From
The Scientists Dr David Haynes and Dr Fergus Molloy,
29/03/06
From
The Scientists Dr David Haynes and Dr Fergus Molloy,
29/03/06
Scientific report for ÔPelicanÕ
Two new scientists arrived on board on the 28th to relieve Andrew Chin and Guillermo Diaz, they are Dr David Haynes and Dr Fergus Molloy.
Here is their report on the first day of the Cairns-Cooktown leg.
We joined up with Johnston Davidson to form the three member scientific team for the leg to Cooktown. We are looking forward to the week ahead, particularly as the weather is due to improve.
We set sail from Cairns on the morning of the 29th for Fitzroy Island arriving there at 11:30 am. The weather was a little rougher than expected with wind speeds gusting occasionally to 25 knots and plenty of rain around but none-the-less, we got the dive site surveyed. Being close to the mainland, the underwater visibility at Fitzroy is usually not very good and today, this was definitely the case with a visibility of 1-2 meters.
Hard coral cover was 25-30% and soft coral coverage was 30%. Coral colonies here are predominately large, dominated by Porites bommies, tabulate Acropora, and large stands of branching Porites. There was some evidence of mild to moderate bleaching of Pocillipora, a few Acropora and some soft coral colonies. There was also evidence of cyclone Larry passing recently to the south, with a few broken branching Acropora and some corals tumbled over. With the poor visibility, fish observation was difficult but many angel and butterfly fish were sighted as well as damselfish. There were numerous Ôlions maneÕ jellyfish in the water at this site.
Fitzroy Island is one of three inshore sites weÕll be visiting on our way north to Cooktown (as well as three mid-shelf and three outer-shelf reefs). The others are Low Isles and Green Island, where we are now anchored. On our approach to Green Island we sighted three turtles swimming past.
As the wind didnÕt die down as we had hoped and because our Green Island site is exposed to wind chop we decided that diving the site was not feasible so we will wait until morning to survey it.