The Cyclones Continue

Today is Monday April 4th. After seeing mainland Australia out my porthole window this morning, I found myself back in Dampier once again waiting for the weather offshore to improve. I have spent the entire day in my cabin, playing Mine Sweeper, Hearts, watching old episodes of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, and of course watching for probably the hundredth time The Life Aquatic. This has been the routine for most of my days during this swing; the cyclones just will not let up. I transferred from the Finnmarken to the Gateway on Friday, and there is even less to do on this ship. The following is a brief chronology of the past few days.

Friday, April 1st.

The first day of my last month in Australia (potentially, I may come back in September…and sometime later in life). Never the less it marks the end of an almost year long chapter in my life. I caught a transfer vessel to the Gateway at lunch, and finally got a chance to observe some marine fauna after 11 days on standby on the Finnmarken. Another cyclone demobilization has been issued due to the presence of the 11th tropical cyclone of the season forming to the north, expected to reach Barrow Island by this Wednesday. At dusk, the Finnmarken set sail for Dampier where they will stock up on supplies before voyaging out into the Indian Ocean to avoid the predicted approaching weather. The Gateway will stay on site for a few more days to get some dredging done, they are now a good month behind schedule, before following suit. Watching the Finnmarken disappear over the horizon (after exchanging several spirited blats of the horn as they passed) I have a sense of how the early convict colonists back in 1788 must have felt as the last ship in their fleet, the Supply, sailed out of Sydney Cove; leaving them stranded in a foreign land.

Saturday, April 2nd

Beautiful calm weather this morning, the sea is as flat as can be. Worked a full day, and sighted several Flatback Turtles, a dozen sea snakes of 2 different genera, a couple Indo-Pacific Humpback Dolphins, the occasional reef shark, and a mother calf pair of dugongs. The dugongs were a surprise. They appeared suddenly just off the bow as we were negotiating a narrow channel out to the spoil grounds (where they dump the dredged material). We passed about 50 meters clear of where they dove, but I watched for a while in our wake to insure no injuries were inflected. Dugongs are known to shy away from vessel noise, and they were not seen again.

I also spotted another Lesser Frigatebird patrolling the airspace around Barrow. Whenever a seabird is seen out of its rang it usually means one of 2 things; either the bird is not well, or wind is nearby. I’m expecting tomorrow we will encounter the wind.

Sunday, April 3rd

Another full day of work, and the wind is up. It was beauford 3-4 all morning, peaking at beauford 5 by midday. If you’re not familiar with the beauford scale, it’s a measure of the winds interaction on the water; otherwise known as the local sea state. Beauford 3 is characterized by occasional whitecaps, beauford 5 is frequent whitecaps that leave the occasional streak across the sea (about 25 knots of wind). So it’s windy, as the Frigatebird predicted.

The mother calf dugongs were sighted again in almost the same location as yesterday. This time we were dredging, but they were well out of the 100 meter exclusion zone that requires the work to stop. The pair surfaced several times, the calf always very close to its mother, allowing for the entire crew on the bridge to get a good look. They seemed very interested, but of course didn’t allow themselves appear too interest. As with any sighting of wildlife, their first reactions are always “I wonder how they taste” or “I bet they’d cook up good with a nice marinade”. I see through this though, I can tell deep down they actually care about the environment. It’s all an act to keep the alpha male status; after all, it’s not macho to care for and respect nature right? I’m not sure where that mentality formed but it really is a nuisance.

The photos of the dugongs are grainy, they were fairly distant, but you get a general idea of what they look like; a big tube of lard. This would be a female, so I’m assuming the scratches on her back were inflected during mating; maybe from the teeth of males. They do not appear to be propeller scars.

Tonight we pack up and leave for Dampier again, so I hear through the grapevine. Hopefully by Friday will be back on sight working. I’m due to transfer back to the Finnmarken on Saturday, and if all goes to plan, flying out of Barrow Island for the last time on Tuesday April 12th. So close.