Coral Sea Trip

Day 208 Mon 11/05/2012

Coral Sea Trip

            Directly from my Dive Journal:

“The boat is full throttle through the sea.  We’ve passed Thetford & Milln Reef, and are beyond the Great Barrier Reef.  Hot as Hell both below & above deck.  We left the Marlin Marina approximately 3PM today.  Dinner was at 6PM over at Tusa Canyons so our passengers could actually eat & not be bothered by the boat rocking.

It’s almost 8PM now.  Only 2 pukers.  Sweating bullets down here in the gallery now.  My watch starts at midnight.  Julz has 8-10PM.  Bart 10-12 midnight.  I’m midnight to 2AM.  Masa takes 2AM-4AM.  Richie does 4Am until we get there.  I love this!  Just remembered how to play Kansas – Carry On My Wayward Son.  Better rest before my watch.”

Back to daily journal:

“The trip out to the Coral Sea is about 12 hours from the coast of Cairns.  100k.  Huge swells.  Bart got seasick on his watch.  I had to tie myself into the captains chair just to stay behind the helm.  I did manage to play some guitar.

The sail was whipping so badly near the end of my watch I had to go wake Richie.  I did the right thing to wake him though, because it needed to be taken down before it ripped.  We woke Masa, and it took all three of us to get the sail down in these conditions.  Hectic!  All was good.  Now I see why the bunk beds have nets in them.  On the way out the boat literally rocks over to the port side so everyone on the starboard side gets thrown out of his or her bed.  I was sleeping top bunk at the base of the stairs starboard side.  The net being put up was the only reason I stayed in bed.”

Julia on watch while Bart keeps her company

            I went from lying on the bed pad in the bunk to lying in a net every three to four seconds.  Bart was sleeping below me.  We let Julia have first watch.  I went to bed, and I am pretty sure bart just stayed up with her.  We weren’t accustomed to going to bed this early anyways, so I would have done the same thing.  I tried to sleep from 8PM to my shift at 10PM.  I don’t remember if Bart came to wake me up or if I went to go relieve him.  We both laughed when the first words out of his mouth to me in the darkness and spray from the sea were “Mikey, I threw up.”  Hahaha, he was tough.  It must be scary to puke overboard while the boat is crashing through the sea though.  If you get thrown overboard out here at this moment you better hope someone saw you.  Otherwise the boat just tracks through the water until someone realizes you have gone for a swim.  Yikes!

            Richie might kick my ass for not remembering the most important duties while on watch, but here we go for a try.  Firstly, the boat is set on a designated heading.  The auto pilot should keep the boat heading in this direction regardless of the waves.  However, the auto pilot will not fight the waves (usually).  So the boat has a little play at the helm to help smooth the ride out in case you are fighting seas like we have tonight.  Essentially on watch means ensure the GPS is on and functioning correctly, and the boat is tracking fairly close to this preset path.  If the boat gets a few degrees off the trajectory it is OK.  Wake up the skipper if the boat gets off course.

            Watch for other boats.  Someone has to stay up and watch for other boats.  Every few minutes the watchman has to go out on the deck and take an assessment of other ships at sea.  If we are heading towards other boats wake up the skipper.

            Make sure the sails are not in danger of ripping due to flogging.  Flogging occurs when there is high wind and your main sail is not tight enough.  In darkness you will know you are flogging the main sail when you hear a loud “POP” sound.  This is bad for the sails.  If the sails start to make noise like this we are suppose to let the skipper know.

            Check to ensure nothing gets lost overboard.  There is a lot of expensive dive gear on the deck of the boat.  We have tied up lots of crates, tanks, and other gear to hopefully keep it on the deck and not on the ocean floor.  Tie up and secure anything that gets loose.

            Lastly, stay on the deck of the boat.  Don’t go into the water and do not go below deck unless it is for waking the next watch or an emergency.  Bart & Julia…  What did I miss?  Other than the boat rocking like crazy nothing adverse happened on the way out.  At 2AM I went down to the lounge where Masa slept and woke him up for his turn.

Day 209 Tue 11/06/2012

Too Many Shark to Count

Sharks EVERYWHERE

“I might have gotten 4 hours of sleep total.  I was still in better shape than anyone else, which was good.  First dive in the Coral Sea.  We get everyone geared up, & I was first diver in.  I had been told over and & again, “You are going to see big sharks, so be ready.”  Holy smokes, were they right.  I jump in & scan the water.  50 meters of visibility!  The ocean floor below the boat is about 40 meters deep, & I can see the bottom clear as day.  1 shark, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9… I stop counting.  Everywhere.  The divers are stalling on the deck.  I’m the only diver in the water.

                        “Bart!  Hurry up man!” I yell.

                        “Why?” he askes.

                        “Get in the water & you’ll see.”

                        He jumps in and jerks his head out of the water.  “Holy shit dude!”

                        Hahaha we were in it now.  Awesome dive with white tip & black tip sharks.  Whoop!

            That night, while having some beers with some of our passengers, I find out that John from England was at the Red Rocks Colorado concert when U2 recorded the live show in the rain Under a Blood Red Sky.  No way!

            I almost went to bed early, because the group was talking politics.  Richie loves Cheap Trick.  This made me think of Aaron & Colleen.  Back to last night.  I ate Mom’s almonds.  I need to write about my care package!

            Tonight I’ll be back on the deck sleeping.  Richie & I are the only ones up here like usual.  John was at the 1983 Red Rocks Show.  Also at Newcastle when Brian Johnson sang for the first time after Bon Scott’s death.

            Richie told us a story about a girl who wanted to snorkel one year out on the Coral Sea.  This was a fine idea, so she was allowed to jump in.  Soon into he snorkel Richie & the lookout on the deck noticed 2 fairly large (2-3 meter) sharks in the water.  I cannot remember what species they were, but most likely white tip, black tip, or oceanic.  The 2 sharks were swimming right up behind her & dipping down below the snorkeler at the last second before making a large sweeping circle, only to repeat the entire action.  They were checking her out as food.

            Richie knew if the gal saw what was happening she would panic, making her look more like lunch for these sharks.  He got her attention with a calm shout.

            “Oiiii!  Lunch is almost ready!  Come back to the boat!”

            Once back to the boat safely there was no way Richie was going to tell her the truth.  She did say she saw a turtle, though.”

            These stories are so much better with Richie’s Aussie accent.  Well I saw more shark on this one dive than I had combined in all of my other dives.  I wasn’t scared once the dive began, but as I jumped in and realized I was the only person in the water I got a little shaky.  The sharks didn’t even care we were there though.  If anything as we approached they decided to fin the opposite direction.  We went to max depth and glided around the large bommie we were moored to.  Every dive should be like this.



Must be an issue with the guage,
because that reads 50 meters



            It was also today where Bart & I went on a deep dive with Richie.  He took us down the ledge over at a dive site called the Turtle’s Graveyard.  According to Richie there is a large structure of coral here that has the tendency to trap turtle’s inside where they die.  I assume the turtles find an easy way inside this formation, but then cannot seem to find their way back out.  We were completely comfortable following Richie on the dive.  He managed to get the camera from Bart for a moment and take a great picture of the two of us at our deepest depth.

Bart posing with other stinky things, tuna heads

Day 210 Wed 11/07/2012



View from the GoPro Canera mounted on the deco
bar during the shark feed



Shark Feed!

 

(from left) Richie, Julia & Bart.  Richie & Bart are gearing up
for a rescue dive simulation to practice various rescue skills

“This was the best day.  We totally disregarded the fact that we were in the water with sharks.  It started with the boat pulling up to a dive site I later found out to be called the Predator’s Playground.  The mooring lines were laying somewhere on the bottom.  I had to jump in to find one & retrieve it for the boat to moor to.  Free diving is different than SCUBA diving.  Free diving id basically snorkeling, but you actually will wear a weight belt so you are able to dive below the surface with one deep breath.

As I exited the boat from the bow & hit the water I see half a dozen sharks on the bottom swimming around on the ocean floor.  Nothing to worry about.

I swim around on the surface looking for old ropes & chains, but half the time I am watching the sharks.  I finally see the old chains on the bottom tied to a long mooring rope that was floating to just 5 meters below the surface.  I was able to wrestle the rope over above its anchoring point & to the surface.  I signaled to the boat I had the mooring & positioned it so Bart & Julia could get it.

Our great looking German Dive Master/Hostee Julia

After the boat was secure on the line & at rest I started back to the stern of the boat to board.  There was one white tip shark chilling back near the bottom near the stern.  As soon as I was within 10 feet of getting on the back step of the boat this shark turns & makes a direct attacking swim right at me.  Swimming for my life I think how glad I am that I am so close to the boat where I could board.  These sharks are NOT aggressive & usually ignore people.  I came out of the water like a penguin jumping/swimming out of the water onto a glacier 6ft high.  Masa is standing there next to me on the back step laughing devilishly while tossing chicken scarps in the water.  The sharks love chicken.  He had deliberately thrown a piece of chicken in at me.  He got me!

Actually it was leftover ham from lunch. Not important though.  Scared the shit out of me.  Masa is from Japan,& his laugh is so funny.  Super awesome guy.  He looks 25, but he is over 40.

We go down to the fridge, where we have stored 3 or 4 huge tuna heads.  We suspend a decompression bar from a rope attached to the dingy with these tuna heads on it.  We measure the lines so that the tuna heads will be held in the water just a few meters (3 meters) above the bottom.  The divers should be able to hide under the shadow of the boat & the sharks that are attracted by the bleeding tuna heads should be far enough behind the ship we are all out of the way and shouldn’t scare any sharks away.  I decide to take the chance of sacrificing my GoPro camera by mounting it on the deco-bar right next to the tunas to hopefully get some sick action of the feed.  My GpPro has been though a lot, so why not give it a go?

Everything seemed in place.  We toss the bar in & ease the tender out away from the ship letting the current push the small boat from the stern of our boat.  Bart & I are in the water ASAP.  The quicker the other divers get into the water the better.

Bart out on the reef working on a mooring line from

what I can tell (OR searching for mermaids)

Sharks come from every direction.  We planned for most of the bigger shark to come in from the deep sea, which was out behind the tunas.  We faced the tunas & in the background was the deep.  The reef was in front of the boat at our backs.  Sharks are still everywhere.  Silvertip, blacktip, & whitetip.  Bart & I look at each other & trade underwater hi-5’s.  “This is awesome,” I think that’s what Bart just mouthed as he replaces his primary regulator back into his mouth.  Seconds later a whitetip sharks swims right between us.  We don’t think it even saw us, but now we are looking 360 degrees around us for maybe a glimpse of a shark worth worrying about, like a hammerhead, macho, bull, tiger, or highly rare in these warm waters but possible great white.  I feel like almost immediately as the shark started to hit the tunas my GoPro was thrashed by one of the frenzying sharks and knocked free from the mount I was using.  I was using the mountain biking mount to hold the camera to the deco-bar, and thinking ahead of time I had put a safety string between the camera & the bar.  Bad move.  The camera could have just fell to the sand safely after being knocked loose, but now it is in the middle of this feeding frenzy like bait on a string.  It is obvious if it stays suspended 6 inches from this bar & tuna heads it will be chomped.  I take out the knife Daniel got me for Christmas & decide if I get some time to approach the bar as the sharks go for a break I’ll go cut the camera free.

Julia with some of the other lady divers

Two heads are carried off, & I get a fairly large window of opportunity to free my camera.  I kick over with this rusty knife in hand to cut my camera free before it becomes shark food.  No dramas.  It was a quick swipe & it was back in my possession.

After the feed calmed down divers buddied up & went for an explore.  Bart, Julia & I took off to find more sharks.  Bart had Richie’s old Olympus Tough camera, & he really got some good shark photos.  We found a few more sharks & a few caves, which we had to check out.  We didn’t want to do anything too tight, since we had already been in the water for 25 minutes.  This turned out to be one of the best dives on the Rum Runner.

Black & White Spotted Eel or a sea snake???

That night during the dive we saw a white and black spotted eel, a shark, and one crayfish.  It was a little scary thinking that in this same spot earlier we saw 30 plus sharks.  I bet these sharks are still nearby; we just cannot see them.

I’m trying to find the dive info on the 2^nd deep dive I did with Richie & Bart.  I am pretty sure the dive had already happened before this journal entry.  Don’t forget it.

Day 211 Thur 11/08/2012

Reef Pick Ride

Mr EEL

“Today we had dives in an environment I described in my dive log as Tatooine, Luke Skywalker’s home planet.  Under the surface of the water there were huge rolling dunes & very little coral.  This was a very different place, even for underwater.  We swam through many grooves & valleys.  If I remember correctly I got ill with the other DMs, Bart & Julz, here, because everything small I found I stopped to point out to them.  They seemed uninterested or were in another zone staring into the abyss.  So I gave up leading them & just swam to do my own thing.  Thinking they could follow me like we planned, or they could break off and do their own thing.  I took lots of video of this place, including shark footage, a large bump head wrasse, some tiny shrimp, and some pictures of a brown murray eel.

Later that day at our next site, named Coconut Point (Flora Reef System) I once again had to dive in to hook up our reef pick into the reef in order to give the boat something to anchor to.  We had to mooring here so one has to use an anchor style reef pick.

Richie loves it when his crew takes
photos of him and posts them on FB

First I jump in fully geared up & the boat follows me to a spot where there is solid reef to hook to.  Bart & Julia (or Masa) have a BCD fully inflated tied to the heavy reef pick to keep it afloat.  They throw it in the water when the boat is close to the position for anchoring.  I was supposed to slowly deflate the BCD tied to the pick as I also slowly deflate my own BCD.  I assumed my BCD fully inflated would keep myself & the anchor neutrally buoyant in the water if I let all the air out of the other BCD.  No way.  As I deflated the reef pick’s BCD it & I shot towards the bottom.  Once you let the air out of a BCD that is not connected to a tank cylinder the only way to inflate it again is by manually blowing your own breath back into the deflator hose, which means taking a deep breath off of your regulator, taking it out, holding a button down on the other BCD’s inflator hose while exhaling into the valve, spitting that out to hopefully find your reg again to take a breath.  Basically I had to hold on for the ride, because it would have been too dangerous to attempt to do all of this while falling towards the reef.  Once on the bottom I had to manually inflate the BCD in order to get the reef pick to a spot strong enough to hold the boat from.

Look at all the trevally's.  Great picture Bart!

Oh & to make things more interesting I see in my dive notes that my power inflator on my BCD is no longer working properly.  I had disconnected it at the beginning of the dive due to a leak.  So I had to manually inflate my BCD as if I had no tank on it as well.  I must have let air out of my BCD not thinking of my lack of power inflation.  Anyways, there was no harm done.  Ascending too fast is very dangerous when it comes to diving, but one is able to descend as fast as he or she wants.  The faster you descend the sooner you will have to equalize air in your sinuses and ears.  One is able to descend as fast as he or she is comfortable & can equalize the pressure change in your ears. I usually can descend very quickly.  The ascent is where you really have to be careful.

Super Bart!!!!!  HAHAHAHA!!!  NO FINS!

I keep writing about all of this dive related stuff, but I need to write more about the boat.  Alice, Sarah, Julia & later Bart’s cooking.  Oh & Jason cooks too.  One rule Jase has, which I learned early, is no hard rock in the morning.  The fist trip out with me being in charge of getting the crew up, starting coffee, waking divers…  I put on Guns N Roses – Welcome to the Jungle.  The boat at the time was full of backpackers, and I love waking up to some rock n roll.  Jason chewed my ass.

“After 9AM you can play that shit, McNaaaaaiiiiii!”  Jase loved GNR, but not in the morning.  Counting Crows (which we heard Round Here literally 10 times in a row) & Fast Car by (who’s that guy again)?  LOL.  Kill me now.  Good tunes, but once was enough for a long time.  9AM comes, and the set list is changed to Poison, Crue, Velvet Revolver, GNR, AC/DC & so on.

USA flags everywhere

When Jase is cooking you better stay the hell out of the kitchen, or you could get cut.  Asking him from afar if he was “all good down there” was OK, & half the time he would have something for someone to do.  “Stir this,” or “take the wings/potatoes out of the stove”.

One night some passengers continually came down into the kitchen to wash up a coffee mug or get a re-fill on water.  Jase would give a “get out of my way” stare to people coming down into the kitchen, but no one was catching on.  After having enough of this (and somehow without being rude) he hung a rope up to isolate the cooking & sink area from the lounge.  That hit home with all.  When I saw this I had to take it a step further.  Jason’e favorite word was the C word.  This was most Aussie bloke’s favorite word.  Strayans love the C word.  I made & hung a small sign up on Jase’s kitchen rope that read “Eff off you C! – The Hostie”.  I had only hung the sign there for a few quick pics, which Jase was more than happy to flip the bird to the camera & make scary faces.

Me teeing off at the wall.  We are over 100 feet deep
here.  It must be thousands of feet deep directly under
me in this picture.

 

Masa giving our guests some dive site info.

I am pointing to a large shark top left corner.

On the last dive of the trip Julia & I went to go look for some cool swim throughs.  Near the end of the dive we noticed many sharks near the reef pick.  Bart is hugging a rock just letting sharks swim right by him.  He ended up touching one.  I finally see why they are here.  Someone, Richie, has chained one of the tuna heads from the shark feeding to the rocks here.  Bart & I hugged the rocks near the tuna head & had sharks cruising right by us.  Richie signals us to get away.  He looked mad.  He had secretly put the tuna heads there & had been hiding & waiting in an attempt to attract some big sharks.  Bart & I were screwing that up for him.  We of course had no idea.  “I was trying to get some big boys in.  I waited for half an hour & you dummies screwed it up,” he laughed.




Bart caught a flying fish in mid-air!  Yea mate!

 

When it was finally time to leave the Coral Sea I once again jumped in to retrieve the reef pick.  Richie told me I could hang on to the line and pick if I am very careful while he reverses the boat out and away from the reef.  It was hell getting the anchor out.  Imagine the entire weight of the ship pulling on this line with it wedged in the reef.  It was dug in.  Richie pulled the boat up to and over the reef pick to let the tension off the line as I unhooked it from the reef & inflated its BCD.  The signal to let the boat know I had the pick free was to free flow my regulator and send as many bubbles to the surface as possible.  I heard the boat kick into reverse and throttle up.  With the boat not anchored to anything Richie would be worried to hit the reef if he didn’t quickly get out and away from this spot.  I held on tight to the reef pick.  I shot through the water with the boat.  Masa & Bart were trying to bring the anchor in at the same time.  They were not aware I was along for the ride to keep from being left back on the reef.  Whoops, sorry guys.  Masa was not happy.”

Masa and his dinner

I was just following the skipper’s suggestions at this point, but me holding onto the line really made it difficult to pull that line in.  I am actually surprised I didn’t pull the guys into the water when we reversed from the reef.  They were supposed to leave the bow line tied off so I could have something to hold onto as we moved out of position.  I assume we were lucky to keep the bow line on the boat at all with me holding on, but now harm done.  There was a slight miscommunication.  Once a plan is in place there isn’t much changing it when you are talking about a diver underwater who cannot communicate more than sending bubbles to the surface.  It was a hell of a ride through the water though.  There is some video of Bart & I hooking up reef picks out here, I need to check and see if by some chance I videoed this roller coaster ride.

Day 212 Fri 11/09/2012

Back to Cairns

“My watch was from 2AM-4AM on the return trip to Cairns.  Bart & I drank some Carlton Mids (mid strength beer) & jammed out to tunes.  Very calm seas, so we could relax on lookout.”



Masa was able to bring his wife, Michiyo, on the trip as well.
It was very rare to see Masa not smiling this big.



            I think what happened was our celebrations with the guests from a successful trip just carried over on our trip back.  Bart had an early watch so I stayed up with him and helped.  We were cranking some tunes and having a good time with a few of the other guests who were not ready to go to bed. 

            We took turns peeking out over the deck looking for signs of other boats on the water.  We reminded each other to check the gauges and GPS to ensure everything was normal.

            Then when it officially became my turn for watch Bart just stayed up with me to help keep me awake.  I was so surprised how loud we could turn up the music top side and nothing be heard below deck.  Many times a new song would come on and one of us would go below deck to make sure it wasn’t audible from there.  People were sleeping though.  You couldn’t even tell we were playing music up in the cockpit with all the noise from the vessel cutting through the ocean.

(Wow it is hard writing about things that happened a year ago!  Sorry for allt he typos!  If it is a fragmented sentence, it is like that because I wrote in frags throughout my journal.  Each day was filled with 20 times the detail I am writing here.  I wish I could recall every conversation/arguement.  Each night we sat on the boat out on the reef or in the marina there was always jokes, great stories, life talks, and other topics no one can recall.  This is me doing my best to keep the greatest year of my life right here on the tip of my tongue until the next trip.  When I am able to get back to doing what I love this blog will be filled with MORE detail and MORE pictures.)

In the next few weeks I leave the boat that has been my home, but not until another Coral Sea Adventure, a trip to Fitzroy Island dedicated to witnessing the Solar Eclipse that occured (Tommy wanted to be in full SCUBA as it happed hahaha), ANOTHER Coral Sea Trip, plus maybe a few parties in Cairns.  OK, lots more parties and many new friends!