marinegirl

According to Carl Svendsen’s Souvenir Chart of Great Keppel Island, ‘Great Keppel is a big, dry, rugged and mostly uninhabited island with dangerous cliffs and foreshores’.The whole island is rather run down and scruffy, as though nothing has been done to it in years. Paint is flaking, signs fading in the sun and the jukebox has hits from the mid-nineties. In it’s most recent incarnation the resort attempts to attract families, but signs of its ‘party island’ past remain in the Wreck Bar on a Saturday night. From Friday to Sunday the island is busy with day trippers and weekenders, but for the rest of the week the place is empty, almost as though abandoned, and it feels quite odd. The exception is Island Pizza (a slice of paradise), which serves surprisingly good pizzas on a tastefully decorated deck populated by palm trees. This makes a welcome break from the mediocre staff meals at Keppel Haven, with classic rock DVDs (Bon Jovi appear to be a particular favourite) projected, slightly out-of-focus, onto a big screen.It’s odd that the resort is so neglected, given that the island is stunning. The beaches have fine white sand, which your feet sink right into, and all around there are amazing views out to other rugged, uninhabited islands. Hiking tracks (which sadly I didn’t have time to follow) lead up to a peak in the centre of the island and to remote beaches around its shores.The purpose of the trip (at least the bit I was there for) was to try and locate spawning aggregations of coral trout and stripey sea perch, and to collect DNA and otolith samples from these species to determine when they spawn, and how populations in the island group are connected. We didn’t have much luck finding any spawning aggregations; they’re going to try again next month. To get the DNA and otoliths (which are essentially fish ears, inside their heads), we had a permit to spearfish on scuba. This is usually illegal, apparently because it would make it too easy to catch them…. Yeah right! I failed to spear a single fish the whole time! Which I think makes me the worst spearfisher ever. But at least my karma is intact I suppose. Once we’d (ok, the others) had caught them, we had to take fin clippings, remove their otoliths (gruesome photo warning)… fillet and barbeque them! It would be a shame to waste anything! We also did an ‘underwater fishing’ trial, which was basically fishing with a baited line like normal, but underwater. It was hilariously unsuccessful, all the fish we wanted to catch simply nibbled the bait off and left the hook behind, and one dumb other fish got itself hooked (and released) three times! All the bait in the water attracted a rather pesky remora and a tawny nurse shark, which just complicated matters further! I laughed lots.The days were pretty long, and it was super hot being out on the boat all day, but it was good fun and I learnt quite a bit from chatting to the guys. I flew back up to Townsville this morning, and am knackered. Back to the office tomorrow!