Raine Island - Nature's Cradle on the Edge of the Coral Sea
Satellite Web Cast From Turtle Heaven and Hell
Journal Entry - 12- 2 - 02 - Raine At last - For the moment.
The grating roar of the anchor winch pulled me out of a light sleep at six am. We are still at Great Detached Reef, three nautical miles from Raine Island, pulling anchor. The anchor winch is mere feet from my head. Oh well, time for a cup of coffee.
An hour later we are anchored at Raine. The island is so low profile all we can see from our anchorage is the beach facing us with birds clustered at the waters edge and in the distance, at the North East point, the beacon tower. When we arrived there were a couple of turtles working hard against the early morning and already searing heat. The light radiating off the island sand was so bright it was hard to look at the island.

The lead ranger from the Raine Island Corporation research expedition gave us a briefing on the rules of accessing the island and how the critical issues are the heat and our impact on the birds as we move about the island. Apparently the day time temperatures on the island are dangerously high and if island visitors don't take care serious health issues can develop - heat stroke and even death. The issue is serious enough that a couple hundred liters of water are strategically placed on this small island for emergency use. The high temperatures also mean that if visitors should stress a nesting bird and it leaves the nest unprotected during the midday hours the egg will cook within half an hour.

We decide that while the Raine Island Corporation research team is at the island we will work primarily in the water documenting the reefs around Raine. Two members of the team will begin work on a turtle tagging project but otherwise there will be very limited access to the island for the first eight days.
We made a couple of dives at Raine. I saw a beautiful large black manta ray and its cousin the mobula ray. I also made an error in judgment and called in a white tip reef shark with throat clucking sounds and body vibrations and two minutes later realized there were seven or eight other sharks in the water around me all showing a strong interest in me. Though none were close enough to make wide angle photography worth while their intense interest spooked me and I backed out of there for shallower water at the top of the reef..
The fish at Raine are also aggregating to spawn or have done so. The reef is covered in fish darting about with nervous energy. Territorial disputes are everywhere while larger predatory fish take advantage of the smaller reef fish as they focus on the business of procreation. To capture more of this on film we headed back Great Detached reef for another evening spawning shoot. Richard Fitzpatrick and I returned to a location he had filmed yesterday with success. We spent quite a while just hanging off the wall in the blue waiting for the predators and then Richard signaled me to follow him up over the top of the reef into shallow water. There we waited as Richard got his bearings and we listened for the sound of fish spawning in the water column. For some time the reef flat in all of five feet of water was inactive but then as if some grand signal had been given three for four species decided to spawn at the same time. They all went off at once. There is a beautiful pulsing dance as the entire school of fish pulses upwards off the reef towards the surface and then down just above the coral, this happening several times, and then when they reach their zenith pairs, selected by some magic signal, break out of the school at lightning speed and darting higher into the water column, release eeg and sperm together into the water column. Once it started it went on for forty minutes before we left. Small bait fish had come to feed on the milt in the water and slightly larger fish to feed on them. There were mackerel and dog tooth tuna making lightening passes feeding on the spawning surgeon fish. It was nature way at its finest.
The down side the to the whole day, other than the fact that I tried spear my head on a hose rack and gave myself a big bump on the forehead, is that I am still working out the kinks with the digital housing and dealing with a housing that won't top leaking and flooded DEAD a strobe for the first time in my career. Not a good day until late this afternoon when I watched my own 40 minute documentary on piscine procreation and survival.

But the evening got better.

Tonight's DVD was Shrek - so much for scientific integrity post dinner.

Stay Tuned!! Raine tomorrow!!
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Photo Captions:
• Me - yours truly. On the top deck of the MV Floreat. With Raine Island in
the background.
• Ianbell- Ian is well respected ranger and turtle expert. He will be one of the team members working on the turtle tagging / tracking project.