Raine Island - Nature's Cradle on the Edge of the Coral Sea
Satellite Web Cast From Turtle Heaven and Hell
Journal Entry - 12- 11 - Tigers Two / Humans Zip!

Another early morning this morning. By 5:30 we were trudging our way through the sand on the island, carefully picking our way around the turtles which had yet to finish and head back to the sea. The morning was spent photographing birds and turtles. I tried to capture on film how dry the island has become since it hasn't rained here in such a long time. I used the early morning sun to backlight the clouds of fine dust created by the last of the turtles digging their body pits. I also spent quite a bit of time photographing a frigate bird colony. While doing this I noticed a turtle hatchling and went through a number of rolls working hard to stop the little fellow in action. These guys crawl like crazy!
By 9:00 the sun once again ruled the island. The frigate birds and boobies were panting and the last of the turtles were either headed for the water or destined to die a slow death. They simply cannot be out in the sunshine for the more than two or three hours at mid-day before they overheat and die. Surprisingly the number of turtles which do die on the island is a minuscule percentage of the total number of turtles which visit. Unfortunately the number of hatchlings which survive their first 24 hours at Raine island is also very low. The birds here have very sharp eyes. They are keen predators.
Later in the day we continued our efforts to draw the interest of the island's tiger sharks. By mid-afternoon we had lost several pieces of bait to largish reef sharks and then while re-baiting the line with a large hunk of tuna it dropped into the 100 foot water below the boat. The decision made this would distract any sharks in the area so Richard and I dove to retrieve the massive piece of bait. When we reached the bottom we found a pack of gray reef sharks milling about over the bait and then out of the blue a very large female tiger shark. Richard pointed, I pointed, the shark looked at us, we looked at it and it raced off. We cautiously proceeded down another fifteen feet to the bait and tied a line to it and expeditiously lifted it the surface with the help of our buoyancy compensators.
This evening the tagging team went over to the island and removed a tag from another of the tagged turtles when it returned to the island to nest. This time the data show shows a maximum dive depth of 32 meters. We hope to be able to share the graph with you tomorrow. Only one turtle left. Interestingly, the team came back from the island reporting that the number of turtles on the island for the night has dropped considerably. The wind has picked up and the sea become choppy which may have something to do with the reduced number of turtles present on the island.
Two and half more ours of chumming yielded no tiger shark: Tiger SharksTwo, Humans None. Getting boring!

We closed the day by returning to the island for sunset which was quickly washed out by the presence of a large cloud. About par for the day.
Oh well, up early again tomorrow Hopefully the weather will be as it was today - oil sick calm.
Don't forget you can email us questions at
raineexpedition@netcarrier.com
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Photo Captions:
• Hatchling.
• Frigate cooling.
• Frigate bird.