Raine Island - Nature's Cradle on the Edge of the Coral Sea
Satellite Web Cast From Turtle Heaven and Hell
Journal Entry - 12 - 18 - 02 - The Big Bang
Copeman & Sutherland on how it all falls together.

It all happened today.

Today I finished the last and worst of the three novels I brought with me. Not that it was so bad, but compared to the social detail of Tom Wolfe, or the juicy banalities of Bill Wyman's life in the Rolling Stones, Joseph Kanon's "Los Alamos" is a lightweight read. But one thing I do like, he knows what an audience wants. It's a love story and murder mystery, set against the backdrop of the first atomic bomb test in New Mexico. I knew the relationship would end well and Kanon wrapped the murder mystery with twenty or so pages to go. So what else was left to stick around for? The Nuke. The Big Bang. Da Bomb. Nothing to do with the plot, it offered no historic or scientific information I didn't already know, but Mr. Kanon knew I had to have it. So it is with our film, with Paul's photographs.
We can give you all the amazing facts about this place, its history, the amazing ecosystem, the physical extremes... We can make you fall in love with the characters - determined turtles, powerful sharks... We can weave a story of the seasons, tell you about the turtles' incredible journey and the sharks' nomadic existence. But what you really want to see is the Money Shot. The Showdown. The Big Bite. Thanks to good preparation, experience, and an amazing run of luck, it all happened today.
While I was again pondering our script in my air conditioned cocoon of luxury, the shore party were filming around the tower. Returning to the Zodiac (yes, ours isn't some generic inflatable, we have the real thing) one of the team noticed a turtle not far from shore, splashing just a little more than it would for a breath of air and a quick look at the beach. Quicker than Richard could yell "Shark Attack!" They were heaving gear aboard and racing to the scene of the assault. This was a scene I know we needed, but in the limited time we have here, I honestly didn't think we'd film a Tiger attack on a live turtle. At the outset of the trip, Jeremy told me that however well prepared you are, no matter how clever you may be in structuring and restructuring your story, with natural history field shoots, you really are in the lap of the gods. We thought they had smiled on us the other day when we found sharks scavenging a dead animal that had been picked up by the tide. In fact, I had just finished "Los Alamos" and was thinking about how we could use that to construct our films Big Bang, when Nature revealed the real thing.
Why do some turtles get attacked and others make it through unscathed? I'm not sure. The amputees we've filmed in the water and on the beaches are evidence that it is possible to survive an attack, even a mutilation and still go on to breed and nest here. This individual wasn't so lucky. When the crew got close enough to film, she had already lost a flipper. Now the shark was circling, taking its time. Oblivious to the Zodiac, it took another two flippers. And Richard caught it all on video tape. Even more miraculously, it had a grey spot on its flank, the same as one of the sharks we had seen scavenging the floating corpse a few days before. Nature had revealed to us a single shark character, with an unfolding story. Good for us.
With sharks in the water, it was time to attempt to attach one of Richard's satellite tags. We have already tried to catch a tiger, with no success. Perhaps this was our lucky day. The baits were put out, the team readied, and a burley slick began to spill out for hundreds of metres from the back of the boat. Small reef sharks and a six foot Tawny nurse hang around the deck. Richard plays with the tawny with his dive fin. Two hours later we had hooked and lost two tigers. Bingo, another takes the bait. Adam and Tim haul on the rope. The tiger splashes. She goes deep. The lads fight to keep the line tight. The hooks are barbless, so as to minimize damage to the animals. But they put up one hell of a fight. The boys wear gloves to protect their hands from the rope, but nothing can prevent them from fatigue. Tim's arms tire and Adam, fighting the pull from the eleven foot shark, gets Ian to hold him steady on the duckboard.
She's up at the duckboard now, thrashing and twisting the rope around her. She's dark grey on top, lightly stripped towards the tail, and almost white on her underbelly. This is almost too good to be true. It's the female with the grey birthmark on her flank. Every time she comes up parallel to the surface, she reveals her considerable width and depth. She's an impressive animal. But she's tiring. If we're not going to harm her, things have to move quickly. While the team holds her head up by the deck, Richard jumps in beside her to rope her tail. She thrashes free of the duckboad and Richard moves fast to stay away from her jaws. There's shouting and splashing, Richard issuing garbled commands and swear words through his snorkel. They subdue her again, Richard disappears for a moment and then he's up again, yelling that she's attached and for the team to haul her tail up. He's out of the water in a flash, and the huge animal is turned over. Calm descends. Suspend a shark from its tail or upend it, and it becomes not quite as meek as a lamb, but manageable.
Richard holds a template up to her dorsal fin, and drills two holes for attaching the tag. There's a small amount of blood. The tag is secured in a couple of minutes. Then, with Ian and Paul in the water already, Richard dons scuba gear and submerges alongside the great predator to release and swim the tiger free. Ian and Paul are there to watch Richard's back. From the deck, the rails, even atop the canopy, the rest of us watch theirs. Paul has the added distraction of trying to photograph the process. Those who want to are given the opportunity of touching the beast. She is lethargic. She must be eased off the hook and encouraged to start swimming. Incredibly, Richard now hugs her, just centimeters from her jaws, and swims her away from the boat. He wags her tail for her, to show her she is free to swim again, and after a few moments, she strokes gently away.
We're on a roll. There are more sharks hanging around in the burley slick, so we break for lunch and then try to tag another. We see one just as big as the one we tagged, but it's the other we really want. It looks like a couple of feet longer, but with sharks, just a couple of feet more length can mean a couple of hundred pounds or more in additional weight. It circles the boat. It makes repeated passes at the bait, but doesn't take it. After an hour or more, the sun has gotten lower in the sky, and we're losing the light. Time to call it quits. We have our big Big Bangs and more. And it all happened today.
Don't forget you can email us questions at
raineexpedition@netcarrier.com
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Photo Captions:
• Tiger shark.
• Richard with sharks tail.
• Waiting and watching.
• Tagging a tiger shark.
• Richard with a tag.