A Different Mt. Olympus

The days of buoy construction are over, I’m now back on the hill with my old pal “theo” scanning the ocean for those characteristic columns of water vapor we call blows. A few days ago I went out on the Carmena, a small aluminum boat, to help deploy 3 of the 5 buoys used to record whale song and track animals acoustically. It was a 2 boat operation between the Carmena and a larger vessel called the Ash Dar S. Basically the heavy cement moorings had to be lowered at the same time as the anchor that keeps the hydrophone bridle in place, to insure that the lines wouldn’t become tangled as they descended 20 meters to the bottom. So the Ash Dar S used their winch to lower the main moorings, while the Carmena kept tension on the bridle anchor as it was lowered. It should make since from the illustration. I have photos of the whole operation and can show you some time. It wasn’t easy work, especially with a 15 knot northerly and a good sea, but everything went fairly smoothly.

The buoys are now streaming whale sounds in real time via a radio transmitter, enabling us to tune into the proper stations and listen to them either up on the hill, or 24/7 at base station. Four of the buoys are programmed to shut off at sunset and turn on at sunrise to conserve batteries (which need to be changed every 6-8 days), with 1 buoy running all the time. It’s really fun to walk into base for an avocado and Vegemite sandwich and listen to whales singing just off the beach. Basically anyone within rang could tune into the 5 whale frequencies and have a listen. It’s really awesome to see it all in action; for instance today we were listening to a strong whale song for a good hour from a whale close to the buoys. When the song started to get quite we knew the whale was about to surface, and we could see from the hill a whale come up near one of the buoys, take a few breaths, dive…and the song would slowly get louder again. Not only that, the acoustic tracking team was able to match our visual position of the whale with their acoustic fix so we were certain it was the right whale. We even watched how a pod came in and joined the singer, pec slapped a few times (which we could hear over the hydrophone), then continued on their way. The singer stopped briefly, then started his song once again.

The surf report is good. I haven’t been back to Noosa in a while for the fun longboard waves, but the dumpy beach break out front here in Peregian has actually offered some decent rides. Beach breaks are always faster and more exhilarating than point breaks and river mouths like Noosa; it’s a different kind of adrenaline rush. The beach breaks here are really steep, it’s like a huge wall of water suddenly pitching in front of you, and if you don’t make the turn, you get thrown straight into the sandbank below. On the other hand if the turn is made properly, you have a good 10 seconds of perfect face to do a few sharp bottom carves before the waves either plays out in the rip channel or explodes in your face (never a good thing). We had to sighting in the surf this morning of large fauna. The first was one of our very own humpback whales, which surfaced maybe 300 meters or less from our position in the break. This was followed by a much more frightening sighting of a bait ball being chased by possibly several sharks, initiating the end of our morning surf session. A major thunder storm has been forecasted later this week, so we may have some days off to go surf some nice clean southern storm swells behind the protecting headland of Noosa. Let’s hope the wind will be offshore.

Just as a note in case I use this blog for future reference, the lorikeets here are almost all of the Scaly-breasted variety; unlike Straddie and northern Queensland with the Rainbow Lorikeets.