Raine Island - Nature's Cradle on the Edge of the Coral Sea
Satellite Web Cast From Turtle Heaven and Hell
Journal Entry - 12 - 01 - 02
We awoke underway, having gone to be bed in a rolling sea which made it very uncomfortable. Clouds moved in over night as we reached Mantis reef the site of our proposed first dive. The clouds and low pressure system block out the sun but also help to flatten the seas.

At Mantis we met up with the Undersea Explorer and checked in to see where we should dive to capture exciting behavior on film.Mantis had loads of aggregating pelagics, jack fish and mackeral preparing to spawn. This is the time when the entire Barrier Reef is procreating. The film team is trying to work into the movie as much of the natural history of reefs of the area around Raine Island (we are only two hours sail from Raine). Today we dove three reefs. Mantis had the large pelagic fish, including a big silvertip shark which was curious enough to make a few passes but not curious enough to come close enough for a photograph.
At Monique's Unique Bommie (pinnacle) we went in search of the rare Rhinopias (weedy) scorpion fish. I took the Nikon D100 in the Sea and Sea housing into the water for the first time. As you can see there is much to be learned. We have a few technical issues to work out which
will help flatten the learning curve but when, in the next several days, we get the kinks worked out the digital technology should be a joy to work with. We did not by the way, find the scorpion fish.
Later this afternoon, we reached Great Detached Reef, three nautical miles from Raine Island with the weather having cleared up nicely. We can see the light beacon tower at the far end of the island and marine park authority boat off of which the Raine Island Corporation research team is working . They will be at the island for the first ten days we are there. We will do all we can to stay out of their way.
At Great Detached my colleague, noted box jellyfish expert, Dr. Jamie Seymour and I set off to find the nesting yellow margined trigger fish. They were there but they weren't nesting and it wasn't ten minutes in to the dive before both the digital housing and my film camera housing had malfunctioned making photography impossible. As we were about 1/4 mile from the boat we just decided to enjoy the late afternoon light and watch the reef fish court and spawn. We were joined shortly by a couple of curious 5 foot white tip reef sharks which hung around for quite a while, at times showing more interest than I would have preferred, being without a working camera.
But there will be lots of other opportunities. We will sort out the kinks and hiccups and things will go smoothly and the images will flow....

And you will be there...
Built on an Apple G4 Titanium Powerbook courtesy of Apple Computers Inc., Connected to the world by Iridium Satellite LLC and Digital eyes courtesy of Nikon - the new D100 digital camera, Captured on LexarMedia digital film.
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Photo Captions:
• Lizard fish - These ambush predators lie in wait camouflaged aganst the bottom waiting for unsuspecting prey to swim past and lunge out in an
explosive burst.
• Hard coral - One of the many species of coral found in the Western Pacific.
• Nudibranch - These sea slugs are colored these brilliant colors to warn potential predators that they are unappetising because of chemicals found in their bodies.