Tuesday June 29, 2010

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Today we went out from the Fitzroy river again, but this time with Shane. Shane works for the Fitzroy River Basin Association and is in charge of allocating funds to different community projects, such as the one we are doing. Consequently most of our grant funds come from the FBA and Shane, and he and his co-workers will be coming out on the boat with us every now and again. The drive to the river takes a while, but this morning the sky and sunrise were gorgeous. We were driving through the mountains and I kept popping my head out the window to try and get a shot of the bright purple and pink sky. We got to the river and could only see a tiny bit of fog in the surrounding area and had calm as glass waters. We sped up a bit till the mouth of the river, and on the way I saw some sort of eagle that was keeping pace with our 25 knots. It was a really nice bird, pretty huge and I could see it looking side to side on the banks of the river before tucking and diving away when it saw something.
Out at the mouth of the river we didn’t have much luck finding dolphins. Shane said he had been out a few days before fishing and couldn’t find fish anywhere. Maybe that explains the last few days on the water, not really sure. After a while of searching, Shane and I started talking a bit about fisheries, politics etc. He mentioned a bit about some exploited fisheries in the area and we compared those to the cod and lobster fisheries in MA. We then got onto different oceanic disasters and compared the Shen Neg grounding to the oil spill in the gulf. Both are currently eliciting strong feelings from the locals and shoulder shrugs from the government - what a shame. After a bit Daniele jumped in the conversation and I learned a little bit about Australian politics. I am not sure if anyone is watching the new about Australia, but last week the Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was ousted by some conspiritors. Apparently they knocked on his door in the middle of the night and told him he was being over-ruled. The new Prime Minister, Julia Gillard is the first woman PM of Australia, and right now it is a big deal. Unfortunately everyone is a bit on edge because of how Mr. Rudd was ousted. I have seen some news clips in the past few days and Rudd, once the peoples prime minister slipped from popularity. He tried to do some good with the environment and was in the middle of initializing a huge mining tax. Mining is one of the biggest industries in Australia right now, so many people were not happy with it. Now that Gillard is in charge, she is reversing the tax. I am not sure, but I think she is the big business type of person, and it seems like the little guy is on his toes. That effects us because with the ousting of the PM all funding has been put on hold. Daniele was waiting for a $40,000 grant to come through within the next few weeks so we could plan an excursion to some of the local islands in a rented Catermaran. It seems that if we can’t get the money the excursions are off for a while.
We kept heading out to this place called Sea Hill Point which is a nice little peninsula with a light house on it. Daniele calls it Snubfin Point because in the past that’s where he has seen the highest number of animals. Still though our no dolphin streak is continuing so we headed back. On the way back we saw a few animals and tried to get some samples, but no luck. This one animal we followed for almost an hour. You could tell he was foraging because he was doing these dives we call peduncle dives (pd). The animal comes to the surface but then throws his peduncle (basically the middle to lower back of the animal between the dorsal fin and caudal tail) into the air and dives real deep. After a pd you know you aren’t going to see the animal for a while, so we look around for him till he surfaces again. Normally it makes it more difficult, but this animal did three slow surfaces before a pd allowing us to spot and catch up to him. Unfortunately he was really small and after about 4 or 5 missed shots we gave up and headed in.
On the way in Shane and Daniele talked a bit about a coming coal plant in the area. I guess they are planning to turn one of the large estuary peninsulas into a coal production area and they plan on dredging and expanding the channel. This is all well and good, but the area the plan on dredging is Snubfin Point. Almost ever cetacean expert in the area is trying to fight this (even the fishermen!) as they know it is an extremely productive area, but you know businessmen, when money talks all else is forgotten about. After a while we headed in, and as the tide was coming out Daniele had me watching the gps and told me all of the little tricks of the river. Hopefully I will be in charge of driving some day, so he wants me to know all of the areas very well. Also, now that he has passed in his PhD he will have to do his defense soon. The defense is basically a talk you give at your school explaining your PhD, taking questions and all that jazz. If you do well on your talk and your PhD has been done well you pass and can graduate when you are ready. When this time comes he will have to fly out for at least a week. Also, we have another researcher flying in on Sunday and another volunteer flying in next week. Both will be staying until the end of the season. When Daniele leaves it will just be the three of us, and he wants me to know the area like the back of my hand just in case.
Back up the river and at the boat ramp there is a cattle slaughter plant. I guess yesterday was a good work day because the upper part of the river STUNK. Shane said that when the winds have died and the area is calm the stench leaks over to Rockhampton. YUCK! I am glad we live so far away in Yeppoon. Tomorrow Daniele flies to school for a day or so to get a bit more work done, so we are off the water. He is bringing the boat to a welder to fix a few issues and then to get it serviced while he is gone.

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