Nice!
Butcher bird though.
RedPhoenix
joined 1 year ago
It's... not fun.
I've spent a little time around the Keppels. I remember kayaking out to Humpy island in August 2010, and being astounded by the vivid blue staghorn coral at the reef edge.
I've been back many times since, and though the coral health surges and wanes, the general trend is definitely negative. There are still small hints of colour in the reef around Humpy, but white, and white with hints of brown, predominates. In the last year or so I've started to see a few deeper water corals start to regenerate a little, and some of the more distant bays seem to be surging a little - but they're fighting a losing battle.
We're seeing less of this.
.. and more of this.
.. and fair enough, that second shot shows indications of damage unrelated to heat (maybe a boat anchor perhaps?) - but it's indicative. For better or worse, heat means that coral resilience drops through the floor. Anchor damage, tsunami, cyclone, crown-of-thorns. Things that it used to be able to shrug off in a reasonable timeframe, now cause long term issues.
I remember kayaking up near Peel Island when I saw one of these roll in from the gold coast.
No chance of making it back to base in time, so I pulled into the beach, found a place to sit out the storm, and asked the Mrs to call me when she spotted a clear weather window to make it back home again.
Around 14 surrounded the boat - didn't seem too worried by us. Kinda wished I had a drone available; with the winter water clarity, it would have been interesting!
Rainbow, looking south towards peel island, during a brief rain squall.
Landscape and vegetation reminds me of Bundy.. Qld?
Fair call, ta.
For those that are interested, here's our culprit's location: https://maps.app.goo.gl/fHD41HSa4yK6yrY18
Actually scratch that one. It just missed the 'last week' cutoff.
Sunrise.
Horizon angle was a bit whacky.. but came out ok in the end.
Fair call.
While I never tire of whales or dolphins when out on the water, a trip up to Lady Musgrave a couple of years back (sailing around the outside of Fraser): we got to the point where we stopped pointing out breaches, the were so many.
It is pretty good seeing them close to home though. Every year, I'll see a few wander down into the bay - as far as Coochiemudlo.
Here's a juvenile, with Coochiemudlo in the background, from a few years back:
Yep, Navionics and windy are where I tend to start, but the two that I tend to spend the most time in while route planning are Qtvlm and OpenCPN.
Qtvlm's route planning capability is pretty good once you get into it a bit.
Related. :)