 100mm of rain on a town. The waters race into the storm-water drain systems carrying with them all the bottles, lids and accumulated rubbish that sits in the gutters, washing them directly out into the ocean.

Over 60% of the waste found in the ocean comes from this source. I don’t have a simple solution but reducing this will have dramatically positive effects on the beaches and oceans of the world….marine life will be the biggest beneficiary of course!

We spent a morning with the team from Reef HQ here in Townsville, GBRMPA’s public side and the largest coral sea aquarium in the world. Their Turtle Hospital was set up two years ago to rescue and rehabilitate injured sea turtles from the Queensland coastline.

They currently have 17 patients and the majority suffer from ingested plastic bags; the single most damaging marine debris source. Turtles feed on sea grasses and jellyfish. To a turtle plastic bags can appear to be jellyfish. They eat them, can’t digest them and their intestines block up resulting in one very ill turtle.

Nick and the team at the hospital have had four patients here since the early part of 2011 and their time for release back into the wild has finally come, perfectly coinciding with our arrival. Polly and her friends are heading back to the ocean!!

These normally placid creatures seem to sense their impending good fortune, splashing around in the tops of their tanks waiting for the off. We carefully lift them out, place them into large plastic crates and cover their heads with a damp towel…just to make the journey to the beach a little less traumatic.

They’ve created quite a stir in the media. We’re met by television crews from Channels 7, 9 and 10! Polly, Bertie, Beagle and Stumpy (had a flipper bitten by a croc apparently)

One by one we take them to the water’s edge, remove the towels and lower them gently onto the sand….AND THEY’RE OFF!!

It is simpy one of the most incredible things I have ever been involved with. Watching these gentle, beautiful reptiles go back to their own world is awesome. With a few uncomfortable waddles down the sand they’re once more into a world where they become graceful, efficient and at one.

Without a thankful look back to their doctor Nick they leave, surfacing only to take a short breath a hundred metres from the shore.

Four turtles are back where they belong. It will take a conserted effort by individuals, councils and governments around the world to stop plastic bags entering the waters of the world’s oceans.

It can be done, but will require the effort of many, many people. Experiencing the release today reinforced my desire to help make this happen.

The simplest first step? Don’t take carrier bags from shops….buy green bags and reuse them over and over again!

We were lucky enough to witness the release of some…

Just gotta’ love these little creatures!!!

The Visitor Centre here at Mon Repos usually caters for around 160 people a night and as we arrive the crowd is already massing. Expectant locals, excited backpackers and avid photographers all wanting a view of the new hatchlings as they appear in the world for the first time.

Alex from TQ and James from the local tourism board have joined me for this little adventure and we head through the crowds to find Shane one of the QPWS rangers here responsible for looking after the team of wardens, researchers and volunteers who live and work here monitoring the beaches. He tells us that the season is well and truly underway with the first of the action taking place back in early November when the female Loggerhead turtles (one of the most endangered in the world) started to land on the beach to lay their eggs.

The incubation period for the eggs is usually around eight weeks but with this year’s cooler and wetter weather that’s increased to just over nine, resulting in the first of the baby turtles appearing just after the New Year. Since then the beach has been a hive of activity and much to the delight for the researchers as over 400 Loggerhead’s have come to the beach to lay their eggs, a record number for the Mon Repos rookery.

We head down the boardwalk with Shane turning out our torches and camera screens to maintain the darkness as any light source that goes astray can disorient the babies as they make their break for freedom down the beach. At the far end of the beach two lights flash indicating the site of expectant nests, one where activity has been seen during the daytime hopefully resulting in new life tonight!

Jenna, a Park Warden and Pat, a volunteer, are there to meet us. They’ve been watching the nest and everything spot on for tonight so we gather around and wait. The activity within the nest has been taking place for a couple of days, the babies have all started to hatch deep down within the sand chamber and have made their way to just under the surface to wait for the heat of the day to disappear before they all at once make their entrance into the world and join the frantic race to the edge of their new ocean home.

The temperature of the sand throughout the incubation period has a huge effect on the sex of the newborn turtle population. When the average temperature rises above 28c more females are born (being the hot-headed of the sexes it figures!) but this year with the cooler summer more males are expected to arrive into the world.

We sit and wait, then all of a sudden there’s something stirring below the surface. A tiny little black head pokes through the sand followed by a pair of flippers and an inch long body…it’s starting to happen! The first of the hatchlings is out and on it’s way…then another…then another and suddenly they’re all starting to appear. A chaotic melee of life is materialising right before our eyes with almost too many to count! Within then minutes we’ve counted 118 turtles – funnily enough exactly the same number that were laid that night back in 2009 when I was here before.

Now imagine a tiny little turtle that looks like it’s made from concrete, no bigger than 4cms with flippers like a wind-up toy that move continuously and then times that by a hundred – this is the scene that I was witnessing!

The dash down the beach to the water’s edge can be fraught with danger for these little machines – seagulls and crabs attack them on the shore and then as soon as they hit the water there’s fish and all manner of other creatures waiting to finish them off. Not the simplest start to life you could hope for.

Luckily under the cover of darkness the birds and crabs aren’t around but those first few minutes in the ocean must appear so alien and scary for our little friends.

We watch as the last of the turtles disappear into the surf, only 1 in a 1000 of them will ever make it back to the beach. From here they paddle due east past the Great Barrier Reef over the continental shelf, past New Zealand and into the Pacific Ocean where they’ll spend the next ten years of their life moving with the ocean currents, eating and growing.

It’s been a real treat to get back to Mon Repos to witness this incredible natural spectacular and something that’ll stay with me forever. With the lateness of the hatching season this year there’s the chance to get down to the centre to witness it for yourself with the expected hatching season due to extend through to the end of March. Get down there and watch it as I guarantee you won’t regret it!

Next stop, Lady Elliot island in a few days time to film a short movie about Best Expedition and see if there are any turtles out there still.

Over and Out for now

Ben

November signals the start of the laying season right along the Queensland coast when Loggerhead, Green, Flatback and Leatherback female turtles return for what can be, their first visit back to the beach they were born on up to 30 years before. Their sense of direction is remarkable using the moon, the magnetic gravitational pull of the earth and some even say their sense of smell to find where exactly that is.

Turtles nest all along the Queensland coastline on sheltered, sandy beaches between November and January, the eggs being laid in clutches of around 100-150 that take around two months to hatch. The beaches become a hive of activity for nesting mothers at the start of the season and then even busier towards the end of January when thousands of tiny baby turtles make the dash down the beach to the relative safety of the ocean.

When I visited Mon Repos turtle rookery near Bundaberg last year, laying was in full swing, the visitor centre there caters for around 25,000 people every year with beach access well managed during the season to ensure that the impact of humans on nesting sea turtles is minimal. Queensland Parks & Wildlife Service rangers operate guided tours nightly during the breeding season.

If you want to find out more information about this year’s event and exactly how the turtle season is progressing why not join the Bundaberg Turtle Facebook page HERE

Reef HQ in Townsville have been looking after injured and stranded turtles in their Turtle Hospital for over a year now and one of their success stories was Torres, a green turtle who was brought to them in 2006 weighing only 366 grams. Four years later he was released back into the wild weighing 45kgs. He was fitted with a tracking device and you can now watch exactly where he’s got to over the last few months…and believe me it’s along way! Click HERE to see Torres’ route along the coast.

This place to me is one of those jewels in the crown of the Great Barrier Reef that I shouldn’t really praise too much in case thousands of people decide to go and try it for themselves thereby ruining the peace and solitude that it offers. Oh well it really can’t be helped!

After departing from Hervey Bay 40 minutes later on the horizon appears this perfectly formed coral cay. The closer you get the more obvious its size is, the tiny unsurfaced runway stretching from one side to the other with just enough length to stop a fully loaded Cessna Caravan. The final loop around the island teases you with views of crystal clear blue water, breaching whales and the outlines of Manta Rays around the perimeter. This is exactly how I’d picture an island…

Lady Elliot does everything simply. The accommodation is designed to have minimum impact on the environment, the power generation is done by efficient solar panels, the buffet food allows you as much or as little as you’d like and the key to staying here? Reducing your heart-rate down to that of the island.

If you want a pampered holiday go elsewhere, if you want an adrenaline filled extreme holiday go elsewhere, if you want to fully absorb yourself in nature and the Great Barrier Reef then you’ve come to the right place – this is where the interaction between humans and the natural environment is the least impacting and most impressive you will find.

I came here for my first visit back in November of 2009 and produced a blog all about my time on the island that you can read about here – I won’t repeat myself and this will be a short blog post but please enjoy the photos and the video I’ve compiled of my time of the island.

If you love your diving and you intend visiting Australia then you have to visit.

Enjoy

Weather: Not a cloud in the sky, hot and sunny. 32ºc

Storey Bridge climb

We’re up bright and early to take part in the famous Brisbane bridge climb that I’ve been looking forward to for ages!

After we’ve had a quick safety briefing the grey jumpsuits are issued, our jewellery removed and instructions given on how to attach ourselves to the safety wire that runs the length of the bridge.

James leads us out onto the first level and we slowly make our way up the stairs to the platform that runs along the underside of the road section of the bridge. It’s only around 25 metres up and already one of our fellow climbers is getting twitchy. I thought it was me who didn’t like heights!

As we climb through the doorway that takes us up onto the first section for real, the stairs seem to climb on forever into infinity towards the top of the first tower section. As we gain height the city spills out below us with the CBD towering large away to the west, once we reach the top the view is awesome, it’s a perfect morning with clear blue skies and sunshine as far as the eye can see. We have some quick photos taken and after walking across the top of the super structure to the centre of the bridge, turn and return on the opposite side to where we have come from.

I really loved it and after being so bad with heights a year ago really feel that this sort of thing has helped me to overcome the slight ‘issue’ I had…not that I’d want to work up here everyday you understand!

Leaving Brisbane for Bundaberg and Mon Repos turtle rookery

After a morning of productive meetings at Tourism Queensland’s offices Bre and I made our way to the airport to catch the Qantas flight that would take us north to Bundaberg. James, General Manager of the Bundaberg Region Tourism,  met us from the airport and whisked us to the sumptuous surroundings of the Grand Mercure apartments, Bargara. No time for relaxing though – this was the time of the night when the work really started…it’s turtle nesting season and that’s what we’re here to witness!

It’s a short drive to Mon Repos beach (made famous by Bert Hinkler as the landing beach for his early aviation endeavours in the 1920′s ) and once the sun goes down this long sandy beach becomes the favoured spot for Loggerhead turtles to leave the water of the South Pacific, clamber ashore and lay their eggs in the temperate sands found here.

The visitor centre tells you everything there is to know about the lives of these incredible creatures who spend many months at sea, whilst they’re juveniles, before returning to the beach they were born on to lay their eggs.

Between November and January the female turtle can visit the beach up to four times, laying around 120 eggs on each trip. It takes six weeks for the eggs to hatch and during January the mad race across the sand commences with the famous pictures we’ve all seen of those tiny defenceless little baby turtles scrambling to get to the water’s edge and its relative safety. And that’s just the start of their lifelong adventure…

Another very interesting fact relates to the temperature of the sand in which the eggs are laid; the tipping point at which the sex of the turtle is determined is 26.6ºc – any cooler than that and the clutch will become male, any hotter and it’s female! Hot headed girls and cool guys…that sounds about right!

Jae is one of the rangers who work here at the centre, she’s spent the summer period of the last four years imparting her wealth of knowledge to visitors to the centre and tonight would be no different “Last night there were 19 separate turtles who visited the beach, not all laid eggs but you should be in for a real treat tonight” she said confidently.

The turtles have chosen this beach for many years due to its perfectly remote location. Bright streetlights and the glow of a residential area aren’t much help to a turtle trying top navigate its way ashore. The centre and the boardwalk down to the beach are all dimly lit with just a few flashing LED’s to mark the way down to the water’s edge – where it was all about to happen!

It took a fair while for my eyes to adjust to their night-vision (especially difficult when the National Geographic cameras are rolling and their bright lights are turned on in my face every so often!) and we’d arrived on the beach before moonrise meaning we really couldn’t see much of the surroundings.

We started a slow walk along the shoreline until Jae said “hey guys – there’s a Loggerhead right up in front of us”. I couldn’t see anything…hang on there’s a slightly darker track about 20 metres ahead…oh yes now I can just about make out the outline of something.

As we slowly approached the dark mass making its way up the beach I could hear the crunching of the sand under the female’s flippers (flippers for turtles, fins for humans), she made her way to the top of the beach, just below the high-water mark and stopped. This would be where the next generation of little turtles would be laid.

With her head facing up the beach we could approach from her rear, stopping a couple of metres behind her. Jae told us that as female turtles enter the laying stage they actually enter a trance-like state, which means they’re pretty oblivious to what’s going on around them – hence how close we were getting.

The next part of the operation was pretty special to witness, once she’d found her chosen location (we’ll call our turtle Tessa from now on) she lowered her rear end down onto the sand and in one of the most methodical operations I’ve ever witnessed, used both rear flippers in turn to carefully dig a 20cms wide hole by slowly reaching down and carefully extracting a flipper’s worth of sand from it each time. Each flipper appeared as a perfectly cupped hand containing the sand that as it touched the ground expertly flicked the previous load away.

Twenty minutes later a 60cm deep hole had been excavated ready to receive the eggs. Tessa’s egg laying tube then hung down into the hole and slowly, one by one, the eggs were dropped into the hole until 118 had been laid.

In order to be properly incubated the sand had to be replaced to provide warmth and security for the little hatchlings in their very early days whilst still inside the eggs, so Tessa scooped back into the hole all of the sand she’d removed only an hour ago. To disguise the hole even further she then spent a further twenty minutes flicking sand all around…literally everywhere covering all traces of her work from prying predators. That is except us…

Her route down the beach retraced her steps up it and after a five minute crawl she was once more hitting the safe waters of the ocean, each step taking her closer to the watery world which she’d appeared from a couple of hours previously. Once she’d swum away our job had to start.

Turtle numbers have been rising for the past couple of years but only after a decade of decline so all eggs are vital to the management and preservation of these rare creatures. Tessa had chosen to lay her eggs below the high water mark, with an incoming tide due in only a few hours time it was essential that we relocate the nest to avoid the waters swamping the eggs rendering them useless.

Jae selected a site further up the dune and we cleared the grass and roots out of the way before digging our own hole exactly as Tessa had done, 20cms wide and 60cms deep. Every little root has to be removed as each could pose a potential threat to the newly hatched turtles as they struggle to get to the surface of the nest at the start of their life long mission.

We have to move quickly as the eggs need to be moved within two hours of being laid or they’ll not develop so Bre and I carry four at a time up the beach to the new nest where Jae carefully lays them into the ground. It takes six weeks for the eggs to hatch and when they do so starts the mad scramble to the water for the little creatures avoiding all manner of predators enroute.

It’s been an incredible experience and one which Bre and I adored being part of, it’s one of those things you see on television but don’t ever think you’ll be lucky enough to do for yourself. It’s not just me that can do it either, there’s probably around 120 people here tonight, as with every night during the nesting and hatching season which runs from November through to March, all of who are lucky enough to be able to witness this incredible natural event.

Long may it continue…

End of day location: Bargara, Bundaberg

Distance travelled: 380kms for us, many thousands of km’s for Tessa the Turtle

• Garbo – A garbage removalist. Another example of the Aussie penchant for abbreviating words, the suffix ‘o’ being just about as popular as ‘ie’.
• Send her down Hughie – Please make it rain (Hughie was traditionally a bush-dwellers epithet for God).
• Muddie – A Queensland mud crab, also known as a mangrove crab and considered a culinary delicacy.

Location: Gladstone, Queensland

Weather: Scattered clouds, bits of blue – Simpson’s sky! Strong winds. 23°c

Time for another set of islands and I’m really excited about these ones, I’ve heard a heck of a lot of good things about both Heron and Wilson Islands – now it’s time for them to deliver!

Sunrise through the windows of the train was pretty special, a quick bite of breakfast before jumping off the train at Gladstone into the very welcoming arms of Trevor and Cindy, our contacts here for the next stage of the Island Reef Job adventure.

A quick tour of the town, to prove that Gladstone is more than just a jumping off point for the islands, a little introduction to some of the volunteers at the tourism centre and another quick bite of breakfast….that’s two already, not good for the ever increasing waistline.

Question – Pancakes for breakfast – Sweet or savoury? Australians do the sweet thing…Canadians do the savoury thing with bacon included. Interesting.

To get out to Heron Island, the first of our two destinations and part of the Capricorn group situated 75kms from the mainland, we’re onto another high speed catamaran, which isn’t a bad choice considering the swell out in the open water. Big rolling waves causing us to list from side to side resulting in a fair few green faces and even the odd passenger racing to the toilet. I am so pleased I don’t suffer from sea sickness!

The view on the GPS as we neared the islands

We pass the more placid waters round the sheltered reefs of Masthead and Erskine Islands and on the horizon the iconic image of a desert island appears – low lying land punctuated by short trees and in the foreground surf breaking on the outer reef. Here comes the good stuff.

Heron from afar

The final approach to Heron is spectacular, as you close in on the wreck which protects the deep water channel the colours of the reef become vivid and bright. Light blues over the sand, greens over the coral and browns where the dropping tide expose the head of the bommies (coral covered outcrops around which marine life thrives – Bombora is the Aussie description of a mountain underwater, follow the usual practice of shortening the word and adding ‘ie’!!)

We join the group of people arriving on the island for a quick familiarisation tour, the resort (although you can’t really relate it to a true resort as it’s too small and nothing like a touristy-filled monstrosity) subtly blending into the Pisonia Forest at the western end of the island.

There’s a few different accommodation types on the island, all nestled amongst the Pandanus trees, from the waterfront properties to the smaller apartment-style rooms each offering a retreat far from phone reception, noise and the hustle and bustle of daily life – if you want to get away from it all this is the place to do it.

Pandanas Tree

The promise of some of the best snorkelling and diving on the Great Barrier Reef here on Heron Island has been banded around by a few people and after the incredible experiences of Lizard and Hayman Islands there’s so much to play for…who’ll come out on top I wonder!? If the scene outside my bedroom’s anything to go by then Heron’s surely looking good.  A quick snorkel in sight of the room on the incoming tide confirms a mass of aquatic life here; a small turtle, several white and black tip reef sharks and parrotfish galore. Bring on our scuba session tomorrow….

Now I’m known for loving sunrise – but sunset comes a very close second. Living on a small island offers both….having a few clouds makes it better…..but stick a wreck into the picture and suddenly you have as iconic a photo as an African elephant by a watering hole!

Another immaculate sunset

One of the many ‘in-touch-with-nature’ activities on offer here is the Sunset Cruise so we head out on a motor launch across the rowdy ocean and find the perfect location to witness the great fiery ball dropping behind the horizon for another day. I only hope the pictures do it justice.

Part Two

Dinner seemed well overdue when we got there;  the long day was starting to catch up with me, so a simple choice of three items for starters and then again for mains eased the usually complicated process of deciding between, excessive eating and satisfying my desire to eat awesome Aussie red meat everywhere I go.

End of day location: Heron Island

Distance travelled: 75kms

Location: Heron Island

Weather: Grey clouds, strong winds, light rain. Not exactly the weather for a tropical island paradise!

Sunrise didn’t happen; not as I wanted it to anyway. Grey clouds all around aren’t the best omen for quality diving. Let’s get the blood pumping then – Bre and I left the comfy room and headed out onto the beach for a lap of the island. At 1.8kms round the outside, it’s a great way to settle the breakfast and immerse yourself in island life by taking in the flora and fauna, which thrives here. The White and Grey Egrets are my morning favourite and look to be such glum things – as though it’s been raining everyday of their lives. At the windward side of the island it becomes clear to see how these sand covered cays become islands over hundreds of years…here’s a summary:

• Coral forms an underwater bommie or reef
• Sand piles up on the obstruction gradually forming a small cay
• Sea birds rest and use it as a new island and toilet dropping seeds on the surface
• Seeds root and bind the surface together allowing more creepers and plants to establish
• Bushes and trees eventually grow providing habitat for all forms of life
• An island is made!!

When you walk around an island such as this you can see exactly why it all happens too, pumice stone from volcanic activity across the ocean washes up on the tide line along with a huge range of seeds in all shapes and sizes – if I was a seed I’d setup home here for sure. Mangroves being a particular favourite with their love for mud and sand and their ability to root in saltwater situations.

Dive time finally and a chance to test out my lovely new dive gear, which I’ve been dying to get wet for the last few weeks; the promise of manta rays, turtles and sharks running through my head as I climbed aboard our dive boat anxious to get in the water to see what was on offer.

Heron's dive boat

“Follow the anchor line down and I’ll meet you at the bottom” our divemaster said, a quick squeeze of the air release on my BCD (buoyancy control device) and down I sank, dropping 12m to the ocean floor scanning the horizon for any aquatic beauties. Didn’t take long either – a green turtle gently propelling itself out of sight behind a bommie, the first to be spotted. The first of six we’d see today but the elusive rays staying well out of sight even though the dives before and after ours spotted them….funny how that happens or is it just a sales pitch!?!

Forty minutes flew by, Bre had been huffing air like a whale and her dive computer showed limited supplies so we headed to the surface, got out of our gear and tried to warm up in the sunlight…the difference in water temperature here noticeable at 19°c compared to the 23°c of the Whitsundays.

Ready for an underwater adventure

Hopefully tomorrow the sun will come out for real as we have two dives in the morning, today was a little disappointing. Rolling ocean swell and grey skies reduced the visibility with the bottom being stirred up limiting our chances of seeing everything we’d come to witness – I only hope the wind and swell are in the right direction tomorrow to give us a chance to dive at Heron Bommie, described by Lonely Planet as “The Best Fish Dive on the Great Barrier Reef,” an area which has had almost every film, documentary and story about the reef shot here.

Total for today’s dive: 7.5/10 just above average.

Day Two’s diving was altogether different. The wind dropped off, the skies cleared and the sun shone through the ocean illuminating the reef below and its inhabitants – this is exactly what I wanted, a chance to see the multitude of fish and marine life up close so that filming it would be not just a rewarding process for me but also for you the viewer. It’s be easy to bang on for ages about quite how good the fishes were but instead I’ve put together a little video, which will allow you to see for yourselves, so please sit back and enjoy the Heron Island compilation of the two days we spent above and below the water:

Total for today’s dives: 9.5/10 almost perfect – just one Manta Ray would have been good that’s all!

Location: Heron Island

Distance travelled: 5kms by boat, 500m diving.