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| June 27th-July 9th |
| 07.19.04 (9:06 pm) [edit] |
Exmouth Marina/Tantabiddi Boat Ramp/Whalesong
"If life is a journey, then your body's the vehicle and fat is the luggage; the heavier the luggage, the shorter the journey." - Curt Jenner
My first day onboard Whalesong was mostly spent in a horizontal position, following three stints spent doubled over the stern railing, puking my breakfast into the Indian Ocean. As a child, I was prone to severe motion sickness, something that I've grown out of with age, but sea sickness brought back all the old feelings.
Miche and the kids had gone into Exmouth with the 4x4 and so Curt sailed Whalesong north and around to the western side of the cape, mooring just off the Tantabiddi boat ramp, 38km outside of Exmouth.
The boat ramp is used by fishermen to access the ocean and as a launching point for all the charter boats--whale shark tours, diving tours, glass bottom tours, snorkelling tours. The Jenners have their own mooring off the ramp and this is where they stay during the winter months; the summer months they moor off of Rottnest island, just off the coast from Perth. The reason for their annual migration is because the humpback whales migrate up the coast to mate and give birth to calves during the winter; during the summer, they feed in the Antartic waters, fattening up for the winter.
Seas were rather choppy going around the cape, so I spent the day lying flat on deck, trying to keep it cool, munching on crackers and downing glasses of water provided by a considerate Curt. Winds hadn't been favourable, so Curt motored the whole way, although the main sheet was up the whole time--Whalesong cruises at around 7-8 knots. By late afternoon, we made it to the boat ramp and I was more or less vertical, even half-able to grab the moorings with a graplling hook.
Curt and I dropped the 12 foot inflatable zodiac that had been lashed onboard and waited for the rest of the family to arrive at the ramp, by car. An hour later, Miche and the kids appeared with groceries, clean clothes, and good cheer.
The next two weeks were very tranquil, interwoven with periods of great activity. As Whalesong is both home and workplace for a family of four, as well as a sea-going catamaran, it is both interesting and impressive to witness how things work onboard.
First of all, Curt and Miche all day, pretty much everyday--and every day starts at 7am--earlier if they're going out to survey whales. As scientists, sailors, and parents, they operate as a tight team and run a tight ship, all the while remaining affable and easy-going. Curt is a good Canadian boy from the Prairies and Miche Australian, although she grew up in New Zealand.
As a guest onboard, I was unsure how I would fit in with the family; while they are used to having guests, I was neither a paying guest, volunteer, or research scientist: the usual people who hang out with these guys. In other words, I was bumming a free ride and had little to give back in return, either in sailing experience or marine biology.
Micheline is a formidable woman: every day she gets breakfast ready for Micha, Tasmin, and myself (the three kids). Then, Monday to Friday, at 830am, school begins; during the summer, when they are off of Rottnest, Micah in enrolled at the Rottnest Island School; during the winter, Miche teaches both kids, as they are enrolled in the distance learning program. Miche teaches Micah and Tasmin until 3pm--math teacher, english teacher, art teacher, etc., and hardest of all, disciplinarian. The day is broken up by breaks and lunch, which Miche also prepares. On the breaks, Miche will do exercises and try to catch her breath, quickly reading a magazine or scientific journal on deck.
The distance learning program involves a distance teacher who corresponds with Miche and the kids, with Miche filling out weekly progress forms, requests for books and other learning aids (CDs, DVDs, videos). However, outside of this, Miche must make up for the difference--and with these things, the more that she can contribute to the material enhances the education of the child.
This means that Miche draws numerous outlines of creatures for Tasmin to colour in, writes problem sheets for Micah to fill in, and really just goes the distance to spice up the curriculum.
At the end of the day, she then gets the kids to clean up the galley/living room and make way for dinner--which she also cooks up, in record time.
Thus, Miche is both teacher, mother, cook, and marine biologist. Inside Whalesong are watercolours that she has also done in her spare time; in other words, Miche is multi-talented lady.
Curt, first thing in the morning, brews himself some of the strongest coffee I've ever had. It's an awesome way to start the day, drinking a cup of super dark french roast whilst watching the dawn grace the Cape Ranges National Park and the Indian Ocean with rose coloured fingertips.
Coffee in hand, he then checks the weather reports for the west coast online and proceeds on the day's business, whether it be maintaining Whalesong and the million and a half small items that need constant repair and upgrade, crunching numbers for the company budget (Miche and Curt operate their own, independent, non-profit organization, called The Centre for Whale Research), fixing computers, getting tough with the kids when they refuse to do their teacher's bidding, and thinking of new ways to increase their organization's funding.
These are their 'non-working' days--I had the chance to 'participate' in four surveys which constitute the backbone of their research. On these days, we would start at 630am and leave the mooring before 730--on these days, the kids get the day off school, watching videos and playing inside while mom and dad stand on deck, sailing and watching the ocean with intent eyes.
Whalesong is a 44 foot twin-hulled cat, with the sleeping cabins and an office in the hulls, the galley/living room and navigation table in the bridge between the hulls. There is an overhang that covers the wheel deck and a wooden table set to one side. Windows and hatches keep things airy inside. Up to 10 can sleep on board, although this I imagine would make for rather tight quarters.
There is, of course, the head, with power pump salt-water flush and fresh water sink: the ocean is the bathtub. The galley is small but very well equipped with a four top gas stove, oven, and grill, a drop down fridge/freezer, and nifty cabinets that hold all the pots, pans, and foodstuff. There is a sink that has a power salt water pump and a brass hand pump for the fresh water.
When they first started their research in WA, 15 years or so ago, Curt and Miche conducted their surveys in a 14 foot zodiac, working and living out of a tin shed Curt built on an island off of the Dampier Peninsula, 1000km+ further north of Exmouth. After several years, they realized that their research would require them to go further out into the ocean--while the zodiac allowed them a great deal of mobility, it was too small, too short in the water, and wasn't very comfortable.
So they decided to build their own boat--this saves money but it is a serious undertaking. Peter built Sky entirely on his own--and it took him four and a half years to complete. Peter, admitedly, did not set himself an agenda, however, Curt had never built anything previously, except for the tin shed, and it took him and Miche two summer vacations to complete. Curt credits this feat to a friend of theirs at Dampier who was also building a catamaran at the time and who had previously built one in the past. "Anytime I had a question," Curt told me, "I just had to call across my pile of wood to this guy and he could fix me up just by yelling back."
Previous to WA, they had worked in Maui, Hawaii, in San Juan, off the coast of Seattle, working with Killer whales and humpbacks. Encouraged by one of their employers, they decided to set up their own project in WA, seeing that in terms of humpback whale research it was then a completely unknown area. Now, at present, they are pretty much [u]the[/u] experts on humpbacks in WA, and remain the only people in Australia who conduct research, year round, living on the ocean.
Accordingly, I felt very privileged to be hosted by such a couple and even come along and witness them at work. Sighting the whales is a job shared by both Miche and Curt, although Miche is the eyes 100% of the time, while Curt watches when he isn't sailing Whalesong. The surveys are conducted in two sets: the first is an experimental, the second is the control, these two extended across a two day period.
Whalesong moves off the coast and then traverses a series of tranzacs--lines of 3 to 9 nautical miles, 1.8km to the nm--with dog legs several nm long inbetween each tranzac. In this way, they travel a pizza slice shape of ocean in orderly lines, only noting sightings when made on a tranzac, not a dog leg.
All sightings are recorded along with time, heading, which direction the whales are moving in, what their behaviour is (breach, blow, pectoral fin slap, tail slap, resting, etc.), and number in each pod. Also included in the log book are other cetaceans sighted, such as dolphins and other whales. If possible, Curt photographs the whales in action with a telephoto lens attached to a high end digital SLR camera.
On the first survey we passed by a pod of several hundred striped dolphins, and about thirty came over to us to bow-ride Whalesong, shooting in and out of the water at the bow.
The things about whale watching is that their is a lot of ocean to watch over and the sightings can be several nm away. My eyes are not great to start with and sighting the whales requires experience; Miche and Curt would see a blow, call it out, record it, point it out to me, and still I would see nothing but water, sky, cloud. Miche's eyesight is also fantastic--she has true eagle-eye vision, meaning that she sees at 40ft what everyone else sees at 20ft distance from themselves.
One of the most impressive sights that I've ever seen is watching a humpback breach repeatedly, time and time again. These are massive creatures and they literally launch their entire body out of the water, arching themselves so that they slap the surface with deliberate effect when they come back down. Bulls will do this for several reasons: compete for a female whale, compete against another bull, do it for fun, and for what else, who truly knows.
Unfortunately, my first survey was marred by sea sickness, although I did not throw up my breakfast; my subsequent surveys were not so badly affected by nausea, but it was only on the fourth that I actually got my sea legs and did not feel amiss for the whole day.
The first survey, the experimental, 41 whale pods were sighted and 83nm travelled; the second, the control, we saw only 10, and travelled 52nm. The third was another experimental of 81nm and we saw about 35+--but we also saw many dolphins, five sea snakes, and a 6ft hammerhead shark passed right by the bow. The last control was 53nm and we saw more whales, of indeterminate numbers.
Each survey lasted the whole day, and we'd return to the boat ramp by sun down, around 530 or so, and have a big dinner.
Every weekend, Miche would go into town with the kids to run errands, and I would come with them. Exmouth's a town dependent on tourism; in fact, it didn't really exist until the tourist trade based around the Ningaloo reef and the Whale Sharks got going. Previously, Exmouth was noted only for its American Naval base, where ULF towers dominate the skyline, communicating with every single US submarine in the world. These days, the US base has become an Australian owned base, although they lease it to the US and the US staffs the entire base.
Overall, then, the 15 days I spent onboard Whalesong were interesting and illuminating: I learned a few knots from Curt, watched Miche cook many good meals, polished the stainless steel on deck, helped to fix a few computer problems, did some watercolours, read a couple books ('Atomised' by Michel Houellebecq, 'The Perfect Storm' by Sebastian Junger, and I began but did not finish a very interesting book called 'Longitude' by Dava Sobel. I also read many recent National Geographics, which, thankfully, have dropped their pro-US-in-Irak articles, and have gone back to their meat and potatoes: the non-political natural world.
I also read an article by Miche that appeared in Australian Geographic several years ago, that described what her and Curt do for a living. A few scientific journals that Miche passed me were read, with great interest; I tried to learn something about the stars, reading a star book but was unable to stay awake to observe the sky each night. Curt broke out the 2004 NHL Stanley Cup Finals between the Lightning and the Flames that his dad had sent him in the mail and we watched games 1 and 6. Many conversations were had, too many to detail here, but all in all, I had a very good time and learned a bit about whale research. Most evenings after dinner we would watch a movie before retiring, so I watched a few good movies in this time.
In the end, of course, I had to move on; my stay on Whalesong was made possible because of a set of circumstances: normally, Curt and Miche take on two researchers during the winter. Fortunately for me, one had to leave Australia for Singapore so as to renew her visa; the other was recovering from laser eye surgery, so as to improve her whale watching vision.
One last thing: I spent a great deal of time playing with Micah and Tasmin, children of the sea, if there ever was. While I would stay seated on deck, trying to keep my lunch in place, they would bounce around on the bow netting hung between the hulld, 'trampoling' into the air with each roll over the waves. They also had a juvenile peach faced song bird on board that they would take out and let fly from one person's head to another, or to the rigging.
Hanging out with kids, though, is good fun, and I tried my best not to be too boring.
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