‘Hey Barry, the current here comes from Indonesia; that old map of yours is wrong.’
This was obvious from the corals, and indeed all modern charts show the Leeuwin Current, now extensively studied, streaming south from Indonesia, hugging the coast for most of the way.
From the beach, I could see the reef edge, only a few hundred metres away, and I headed for it. A shallow break in the reef let me through, at which point I was in bottomless water with a modest current. I was a little wary, this being great white shark country, but the water was crystal-clear and I kept the reef edge in sight as I drifted along. Then I saw something very big coming towards me. I had been with whale sharks on the Great Barrier Reef, but this was my first unexpected head-on encounter with one, so close that I was brushed aside by its massive body, leaving me to watch its enormous, jumbo-jet tail fin towering above me.
With one thing and another, I was impressed with what I saw of these reefs and vowed to come back and do a thorough study of its corals. Ningaloo, as locals love to point out, is Australia’s largest fringing reef, a fringing reef being one that occurs close to the shoreline, as opposed to barrier reefs, which occur well offshore (although there are also many other kinds of reefs). Ningaloo is 240 kilometres long and covers an area of 700 000 hectares. It is deservedly known for its whale sharks, which now attract streams of tourists, and is also a corridor for the marine life of all south-western Australia, carried by the Leeuwin Current as it streams down the coast. In 2011 the reefs were given World Heritage status, something I had worked for, mostly by compiling the specialist evidence UNESCO needed: comparisons between Ningaloo and other World Heritage sites. Some enthusiasts like to compare Ningaloo with the Great Barrier Reef, but realistically there is no contest; the complexity and diversity of The Reef dwarfs Ningaloo in all ways. Ningaloo does, however, stack up against most other fringing reefs in other parts of the world, mainly because the water is very clear, due to an almost complete absence of coastal streams, and there is little human population pressure.
Most staff at the museum were excited by the idea of a survey of Western Australian reefs, and so over the next four years I worked in collaboration with the museum, visiting most of the major reefs of the entire coast. By this time Len had moved to another job, and Ed Lovell, a friend of Carden Wallace’s, took his place as my assistant. We had some very interesting trips with the museum, the best being to the offshore atolls: the Rowley Shoals, Scott Reef and Ashmore Reef. To get to these the museum hired crayfish boats, fast fibreglass vessels used on the Houtman Abrolhos Islands to the south. They did the job well enough although they lacked normal navigation equipment, this not being needed to catch crayfish. As it was well before the age of GPS, we found the Rowley Shoals by dead-reckoning, which is to say we roared out from Broome at 20 knots and kept going for more than 300 kilometres using nothing but a compass.
As it happened, we found Clerke Reef, one of the Rowley Shoals, because it was low tide and the reef’s large white sandbar could be seen 30 kilometres away from our boat’s flying bridge. That sort of tidal range in the open ocean was something new to me. At low tide, the lagoon inside the reef was perched so high above the surrounding ocean it looked like a giant ornamental pond. There were three narrow passages between it and the open ocean where water gushed out in a torrent, perfect for high-speed thrill dives and a mini-scale reminder of the deltaic reefs we’d seen during the Stoddart expedition.
With beautifully clear water, the Rowley Shoals made for excellent diving. We did a complete inventory of the corals there and found some new species, but the place was memorable because we happened upon a boat of Indonesian sea gypsies. These are little-known people who have their own language and spend their whole lives at sea, coming down the offshore reefs of Western Australia to fish every year, something they have done for centuries. I went aboard their boat with some presents, including my spare diving mask, something they’d never seen before. Their little boat had a charcoal burner on the back deck for smoking fish and bêche-de-mer, and wooden barrels of water were stored inside a tiny cabin. Incredibly, their navigational equipment consisted of a piece of string with bits of wood tied at specific intervals and an old kitchen clock. These would have helped give a crude estimate of latitude, but basically the sea gypsies found reefs by feeling the presence of refracted ocean waves, observing the reflections of reefs in the clouds, and watching seabirds.
Sea gypsies’ boat.
I was angry when, many years later, the Australian government branded these people illegal immigrants, ending a lifestyle both unique and harmless. I wrote a strong letter of protest, but it was ignored.
In 1983 I made the first of several visits to the Houtman Abrolhos Islands, the southernmost reef complex of the Indian Ocean. From a biological standpoint these are among the most interesting reefs I’ve ever seen, a place where tropical corals battle it out with cold-water seaweed. The mix of corals we found was unlike anywhere else, with many species that were common there being rarities elsewhere, and vice versa. I found some new species during these trips and a few more that had already been described but were new to me.
But it was the seaweed that sometimes captured my thoughts, for seaweeds are seldom found in large quantities on healthy reefs. I saw that battles between seaweed and the corals are what these reefs are all about – a constant territorial stand-off that the corals must win afresh ever year. There are places where it’s possible to stand with one foot in a mass of seaweed – Sargassum – and the other in coral. Any change, biological or environmental, however small, could alter the demarcation between the two. This is especially interesting because the stand-off changes seasonally, as the Sargassum comes and goes. Perhaps once a year the corals, along with the herbivorous fish they provide homes for, gain a temporary advantage, but this is short-lived, for it changes back as the Sargassum regrows. Just occasionally, larger coral colonies can be seen peeking through Sargassum beds in places where the wave surge is strong enough to clear away some of the algae and give the corals gasps of sunlight. If this occurs over large areas it can look comic, because the Sargassum seems to remain stationary while the corals appear to move back and forth.
The human history of the Abrolhos is as gruesome as it gets. The island on which I first worked was the site of a ghastly succession of massacres of the crew and passengers of the Batavia, the flagship of the Dutch East India Company, by mutineers after it went aground there on its maiden voyage to Java in 1629. Even when I was there it was common for fossickers to find human bones, even bits of skulls, in the coral rubble.
On that trip we discovered that a tourist had recently died of an embolism while diving – right where we were working. When his body was recovered the only sign of physical injury was to his right ear, part of which was missing. Interesting that, for I’d just been playing chasings with an unusually large and aggressive cuttlefish. It would come towards me in a threatening posture, tentacles upraised, its sides rippling with iridescent colours, and I’d chase it backwards. Back and forth we went until it got bored and swam off in a puff of ink. This left me wondering: had it grabbed the tourist by the head and bitten his ear? Being gripped by the tentacles of a big cuttlefish might well have been enough to send a novice bolting for the surface in panic, and to death from an embolism.
In another unexpected encounter, I was photographing a coral deep on a vertical reef face when I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned and came face to face with a young sea lion, looking inquiringly at me. I needed that photo, so with a wish of apology I gave her a burst of bubbles from my regulator and turned back to my coral. Tap tap – she tried again, with her nose. She was very pretty, with soft baby eyes and beautiful long curved whiskers. I gave up, it was playtime. I whirled around in the water, releasing a spiral stream of bubbles, which had her cavorting like a child, which she presumably was. She accompanied me up to the surface, then back to the beach I had come from, and we both sat in the shallows for a chat. Soon othe
r sea lions started arriving, until about thirty formed a wide arc around me, grunting and jostling. Sometimes they put their heads underwater to look at me, and sometimes they pointed their noses as high as they would go for an aerial view. That endearing moment ended abruptly when a big bull came charging in. I beat a hasty retreat; the bull clearly had no intention of sharing his harem with me.
Coral community at the Houtman Abrolhos Islands of Western Australia. This mix of species is seldom seen in other coral reefs.
Acropora seriata at the Houtman Abrolhos Islands of Western Australia. The greenish clumps on the left and the plates beneath are different growth forms of the same species. This species is abundant at these islands but has not been recorded elsewhere in Australia.
Small plate corals battling with Sargassum on a Houtman Abrolhos reef slope.
One trip I made to the Kimberley coast, far to the north, was an eye-opener, as the tidal range there is one of the biggest in the world, peaking at over 14 metres. The ocean is shallow and constantly churning, so the water is always muddy. The coral gardens, high and dry at every low tide, are a spectacular site. They’re surprisingly diverse, with a strange mix of species, many having weird growth forms that don’t occur elsewhere, making some species difficult to identify. As the gardens bake for hours under the searing tropical sun, their temperature must go far above any recorded elsewhere in Australia, and perhaps even higher than the water temperature of the Persian Gulf, which holds most such records. My mind was overloaded with questions when it came time to leave: I longed to go back, and still do.
Corals exposed at low tide on the Kimberley coast.
Clerke Reef, Rowley Shoals. The sandbar is to the left and lagoon to the right. The largest channel is great for a fun dive.
Spear fishing with wooden-framed goggles on Clerke Reef.
The study of Western Australian corals went well, although (and this was something I could hardly admit to myself at the time) I felt a growing unease with the taxonomy I’d spent so many years building on the Great Barrier Reef. Most of the species I found in the west were more or less the same as those of the east, but many had some sort of taxonomic problem. I found myself living with an element of guesswork, quite unlike how it was on The Reef. There, once I’d worked out what a species was in all its many growth forms, I was confident of recognising it anywhere. In the west that confidence kept eroding, for the basis on which I separated one species from another on the The Reef now seemed doubtful.
I started to question my earlier work, not a happy thing for a scientist to do. These problems were soon to get worse, when I began working in Japan.
I didn’t quite abandon the Great Barrier Reef at this time. For a start I had to reassure myself that I hadn’t made the taxonomic mistakes that my work in Western Australia suggested. (I hadn’t; Nature was playing a trick, one I will later describe.) On top of that, new outbreaks of crown-of-thorns starfish were causing havoc. Occasionally there were newspaper articles about them, but there was none of the interest that there’d been in the ’60s and early ’70s. The public had become inured to it all.
Had there been an inquiry of the sort envisaged a decade earlier, I could have been part of it, for I obtained a doctor of science degree, for my work on corals, from the University of New England in 1982. My graduation would have been the fifth time I crossed the stage at a degree-conferring ceremony, but after much soul-searching I decided not to go, because the thought of receiving yet another degree felt wrong when the only accolades that mattered to me – Noni’s – had fallen silent. That sounds selfish, I know, and I later regretted it, especially when the chancellor sent me a long handwritten letter expressing his personal regret at my absence.
The undersurface of a large Acropora colony. The colony consists of hundreds of interlocked radiating ribs, each rib being built by about a hundred individual polyps.
A brief return to the Solitary Islands, 1986.
Travels Abroad
Trouble in Japan
By 1984 an interesting picture had emerged from all this work on Australian corals. We saw that on both coasts, species richness decreases in an orderly sequence from the northern tropics to southern temperate latitudes. That was hardly an earth-shattering revelation, but when this sequence was superimposed on patterns of temperature, currents and the occurrences of reefs, the results said a good deal about reef ecology. The question that naturally arose was: do similar patterns and correlations apply to the Northern Hemisphere – from Indonesia to Japan? I had been pondering this very question when I received a phone call out of the blue.
‘Dr Veron? I am Dr Shirai. Please come to Ishigaki Island and report on the corals there. All expenses paid.’
I knew roughly where Ishigaki Island was, just north of Taiwan, at the southern end of the Ryukyu Islands chain. The timing and location could not have been better.
‘Okay,’ I said. ‘When do you want me to come?’
‘As soon as possible. Please bring personal diving equipment, camera and suit. We have tanks and all you need. We would be greatly honoured by your visit.’
A few weeks later I was on a plane to Ishigaki Island. As it circled around to the airport I saw that the island had a mountainous spine down the middle, a narrow coastal plain on all sides covered with rice paddies, and an almost continuous line of fringing reefs. A perfect place for diving.
I met Dr Shirai as soon as I walked down the aircraft steps. He was tiny, with an intelligent face and a happy smile, and was immaculately dressed, as if he were going to a business conference.
‘So sorry the mayor is not here to meet you,’ he said.
His English was excellent. I must have looked a bit surprised, because he explained that a mayor in Japan was the godfather of all things, not just a political leader. Then he looked a little worried. ‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty-nine,’ I said, wondering why he’d asked.
‘Please do not be thirty-nine.’ He frowned. ‘Forty-five is better. Please come with me, we have a meeting in the airport reception room where you will meet the press. Very important.’
A press conference about me? What’s this guy on about?
The reception room turned out to be full of bright lights and big television cameras; there were many technicians in overalls, reporters with notebooks, and important-looking men sweating in their perfectly fitting suits, just like Shirai’s. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. Coral taxonomists just don’t get this sort of treatment.
Someone welcomed me in faltering English, then turned to a camera and started a long speech in Japanese, which of course I didn’t understand. This was followed by another welcome by someone else in a few practised English words, and then another long speech in Japanese. On this process went, again and again. Cameras, not to mention floodlights, were on me almost continually as one immaculately dressed man after another bowed formally and eagerly shook my hand. It seemed that I was some sort of celebrity. What was going on?
After two hours, during which I understood nothing, I must have looked as bored as I felt, for Shirai chipped in. ‘Please excuse all this. It is the Japanese way. We are greatly honoured by your visit. We invite you to a banquet in your honour. Very important. But first I will take you to a beautiful guesthouse reserved for your visit. Did you bring a suit? No? Then I will have one delivered.’
Is he kidding? The last time I wore a suit was at my wedding.
The guesthouse was indeed beautiful, as Shirai said. It was built in traditional mainland-Japanese style and stood alone on a headland surrounded by trees. I had the whole place to myself, to be looked after by ‘Papa-san and Mama-san’, an elderly couple who spoke no English. But no matter; they certainly seemed a friendly pair.
The banquet, held in a large, tatami-mat room on the top storey of a modern hotel, was another novel experience for me. A circle of low, polished, heavy wooden tables were covered with platters of traditional Japanese food. There were
no women, just middle-aged men, about thirty in number, all dressed as I now was in a grey suit complete with tie, tie pin, and a fake breast-pocket handkerchief. Sartorial splendour isn’t high on my list of achievements; I’m sure I looked every bit as uncomfortable in my suit as I felt.
I was placed with Shirai on one side and the mayor, who had just returned from Tokyo, on the other. The mayor must have been about seventy years old and had a heavy build and a large, kindly face. He had bowed surprisingly low to me, and shaken my hand warmly. I took an instant liking to him, or at least to his smile. He spoke no English but we both knew a little German, his presumably from the war, so we got by with basics.
Japanese food has long since gone international, to great acclaim, but back then I’d never even seen a Japanese restaurant. I’d heard, to my horror, that Japanese ate fish raw, and there it was – in all manner of different colours, most wrapped in seaweed, with rice. I decided to start on something less challenging. A small pile of green stuff on the side looked relatively harmless, and so my first mouthful of Japanese food was straight wasabi. It seemed an age before I could breathe again, much to the concern of the mayor.
Shirai was the only English speaker in the room, as far as I could hear. He chatted with me on occasion, explaining the food and showing me the way sake was drunk. As soon as anybody in the vicinity emptied their cup, all were refilled together. That way everybody got drunk at the same rate, everybody except me, that is, who apparently had a greater tolerance for alcohol than the Japanese. This seemed to give me a certain status, as did the ease with which I handled chopsticks (we used them at home) and sat on the floor – gaijin (foreigners) were not supposed to be able to do such things.
A Life Underwater Page 18