Trip Report #1 |
Trip Report #2 |
Trip Report #3
Minke Drift
by Jeanette McInnes
As good as it gets: Passing fins to Captain Ian, who was waiting to assist guests out of the water, the diver clambered up the ladder. With a yawning motion the regulator was released and the diver exclaimed, As Jack Nicholson would say, that's as good as it gets. A 30cm stonefish and two leaf scorpion fish in one square metre!
That was Banjaroes; a diminutive 16m pinnacle ending a comfortable 4m from the surface in open sea off Ribbon Reef Number 10 in the Great Barrier Reef. Half of our 80 minute dive was spent as a safety stop admiring and photographing these 3 venomous critters and their friends. We also encountered a huge loggerhead turtle resting photogenically on a sunlit ledge, the streaky black and white Nembrotha lineolata nudibranch with russet and aqua rhiophores and gills, herds of ovalspot butterfly fish and, oh yeah, two dwarf minke whales who spent 15 minutes observing the divers.
The objective of this trip was to observe the dwarf minke whales and collect data for the CRC Reef Research Centre. The latter was easy to achieve thanks to Matt Curnock of James Cook University, who spent virtually every minute of the trip on whale watch or snorkeling and photographing the whales. The rest of us contributed our observations to his data bank.
If all this deck watching and snorkeling sounds like a non-dive trip, think again.
We had 30 opportunities to dive, several of which included the luxury of open-deck diving. We were offered a night dive every night.
Nine divers, one snorkeler, engineer Keith and a mountain of fresh food left Cairns on June 2001 on board three light aircraft. After a one-hour flight at 1,000 feet, cruising at 150 knots/270 kph, we landed at Lizard Island northeast of Cooktown and were promptly whisked on board the Nimrod Explorer. We ten passengers had booked a 7-day trip, hoping to see a dwarf minke whale or two. In order to spare us a time-consuming cruise between our dive sites and Cairns, our trip included a return flight from Lizard Island at a very safe and scenic 500 feet.
MINKE SCOREBOARD:
So did we attain our objective? Just feast your eyes on our minke scorecard:
| Day 1 |
1 minke
|
Dive/snorkel
|
1 hour
|
Day 2
|
3 minkes
|
Dive/snorkel
|
2 hours
|
Day 3
|
2 minkes
|
Dive/snorkel
|
2 ½ hours
|
Day 5
|
2 minkes
|
Dive
|
¼ hour
|
Day 6
|
3+ minkes
|
Dive/snorkel
|
6 hours
|
Many whales! Barbara and Roland, from Switzerland, coined this toast at dinner on day one and we continued to use it every night to ensure minke success for the rest of the trip.
On day two, leaving Lighthouse Bommie off Ribbon Reef Number 10, my buddy Colin (from Woywoy, NSW) and I encountered three minkes. As we hung stationary as per the Whale Conservation Guidelines, the whales glided and pirouetted around us in their dolphin-like manner. Spending about 20 minutes with us, they demonstrated their confidence by approaching within 50cm and rolling over to expose their vulnerable bellies.
Returning to the Nimrod Explorer in 5m from the Clam Garden on day five, my buddy and I suddenly stopped finning. Twenty metres in front of us we saw a minke's shoulder patches, followed shortly by the rest of the whale. The critter approached within 10m of us before putting on the brakes. There the three of us hung for about 15 minutes, silently staring at each other before the minke resumed his tour of the Clam Garden.
Our 2-hour minke drift was on day 6. Helen, from Colorado, was our token snorkeler. Traveling with her diving husband and two sons, she had as much fun and interaction with the whales as the rest of us. We often had a dive followed by a snorkel, experiencing just as much on snorkel, without the need to fin or monitor gauges.
Helen summed up her feelings quite well. We came to the Great Barrier Reef to see the usual tropical sea life. It was just a coincidence that we came during minke whale season, and I didn't expect to be impressed. But the whales turned out to be the highlight of my week here. Seeing them up close as we did had a real impact on my attitude toward preserving our resources.
Unlike other whales, the minkes do not tend to blow a plume of water when breathing; they just stick their pointy noses out of the water far enough to breath through their blowholes. They do, however, indulge in a rather endearing activity; spy hopping, or to put it bluntly, perving on the neighbors. They surface higher than eye level and have a good above-water sticky. Each time Darryl and Steve, the instructor/dive coordinators, winched the rescue dinghy back on board, the minkes invariable spy-hopped; either in a supervisory role or just because they wanted to learn how to winch.
You better watch your wrasse!
Karen, from Northern Ireland via a school teaching job in Melbourne, created this bon mot, expressing our collective delight in all the critters, not just minkes, we saw at dive sites covering the length of the Ribbon Reefs; in total 19 different sites and 3 minke drifts. The dive sites were like a box of assorted chocolates; a mixture of old favourites the Cod Hole, Steve's Bommie and Pixie Pinnacle and newies which even the Cairnsites do not know: Rouge, Triceratops and Tak. The Cod Hole was swarming with potato cods and reef sharks in limpid 30+m visibility. On the drift dive at Lark Pass, my buddy and I found a shadowy swim-through crammed with Queensland groupers, one of whom had to exceed 3m. Numerous sites had several olive sea snakes, morays, map pufferfish and a starry pufferfish all of whom willingly posed for photos. There was quite a bit of hawksbill and loggerhead turtle, and crustacean action, as well as juvenile razorfish, rockmovers, and ubiquitous spotted pufferfish and nudibranchs.
On the premise that the chef is the most important crew member, we were provided with two chefs, Jenny and Phil, who took turns satisfying the inner diver with meals better than mama ever made. Here are a typical day's offerings:
Pre-dive breakie: Juice, fruit, cereal, toast, muffins
Post-dive breakie: Banana pancakes, bacon, eggs, and more fruit and toast
Lunch: Lasagne, garlic bread, assorted salads
Afternoon tea: Homemade pastries and fruit
Dinner: Roast lamb, corn, carrots, broccoli, mashed potatoes, assorted salads
Sweet: Bombe Alaska
Did all this frenetic activity send us off to our bunks straight after dinner? Not likely when Matt kicked off the first two evenings with minke slide shows and entertaining talks. This is how we learned to distinguish minke boys from minke girls. On the following nights, Captain Ian kept the momentum going with slide show talks on turtles, coral, cephalophods and nudibranchs. Newcomers to the Great Barrier Reef really appreciated the extra knowledge, and the old hands enjoyed the slides and humour.
Homeward Bound. The end of our week's diving was not the end of our whale sightings. On the flight back to Cairns we spotted four minkes along with three groups of dolphins, a zillion turtles, a dozen each sharks and rays and one sea monster. At least I think it was a sea monster; 3m long with the body of a shovelnose ray and the tail of a leopard shark. Matt looked skeptical!
A Cryptic Little Whale. There is not much known about the dwarf minke whale. There are three separate minke whales; the North Atlantic minke often observed off Scotland, the Antarctic minke; and our own dwarf minke, observed from South Australia to Queensland, New Zealand and New Caledonia. With their trademark pointy noses and relatively small, brown, doe-like eyes, the dwarf minkes feed on krill. They have a distinctive pattern of white shoulder patches extending down to flippers which end in a black tip. The shoulder patch is unique to each whale; up close the border between white and grey appears to have been painted on with rough irregular brush strokes.
On a snorkel, dive, or observing from the boat, the highly reflective white patch is seen before the rest of the whale comes into view. Most dwarf minke whales have a scattering of circular scars and a half circle nip or two on the trailing edge of the dorsal fin or fluke.
These wounds are believed to be caused by the cookie cutter shark; a vicious little beast living at 140m and deeper who can bite through virtually anything. The circular scars are the result of the cookie cutter shark taking a mouthful of blubber. Fortunately for the whales, these scars heal and disappear quickly and are not considered a useful aid in identifying individuals.
Two metres long at birth, the dwarf minkes attain an average length of eight metres. Thanks to their diminutive size, they are not a target of boats which persist in whaling. The calves are born in April or June from Victoria to Lady Elliot Island and are weaned in about six months. Eighty percent of dwarf minke whale sightings occur in June and July of Queensland. These agile, if blubbery, critters cruise at up to 12 knots/22kph, dive down to at least 140m and hold their breath from 1 to 12 minutes. It is easy to sex minke whales, if they choose to roll on their backs. The male genital slit is close to the anal slit and the female genital and anal slits are a bit farther apart.
A very cool component of the total minke experience is listening to them communicate. Mostly they make grunting, moaning and belching sounds, but sometimes a lucky listener will hear the minkes' answer to the Star Wars theme: three pips followed by a long tone rising in pitch. I swear I heard them make a cheeping or peeping sound, too, but Matt expressed his doubt in a rather unscholarly manner!
What we do not know is whether the dwarf minke whales feed while in the Great Barrier Reef, where their calving groups are, what their population is or what their lifespan is. The other two minke varieties live about sixty years.
Minke Guidelines
In a bid to protect our cetacean visitors, the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority has drafted some guidelines.
As soon as a minke is sighted, boats are to throttle back to no wake speed. They may not circle the whales or make rapid course changes. Within 100m of the whales, the engine must be put into neutral. On minke drifts, there may be not motorized tow. No food scraps may be put in the water.
One or two drift lines of up to 50m are recommended for use by snorkelers. The Nimrod Explorer crew laced foam noodles on their drift lines for snorkeler comfort and attached the lines to the side of the boat. We found that there was no best position on the line. The minkes were keen to eyeball all of us regardless of our spot. Numbers of in-water snorkelers should be limited to 6-10. On the Nimrod Explorer we never had to wait our turn to drift; just let the back deck crew know that we were getting in the water. With the engine off, snorkelers are to remain in contact with the rope, avoid duck diving, touching the whales, and flash photography. To avoid startling a surfacing minke, the space between the two drift lines is a no swim zone. When entering or leaving the water or changing lines, snorkelers are to remain close to the hull of the boat. We kept minke drifting until the Nimrod Explorer got close to a reef. On one marathon drift we interacted with the whales for 2½ hours!
A rescue dinghy must be immediately available while snorkelers are in the water. By remaining in contact with the line, however, the dinghy was not needed. A deck watch must be maintained throughout the minke drift. Natch!
Prior to entering the water, snorkelers must be given a thorough dwarf minke whale briefing. Instructions include: no splashy entry, swim quietly to and from the drift lines, and do not approach the whales. The latter instruction did not diminish our minke experience; our blubbery mates came within 50cm of our masks. We really saw eye-to-eye with the whales!
The no flash photography rule is a blessing in disguise. The risk of backscatter is completely eliminated, and the cetacean's highly reflective skin results in bright, natural photographs even at 2 or more metres from our subjects. I disabled the automatic strobe of my Sea & Sea MX-5 by covering it with a fingertip.
What if you are on a dive and minkes appear? Just carry on your dive and let them approach you, if they feel like it. A key element of the guidelines is: the dwarf minke whales should control all aspects of interaction with people, including location, depth, duration and proximity.
Who is Nimrod?
Nimrod was one of Noah's sons, a skilful hunter and the founder of Nineveh in present-day Iraq.
But I digress. Nimrod, recently renamed Nimrod Explorer, is one of the roomiest dive boats anywhere. The vessel is twin hulled for optimum stability and measures 23m x 8m, making the saloon positively spacious. Better still; the back deck could easily accommodate 36 divers. With a maximum 18 guests, we could have held a barn dance out there! There are 2 cabins on the saloon deck - 1 double and 1 twin and on the lower deck there are __ quad share rooms and a double. All rooms have their own shower and loo. Thanks to the desalinator, which can churn out 6000 litres of fresh water per day, we could shower after every dive. Despite ye old nautical charm of wood paneling throughout, Nimrod Explorer is fully air-conditioned and has video and CD players. There are also plenty of fish identification books, a lending library, more board games than we had time to play, self-serve brewed coffee, a wide variety of teas and complimentary soft drinks. As if that were not enough to keep us busy, there is a shaded upper deck area with tables and chairs, as well as a sunbathing area.
There are numerous 3½ day cruises throughout the year, including a flight to or from Lizard Island. Because the Nimrod Explorer has a plethora of great dive sites to choose from, many divers do two back-to-back cruises, staying out for a full week. Weather permitting, two dive are done at the Cod Hole on every 3½ day trip, including an in-your-face potato cod feed. Not only great fun for the divers, the feed encourages the potato cods to stay at the Cod Hole where there is an absolute ban on fishing. Unlike some dive boats, the crew of the Nimrod Explorer urges divers not to touch the impossibly cute potato cods so that we do not wipe off their protective mucous coating and expose them to possible infections.
Throughout the year, the Nimrod Explorer offers special 7-10 day cruises including minke whale trips, Osprey Reef, Lockhart, and Ashmore Reef in the Far North.
Looking for something even more exotic? Nimrod Explorer's sister dive boat, Caribbean Explorer II, offers 7-day trips out of St. Maarten visiting Saba, Statia, and St. Kitts.
