After touring around New Zealand, I spent the next week in Sydney. I spent a lot of time hanging out at the beach, touring around and seeing family. I went to Taronga Zoo, and saw all requisite Australian animals, but these were limited to those who live above the surface of the water. On Thanksgiving Day, I boarded a flight to Cairns to meet up with a trip that would take care of that.
The diving expedition I went on was a unique partnership between a few different organizations. These included Mike Ball Dive Expeditions, John Rumney’s Eye-to-Eye Marine Encounters, The World Wildlife Fund, The Discovery Channel and Price Waterhouse Coopers. I was extremely fortunate to get a spot on this boat (I got the last bed). The trip took us from Cairns, on Mike Ball’s Spoilsport, Northeast towards Osprey Reef. This trip was special because it was a shark tagging and tracking expedition, pairing Mike Ball’s live aboard dive trip with shark researcher and documentary filmmaker Richard Fitzpatrick’s continuing research on the shark population at Osprey. I Osprey Reef lies 110 miles off the coast of Australia. It is a reef on top of a seamount that rises out of 9000 feet of water. Despite the fact it lies outside Australian territorial waters, as well as any national park protection, Osprey boasts a thriving marine population, including a healthy shark population.
The global shark population has been decimated in recent years by overfishing and a particularly barbaric practice known as finning, where fisherman cut off the valuable fins of a shark and through it back, alive, into the water. By not having to store the shark catch, finning boats can catch a lot more sharks, and only take the fins. As there is no current protection at Osprey, it is open for fishing. Richard Fitzpatrick estimates that the shark population at Osprey could be destroyed in two weeks. The purpose of Richards’s research at Osprey is to show how vital the reef is to the shark population and to gain protection for it from the Australian government. There is currently a proposal to vastly expand the protections for Osprey as well as much of the Coral Sea.
In addition to the crew of the Spoilsport, the passenger list included Americans, Brits, Australians, Belgians, Germans and Koreans. In addition to Richard Fitzpatrick, Jaap Barendrecht and John Rumney rounded out the research crew. Jaap has worked with Richard for a long time, and John Rumney is the former captain of the Undersea Explorer, a dive expedition boat that was the platform for much of Richard’s research at Osprey. We also had media crew from The Australian, and Channel 10 in Sydney, as well as Jonathan Larkin from the WWF and contest winners from the Discovery Channel and PWC. It was an eclectic group of varying ages and backgrounds that gelled quickly around a love of the ocean, and an appreciation of the ability to dive at Osprey Reef, which receives at most 5000 visitors a year. It is one of the last unspoilt dive spots on earth.
We cast off from the dock at about 8pm on Thanksgiving Day, and steamed overnight to the North. By morning we had reached the northern end of the Ribbon Reefs, on the Great Barrier Reef, where we had our first dives. The water was crystal clear and had a postcard quality to it. The reefs were filled with fish I was used to seeing in aquariums and tropical fish stores, but much larger and more beautiful. Emperor Angels, Clown Triggers, Naso Tangs and various species of anemone fish. I also saw my first shark underwater. It was a reef white tip, and it was swimming away from me. After making sure everyone was OK with the diving, we did another overnight steam to Osprey. It is a unique sensation, staring at a shallow reef, turquoise water, and coral just below the surface, but with no land in sight. That clarity descended all the way down, and numerous times I looked down at my depth gauge to be surprised at how deep I had gotten. As we jumped in for our first dive at this shark spot, I was a little apprehensive. As we descended, and moved past the natural amphitheatre that would be our arena for watching Richard and his unique shark capture techniques, I got my fist glimpse of a group of roughly 20 grey reef sharks. Over the next 3 days, I would go from apprehension at the presence of sharks to real comfort. On my second day at Osprey, I saw 3 scalloped hammerheads materialize out of the blue, and my first thought was, “I hope they come closer.” I even began trying to get close to reef white tips to try and get pictures.
Our third dive at Osprey was an up close demonstration of Richard’s unique shark research methods. Richard bates reef white tips, and while they are eating, he lassoes them with a tail rope. Sometimes he attached tags to them underwater, and others he brings them up to the surface to surgically implant them with sensors. These various sensors work in conjunction with data loggers placed around the reef to build a highly data rich picture of how the sharks live.
After 3 days on Osprey Reef, we began moving back south towards Cairns. We spent two days diving popular sites back on the Great Barrier Reef. One of these is the famous Cod Hole, where immense Potato Cod congregate, and interact with divers. We also stopped at a dive site called “Steve’s Bommie”. A bommie is a coral tower that rises up from the sea floor. They serve as hubs for shallow water marine life, coral reef fishes and smaller pelagic fish. Steve’s Bommie provided the widest array of marine life I’d seen the entire trip. From cleaner shrimp, to multiple species of clown fish, both pelagic and reef dwelling species were accounted for. On our night dive at Lighthouse Bommie, we came across 3 sea turtles, using the bommie as shelter. The largest one arrived as we were already descending next to the bommie, and almost ran into me. I had to push it up to make sure it didn’t hit me in the head.
Our final dive site was Flare Point which, while not nearly as rich in marine life at Steve’s Bommie, had the most picturesque water I had seen. It was also where I encountered the most aggressive animal of the trip: the Titan Trigger fish. Titan’s are the largest of the triggerfish and feed on coral. The have big teeth that look like a hamster’s. During nesting season, they dig out pits and defend them, against anyone who comes near. This includes unsuspecting divers. Many of us ended up with teeth mark in our flippers as we tried to get away. By the end of the trip, they became know as A-hole Triggers.
I got off the boat, exhausted, on Thursday morning. I will definitely be returning to dive more of the remote reefs off of Northern Queensland.
