Business as Usual

By Captain Trevor Jackson

On the left hand side of my wheelhouse, in a wide drawer built to house marine charts, is a plain folder with bold black lettering on the front “Cyclone Management Plan”. Almost every boat in Cairns has one and they contain instructions on where to move your vessel within the confines of the local area so as to best protect both her and the harbour infrastructure from the forecasted destructive winds. It’s a very formal document and quite stringent in its instructions. Last month we took the folder out and read its contents in earnest. Yasi, one of the world’s biggest ever storms, was nearly upon us.

There has of course been much said and written about the after effects of Yasi. Some smaller communities south of here were hit hard, but invariably, amongst divers at least, the conversation turns to the reef and what effect the cyclone has had on marine life. For us, the Coral Sea’s Osprey Reef was of prime concern. To better understand what a ‘significant meteorological event’ does to a place like Osprey Reef one has to remember that it’s over 2 million years old and has been resilient to the effects of wind and waves for that entire time. The species of coral that flourish out there are as tough as they come. They are extremely tolerant to the occasional windy weekend. With that in mind, we expected the reef to be unscathed.

But the fact also remained that Yasi was no ordinary storm. We would have to wait until we actually got out into the Coral Sea before being able to say what the outcome had been... Would the sharks still want feeding? Would the soft corals and fans that decorated those sheer walls, be as resplendent as ever?.

On Sunday the 6^th of February, just days after Yasi, we pulled up at “False Entrance” for our first post cyclone look at Osprey Reef.  The answer would soon be upon us. Two by two the buddy pairs returned with smiles on their faces. Last out of the water was Spoilsport's resident biologist Laurence Buckingham, brandishing a grin from ear to ear.

 “What’s the damage mate?” “Well Trev, I can’t really say I saw any. The coral looks fantastic, the sharks are swarming everywhere and the viz was great” ‘Oh so it would be fair to say it’s business as usual then?” “Yeah Trev, business as usual”.

You can view a seclection of images taken onboard Spoilsport from the expeditions 3 - 10 February here or in our gallery