Back again… It’s actually the morning of Day 2, but I thought I’d catch you up with what went on after leaving Brisbane airport. There were other crew members on our flight- John Jackie and Jenn Mullen and Gordon. We were all working together on the Mermaid project back in 2009. Our blog from that expedition is still archived on our website.
We arrived in Gladstone at about 1.30 pm. A bit delayed, but at least all of our equipment made it with us!
We took a taxi to the marina and met the crew of the Kanimbla. Carl and Jesse had picked up all the gear we had shipped up from Sydney the week before and it was already on the boat. Kieran and I did a quick check and found that one parcel had been left behind. And a pretty important one at that… the cable that attaches the magnetometer tow fish to the computer! The magnetometer, or mag, is a piece of electronic survey equipment. Basically it is a very sensitive metal detector, but if you can’t connect the sensor to the computer it’s not going to work.
We got Carl to take us to the TNT depot where we spotted it right away. The depot thought it was for Telstra because it was a big blue cable! With that problem solved we picked up a few other supplies that we knew we might need and headed back to the marina. Kieran had a couple of interviews scheduled for 3 pm.
We got back spot on 3 pm and one film crew was just unpacking and another reporter and photographer were already on board Kanimbla. That took about an hour to provide the story, photos and film. There should be a news piece on Channel 7 evening news on Thursday. But we won’t be able to get this blog out until after that. Sorry…
Kieran and I took advantage in the break in activity to unpack our personal gear and settle into a four bunk berth. It has enough room to store some of the camera and video equipment. After that we got stuck into unpacking and reorganising some of the 19 assorted bins and boxes of dive gear and survey equipment.
The doctor for the project arrived at about 5.30 pm. Frederick Reef is so remote that we felt it was a good idea to have a diving doctor on board the Kanimbla. At 6 pm the rest of the ANMM staff arrived along with the staff and students from Flinders Uni. Everyone had arrived on our boat.
The last person was Xanthe Rivett our project photographer and videographer. Everyone stopped work and took some time to get to know each other.
At 8.30 pm we had our safety briefing from the captain of Kanimbla, as required of all charter boats in preparation for departure. We had dinner at 9 pm and pulled away from the wharf at 10 pm. We’re on our way to Frederick Reef!! I’ll let you know how we stay busy for the next 30 hours…
Cheers Paul Hundley (Sr. Curator and archaeologist)