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Raine Island, Australia takes a bit of doing, but everyone should experience it at least once. Grueling haul from LAX to Cairns, with an hour layover in Sydney; bus to the air charter; 5-seater flight to vintage WWII landing field at Lockhart River; van to Portland Roads over an unpaved, washboard surface that’s impassible during heavy rain; short ride in an inflatable. Are we there yet? We’re talking twenty-one hours at the speediest, not including the overnight in Cairns and the 3 days it takes to dive your way to the island. The Far North itinerary is offered just a few times a year. Nimrod Far North trip dates vary year by year, but typically take place between mid-Oct and very early Dec. We went the last week in Nov. In 8 days we saw only one other dive boat--motoring in the opposite direction. Except for a mind-boggling array of marine life, this section of the Coral Sea was ours alone. How mind-boggling you ask? Well, the spectrum of butterflyfish I ID’d included Eastern triangular, pyramid, teardrop, longnose, big longnose, saddled, Pacific double-saddle, blue-spot, oval-spot, dot and dash, dotted, lined, chevroned, raccoon, vagabond, threadfin, redfin, blacklip, black-backed, spot-tail, spot-nape, spot-banded, yellowrimmed, ornate, eclipse, and singular. And I have yet to mention the hybrids from interspecies hanky-panky like the offspring of dot and dash and spot-banded varieties with their delightful arabesques and curlicues. Even though the legendary vis of this region was reduced by recent coral spawning, spotting troves of tropicals was easy. Vis was in the 40’-50’ range on the shallow inner reefs, but on the outer bommies of the Great Detached Reef, like the phenomenal site “The Pinnacle,” it made it to 100’. There was little current, only occasional chop and it rained just once, briefly, during the evening. Scuba water temps hovered around the 80F degree mark, while air temps reached the upper 80s. With minimal pressure from divers, fishermen and pollution, the reefs, which rise to mere inches below the surface, are pristine in the truest sense of the word. They are the healthiest, and perhaps the most colorful, of any I’ve seen. Except for limited areas of coral that suffered storm damage, most sites are magnificent stands of branching corals ranging from large elkhorn to tiny, delicate blue and pink tipped clusters at reef top. At Nature’s Way, I saw more healthy staghorn than in all of the Caribbean venues I’ve dived combined. Home to undulating black ribbon worms with pale pink edges, at least 6 species of sweetlips that could suck a golf ball through a garden hose and Pacific giant clams with mantles of cobalt, turquoise, chocolate and forest green, it was arrestingly kaleidoscopic. The unsurpassed quality of hard corals was not lost on the purple, bicolor, dottyback, flame, longfin, redfin, scalefin and magenta slender anthias. Like tiaras of precious stones, they glittered above in the strong Australian sun. Nor on the blue, green, threespot, whiteband and whitetail damsels and reticulated and humbug dascyllus that darted in and out the protective arms as if driven by a frenzied calliope. Our group was mildly disgruntled because at the beginning of the trip each of us was slapped with a last minute $AU80 fuel surcharge. Matters then took a decidedly sour turn when, having risen at 5:45AM to be onboard by noon, we had to wait until 6:45PM for the reprovisioning and refueling barge to arrive. Needless to say, the advertised 1st day schedule, “Lunch served on way to the first dive site; 2 dives are offered today, including the orientation dive, at Lagoon Reef,” didn’t happen. Of course even the best ops have a bad day, but it was telling when a Scottish chap named Neil chimed in that the same thing happened on his trip last year. This acute unhappiness was immediately compounded by the Nimrod’s misunderstanding that alcoholic beverages were included in our itinerary price. Although the website clearly states it is included, we were halfway through the trip before this got sorted out in our favor. Seems to me that the Explorer folks have been doing this trip long enough to have the resupply and beverage status situations under control. We committed the time and money for this trip and expected our full complement of dives, barring the truly unanticipated and weather and sea state permitting. Captains with polished PR skills promptly open the bar after such irritating events, but that didn’t happen. Even though Captain Andy was filling in and had not done this trip before, he should have been more customer savvy. I lay of this bungling squarely at the feet of the ownership and front office. The owners don’t reside in Australia and are not always immediately accessible when problems arise. Fortunately, the excellence of the diving and the sincere, if hampered, efforts of the well-meaning crew prevented a nasty mutiny. And we did manage to get in 23 dives, 3 of them night dives, in 5 remaining dive days. It’s difficult to remain upset on dive sites like Black Rock and Raine Island where we were up close and personal with schools of massive bumphead parrotfish. Why bother to rise at 6AM in Sipadan to see these greenish-grey marvels? We saw schools in the 4’+ range throughout the day. As they smashed chunks of reef with their rhinocerous-like protuberances and gnawed down the pieces, I pondered how many fine white beaches such schools produce in a lifetime. Just one of these fellows excretes thousands of pounds of sand per year. And industrious they are--even when you can’t see them, you can hear them working. Nearly as impressive and far more composed are the solitary, hulking, Maori wrasse. Casting a curious green eye at us as they pass, they soon disappear to wherever a fish of that size goes to vanish. Surfacing from this wonderland, I arrive at the solid footprints of a 72’ steel catamaran with two aft ladders. These lead to a spacious dive deck with a vented storage space under each diver’s seat. There is a dedicated camera table and rinse tank, as well as general rinse tank which quickly got funky and should have been changed twice a day. The deck also has a freshwater hose and towel (provided by boat) drying lines. Tanks are filled in place. Even with a full boat the compressor has the capacity to keep the needed number of tanks pumped up. However, it lacks the capability to fill those cylinders with EAN for every dive and probably can fill half. In our group of 17, all but two of us wanted it on every dive but had to settle for every other. In return, the Explorer charged $AU75, half of the advertised price for unlimited nitrox. Depending upon what was left in tank from the last dive, EAN mixes come out between 29 to 36 percent, but tended to fall around 32%. All of this switching between air and the various blends made it imperative that we remembered to reset our computers. Surface intervals were generous and depths were such that it was easy to stay within MODs. The Nimrod is in a good state of repair, thanks to the wry, cerebral mechanic and raconteur, Mark. The generator and compressor are decently muffled and well-vented. The onboard desalinization system provides plenty of water, but tends to get tepid at times of peak usage. Take your shower first thing in the morning if you like ‘em hot. There is a first aid kit and ample 02 at the ready, a great comfort given that the nearest hyperbaric facility is in Townsville, a couple of hundred miles south of the already distant Cairns. Other safety equipment includes radio, automatically-deploying inflatable life raft, life vests, fire suppression systems, emergency lighting and EPIRB (boat only, not divers). Between dives and meals, I
repaired to my berth for note-taking and a nap. All of the cabins have
a private bathroom with shower, individually controlled AC, reading lights
and dark wood veneer. The quads are considerably more cozy, but the design gives some relief since two beds are forward of a small central area where the head is and two are aft. Still, if you’ve got a snorer or roomie who needs Beano, it’s going to be a problem. The two aft quads have single berths, while the forward two have V-berths. The choice here is a no-brainer unless the V-berth room is configured as a double stateroom with a full-size double bed and twin upper bunks, which can be done by special arrangement. Our group of 17 of advanced divers hailed from across North America, including CA, TX, MD, FL, NY, PA, WV, DC, and Vancouver, Canada and St. Croix, USVI, plus two Scottish gentlemen. All but a few were photographers or videographers, including several semi-professionals. On our last night we held a photo contest, rewarding the winner (PP’s excellent shot of an orange spotted pipefish) a bottle of cheap champagne. Speaking of photographers and awards, the Best Sport Award went to JG, a delightful Canadian woman who schlepped her photo gear many thousands of miles. She protected a large fragile ring by wearing it around her neck half-way across the world, only to discover after we left port, that her freshly-serviced camera was missing a housing lens, making it unusable u/w. Food was plentiful, if not gourmet. Colin, filling in for the vacationing chef, and Carly, steward, cabin girl and social director, worked arduously and without complaint to have food available before and after every dive. Even though we were shorted on the meat order (for this we missed a half day of diving?), Colin kept the menu varied. Breakfast was an assortment of dry cereals, mixed fruit bowl, hash browns, bacon (Australian style, like fatty Canadian bacon), pork sausages, instant eggs and assorted bread slices. Lunch choices were sandwich meats and cheeses, pasta with various sauces/fillings, fresh green salad and ice cream. At dinner there was a fresh green salad, cooked vegetable(s), potatoes, chicken breast or wings, pizza, fish or red meat. Dessert was always offered, sometimes as fancy as Pavlova and plum pandowdy. Between dives a variety of small meat pies and bacon-wrapped comestibles were served. The cookie jar, coffee pot and tea tins were kept full. Milk, a limited selection of soft drinks and cold water were always available. Australian beers were $AU3.50 and bottles of wines of very modest quality $18 (not served by the glass), unless included in your plan. We had to arrange for hard spirits prior to our departure. The chief DM, Demi, gave adequate orientations that included basic drawings. His Japanese accent, conspicuous grin and profuse head-bowing made these briefings a constant source of entertainment. Since our experienced group went our own way as soon as we hit water, the recommendations of starting the safety stop when tank pressure reached 750PSI and not surfacing without a buddy largely went in one ear and out the other. On the other hand, the impressive diver check system was carefully adhered to. The far north Great Barrier Reef is not the place to get lost or left behind--it’s a long drift to PNG. The crew kept a log of each diver entering the water and at re-boarding we recorded depth and time, and initialed the entry. If one of us didn’t go on a particular dive, we were required to sign off to that effect. The DM carefully checked the list before leaving the deck. For most dives, entry is by giant stride off either end of the stern. When we surfaced too far from the boat, or on drift dives, we were fetched using the inflatable. One quirky procedure was to return us by hauling us through the water. This made a few of our group uncomfortable since it exposed us to jellyfish stings, as well as tiger and other sharks of an aggressive nature found in turtle breeding waters. Sadly, I did not encounter any sharks of a questionable disposition. But I did observe a number of juvenile whitetips, a few adolescent silvertips, and tucked under a spreading table coral, a sizable tawny nurse shark with perfect cafe au lait skin. The terminus and purported high point of this itinerary is Raine Island. This unprepossessing blip of sand in the middle of nowhere serves as the world’s busiest nesting site for Pacific green turtles. Nearly 15,000 were once counted in a single night. The island is a tightly protected nature reserve accessible only to authorized researchers and park officials, but can be dived within circumscribed limits by special permit. Needless to say our group avidly anticipated diving there. So, it was anxiety-producing when two comically officious Queensland National Parks and Wildlife Service officials, who looked like they’d been sucking on lemons, boarded and secreted themselves with the Captain for nearly an hour. After they departed, we were told that a “new regulation” prevented us from diving within a 3 km distance around the island. After the week’s earlier disappointments and misunderstandings, this moved our even tempered group leader to get on the horn to the front office and demand action or a refund. While this fiasco was being sorted out, we dived Ruined Reef. As a “consolation” site, it was pretty darn nice. Bluespine, spotted and whitemargin unicornfish paraded about like prevaricating Pinocchios, while blackbelt and blackfin hogfish bedeviled bottom prey. The usual low profilers, such as tailspot squirrelfish and ringtailed cardinalfish, demurely observed from their hiding places. Early the next morning the scuttlebutt was that we’d been cleared to dive Raine Island. We rose to watch the nesting turtles drag their bulk glacially back to the sea. Through binoculars the sandy beach looked as though it had been subject to a crazed dune buggy race with uncountable tracks running up and down. The sea was so littered with green turtles that focusing on any patch of water provided views of an animal or two popping up for air. To our great relief, the rangers returned, hats in hand, and offered a sincere apology for their misinterpretation of the regulations. The local pool now being open we scouted the turtles with gusto. These turtles were more skittish than others I’ve encountered elswhere, so slow, non-threatening approaches from above and behind worked best. Once I was near, however, they generally allowed extended periods of viewing. Perhaps because they are breeding stock, they were not much encrusted in algae, barnacles or other marine detritus. As I finned past handsome carapaces of vibrant green and grey tones, I knew we’d reached our goal. Given the grueling haul from Los Angeles to Portland Roads, for a single week this trip alone isn’t worth the hassle. But, with an additional week diving at another venue –- or a week enjoying the splendors of Australia, it becomes worth the investment. But I’d first research the Undersea Explorer, which also makes the run, and if I were to choose the Nimrod, I’d get a written guarantee from headquarters that the boat would be provisioned for an on-time departure or some money back. Otherwise, 30 hours in transit and a $2900 liveaboard trip is just too much. Nimrod Explorer; Far North Itinerary (Asian Pacific Scale) Diving for experienced **** Diver’s Compass:
Check into the various Qantas Aussie AirPass options offering fares as
low as $999 from LAX & HNL, that include 3 in-country flights. See
the Nimrod
Explorer website for details & pricing options. Their toll
free number is 1-800-322-3577, ext. 2. The other boat making the run,
Undersea Explorer, can be contacted at http://www.undersea.com.au
or by emailing info@undersea.com.au.
This itinerary typically is available only between in mid-Oct thru late
Nov/early Dec. © Doc Vikingo Back
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