Eye to Eye Encounter - 5

Day 3 - Ancient Green Mariners and Missing Minkes

Given that we had such an amazing encounter with the Minke whales, we anchored at night in the shelter of Challenger bay. Challenger Bay is located at the southern tip of Ribbon Reef #10. The site is composed of a back reef slope with an outstanding diversity of corals and a sandy slope with patches of corals, which drops to approximately 35m. This bay is well renowned dive site given its stunning coral gardens and abundant fish life.

At 7.30am, John Rumney took us out on The White Knight a small little rib used predominately for shark research, for a morning snorkel. As we immersed ourselves in the water we were unexpectedly greeted by a school of thirty Bumphead parrot fish. It is the largest of the parrot fish family and can grow wup to 1.3 metres in length and can live up to 40 years.

Unfortunately, these fish are in decline around the world- threatened by overexploitation and habitat degradation. They really are a quite a sight to behold with their large bulbous forehead and prominent teeth plates. Within their group, they slowly meander along, seemingly unperturbed by our presence. We are certainly lucky to come across such a group, and I can’t help but be reminded just how critical it is to establish the Coral Sea as a Marine Protected Area. The Coral Sea is a very important habitat for the intriguing Bumphead Parrot fish.

Once the snorkel is over and we had some breakfast inside our bellies we move back to the Lighthouse bommie to seek the minke whales again.

This time the trip is less fruitful; we have two whales pass but they just didn’t seem interested. Just a little reminder that nature is certainly not on tap - those rare close encounters you can never take for granted, you can certainly never request a replay.

Richard and Dean aren’t going to get the footage they want today; just one of the downsides of filming nature. Often you can spend many long hours waiting for that magical shot that in reality may only be a few seconds on film. Although, as in Richard’s own words, ‘when you get it - it is worth the wait’.

There is nothing like coming up close and personal with a Green Turtle. Along with the whale encounter, I have literally feel like I have waited all my life for this moment.

Since working on WWF’s Coral Sea campaign, I have not only learnt how important the Coral Sea is as a critical habitat for Green turtles, but just how endangered these gorgeous animals are and its tragic.

Globally populations have been estimated to have declined up to 61 per cent over the last three generations, based on a number of factors from overexploitation of their eggs and nesting adult females to incidental mortality in fisheries and habitat degradation.

And here I am, within an arm’s reach of an animal that had such character, happily going along on its way and living in harmony with its environment - you just can’t beat that kind of experience. There is no question in my mind, protecting the marine environment for future generations is essential and we must do it now before it’s too late.

With little whale activity we moved to the Pixie’s Pinnacle for another snorkel. Pixie’s pinnacle is a like huge cone shape pyramid that is coated with myriad corals both soft and hard, gorgonians, sea whips and sponges.

Snorkelling around this pinnacle was like sensory overload; like an underwater Grand Central Station, it was one hive of activity from schooling zebra fish, anemones with their clown fish popping in and out cleaner wrasse while underneath the overhangs and caves lay shrimps, lionfish and moray eels.

John gave us the low down on the biology and behaviour of the minke whales based on the research accrued over the years as part of the Minke Whale Project. The presentation was accompanied with an informative DVD and once again I was struck by how little we really know about these majestic animals and my mind got ticking – what can we do to help further the research? We have to know more about what we need to do protect to their environment, and how best can we work to bring the underwater world into the hearts and mind of every individual.