Oh yes, whales in the lagoon! Oh no, whales in the lagoon...

On our second morning at the Hermit Islands, Jamie went ashore to meet with Bob, the village elder who is shepherding us during our visit. He came back to Totem bubbling with information, and after reeling through what he learned, saved the most interesting for last: a pod of whales was in the lagoon! Not only that, but the villagers were eager to take us to see them. Wow- and, yes!

And yet- "oh, no." The flip side of this exciting news is that the whales appear to be stuck. They are inside a small circular reef, maybe a half mile across, which is then inside the larger lagoon of the Hermit islands' barrier reef. They'd been there for a number days.

The villagers haven't seen this happen before: they are concerned for the whale's welfare, and have already tried to get them out. They have more than the usual lineup of dugout outriggers at their disposal, since a fleet of small fishing boats was provided to them by the Chinese fishing company they supply with live fish (the boats have a well, so line caught fish can be kept alive and transported to a trap until the mother ship pays a visit to the lagoon). But despite attempts to both lead, and to herd, they haven't been successful at getting the whales out of the lagoon.

The villagers wanted to know if we could help, but how can we possibly help?

Thanks to our friend Emmanuelle on s/v Merlin, we've been connected with a cetacean research & rescue organization in Australia (quick plug: Emmanuelle's gorgeous Dean 44 catamaran is for sale & ready to go in Brisbane! I think the details are at merlinsvoyage.com... someone please correct the address in the comments if needed). We can't get online from here, but we knew Emmanuelle- who has a doctorate in marine biology- could help hook us up with the right people. Check! And so we have traded email with ORRCA, and hope to have some guidance for the best path to take soon.

While we share info on the scene here and wait for feedback, it's impossible not to be wowed by what we experienced this afternoon. With Bob and Mata on board, we navigated out to the small circular reef. Almost as soon as we entered, the whales approached us directly. Groups of two or more would pass by the dinghy, while others stood off together- almost as if they were waiting their turn. A cacophony of chirps called out. After some thin jokes about becoming whale snacks, it was too exciting not to get in!

It's hard to explain what it's like to look at a whale, and have that whale look straight back at you. It is both exhilarating and a wee bit terrifying. To feel keenly observed, and to feel very, very small in their presence. These aren't the giants of the cetacean world, but they're no shrimp, and it's impossible not to feel a little intimidated when they hurtle by and check *you* out from just a few feet away.

Looking at our references on board, we're pretty sure they're false killer whales. False killer whales are actually ocean dolphins, not whales- like orcas, minkes, pilots, and other dolphins commonly referred to as whales. Whatever. It is a mindblowing, and will probably be one of our most memorable experiences from this journey.

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Love them. Can't stand them. But still, love them.

I should hate the destructive cockatoos, but now that we've taken down our headsail (so they can't shred the sail cover!) removed all instruments from the top of Totem's mast (since they wrecked the wind instruments and expensive weatherstation anyway!)- leaving little left for them to demolish- well, they are kinda fun to watch.





At least, until they threatened our friend Warren's beautiful NEW(ly refurbished) mast, rigging and instruments.

Cheeky buggers. Look at that guy on the anemometer. Yeah, he's feeling pretty high and mighty!

Tactics have been discussed. They are a protected species.



Siobhan to the rescue: little miss Small But Mighty throws her weight into swaying the forestay, and annoys the cockatoos just enough to convince them change roosts.



The marina rests.

The continuing saga of the marina geese

A few weeks ago I wrote about the heartbreaking state our resident marina gander, Peter. He was in deep mourning for his longtime mate Paul.

The crew in the marina and shipyard decided something needed to be done, and new geese were acquired in a mission that included the children, who trekked to a farm well outside Sydney to find him new friends. The mission was for three but somehow, four came back.  All were promptly named by the kids, of course.

It was decided that they should be held in a pen at the shipyard for a week to ensure they associated the location with food (e.g.- "home") and wouldn't take off once released.


The children with Steve, the marina caretaker, checking on geese in the pen.

To ease the situation for Peter, one goose at a time would be released over a period of several days- giving him time to adjust.  The geese- or more accurately, ganders, as they are all male- are less than a year old but full size. They were patient with the marina pen. The first to come out was George.

George follows Peter everywhere like an obedient puppy.

Things went pretty well- Peter mostly ignored him, but they stayed together. Ben was next.


Ben hits the water.

He and George hit it off, but Peter continued his obsessive post-Paul behavior of talking to his reflection and wasn't terribly sociable.


It's so sad! He talks to himself, even.

There was a little bit of drama when Jerry escaped when the geese remaining in the pen were being fed. He doesn't swim very well, and took off without a backward glance at the marina. It took some chasing and coaxing but eventually he was returned to the shipyard.


Coaxing geese back with bread.

They're doing OK now. Peter was truly unpleasant to Ben (or maybe it was Jerry... I can't tell them apart!) in the beginning, but has backed off. Trying to assert his dominance, maybe? His alpha-gander status? Any Goose Psychologists out there? For now, they seem to be have a group identity.


Snoozing on the rails in the shipyard. They really do have two legs each.

Bert's reign over the marina

When I mentioned recently that our neighbor cat, Bert, considers the marina his domain- I wasn't kidding. We had a hysterical event recently that illustrates it perfectly.

Witness Bert, hanging out in one of his favorite places: the middle of the dock.



See that little orange fluff waaayyyyy down towards the other end of the dock? That's Whistler, the Nova Scotia Duck Tolling Retriever (yep that's a breed) that belongs to marina neighbors.

Note that Bert is not even bothering to look at him. Such a cat.

He's scared of Bert. He will NOT pass him on the dock. He did get closer, but they remained in a standoff here for about five minutes.



Eventually, Whistler turned around and went back to his boat... Bert's dominance unquestioned.

Belonging to a cat

Meet Bert.



Bert (short for Bert Sugar Ray Reynolds) patrolls the docks here at the Cammeray Marina. His home is the boat next door to us, but Bert has claimed us as his own. He's especially fond of the children.

I'm pretty sure he considers the dock to be his domain.


He defies you to go around him.

For a cat, he has his very sociable moments. He'll run alongside, on the deck of "his" boat, when you walk down the finger. He'll come up to the bow to intercept passers by.


Really, it's too cute

In the morning, he comes an peeks in our hatches (peeping tom?). He loves to get rain from them, dragging his paw through the collected dew, then licking it.


Mostly, it just looks really funny to have him up there

The saga of the marina geese

When we arrived last spring, there were two resident geese in the marina- the children named them Peter and Paul.

I couldn't tell them apart, but they knew exactly which was which.

The office manager told us they'd been living around the marina for at least two decades- the shipyard crew feed them, and they forage around the bay. We learned not to feed them from the boat, because they'd come tapping on your hull for more... very persistently, and not always easy on the boat!

The ganders were inseparable- you really never saw one without the other.


Dawn departure from the marina

Until recently, that is.

In late September, Paul died. He'd been looking unwell for a couple of weeks- not keeping himself clean, not eating. One morning, he was found floating legs-up with his partner circling around. Peter honked pitifully. At all times of day (and many hours at night), he could be found be swimming around the bay, calling out for his companion. I would not have credited geese with so much feeling, but it was plain that he was looking for him and suffering.

After a week, he stopped honking, but he still seemed to be mourning. He developed the habit of swimming very close to a well-polished powerboat and staring at his reflection. His reflection, which looked (as far as I can tell) nearly identical to his lost partner, Paul. Instead of cruising the bay, he spends hours obsessively staring at his reflection.


He needs help.

The marina decided the solution was to bring Peter a few new friends. The children were trundled along on a mission to a farm outside Sydney, and came home with four geese. Niall has written about it in his blog.  They're being slowly introduced, to try and ease the transition for all involved and set it up for success. We've got our fingers crossed for him.

It's a wild, wild life in the marina

It's amazing how much wildlife is around the marina, despite our relatively urban location. In addition to the previously introduced geese, Peter and Paul, there are a few regulars. Most mornings, we don't need an  alarm clock- we have the kookaburras. You know, the one from the old children's song, that sits laughing in the old gum tree? It's exactly what happens here. The laugh is crazy- it sounds for all the world like jungle primates, as if howler monkeys were hooting and calling riffs up in the green hillsides around us. We rarely see these birds, but there's not a day that passes when we don't hear them.

Among our favorites are the (extremely camera shy) Fairy Penguins. It's party the novelty of seeing penguins in the wild, but really, they're awfully cute!



At first, we thought there were either sick ducks or a dog in the marina; they make a funny barky quack that sounds like a weird hybrid between the two. They're usually seen in threes: the parents, and a chick. Lately, the juvenile has been making more solo rounds. Apparently it's time for mom and dad to push the little guy out of the nest... or in their case, burrow. All three were cruising the waters around the marina fishing one morning, when the two parents clearly blew dodge and left junior behind... the pleading bark/quack as he circled the moored boats looking for them was kind of pathetic!

At dawn and dusk, the cockatoos come out. Flocks of a couple of dozen of the birds roost in trees around the bay. I snapped this one in a nearby yard- they're stunning to look at, aren't they?



The problem is that they're incredibly destructive. Unattended boats in the marina and the mooring fields have had their masthead instruments destroyed by the strong beaks and claws of the birds, as they rest and dangle from the heights. Headsails on roller furlers have their covers shredded.

The children have taken on the responsibility of defending the marina. One of our dock neighbors, Sandra on s/v Moonraker, wrote in her blog about the "international defence force" of children who keep the marina boats as free as possible from the antics of the Cockies. When the flocks descend- and it's impossible to miss, with their raucous noisemaking- the pint size force stands guard. They advance on any boat that becomes a target, and shake the shrouds and stays until the birds are annoyed enough to flap squawking away. Niall has turned this into small enterprise, earning a little cash in exchange for keeping an eye on one of our neighbor's boats during "Cockatoo Hour" while Peter and Kathy were away for a long weekend.

One of our favorite regular visitors is Dizzy the dog. For anyone who has known us for a while... she looks pretty familiar, doesn't she?



Dizzy lives in one of the gazillion dollar homes that front the bay. At low tide, she can escape from her backyard and comes trotting over to visit boats in the marina. For some reason, she sure likes Totem. I wonder why?  The kids play with her, then throw a webbing sail tie through her collar for a leash when it's time to bring her home. It's been appreciated enough that Dizzy's owner came down bearing gifts for the children one day! Mairen and Siobhan are plotting to deliver a query for dog-walking services the next time they bring Dizzy back.

The latest routine visitor is a little duckling, named Junior by the children. He (she?) is without a family, although he doesn't look old enough to be independent- none of his wing feathers are in. We're going to keep looking for him, and hope he becomes a long term regular too.