The 4th Annual Underwater Festival, 24th to 30th April 2010, held for the first time on Christmas Island, was a great success, with many of our local sharp shooters taking out top honours in the shoot out. For all the results and to see the winning shots checkout UF10 Winner’s Gallery. Congratulations to all competitors, and special thanks to Tim, Wandy and the UF10 team for making it all happen!!

With the weather refusing to dry out, it is hard to say what has happened to our ‘dry season’, could this be the reason for our extended whaleshark season? We had a very busy season above and below the water, sighting a record 250 whalesharks from our first on 28th November, most of our visitors finished their trips with a big smile. The last sighting on 28th June was so unexpected, even Hama had to be convinced, but the inquisitive little (3.5m) female followed snorkellers and boat for over 50 minutes, obviously keen for the company. Could she have been left behind?

Who knows what 2011 has in store? With the crazy weather its hard to predict, but hopefully the whalesharks can recognise paradise when they see it and will bring all their friends back next year.

With the big fish scene pretty quiet, locals have taken the opportunity to explore some of our more intricate underwater caves in more detail. Hama has been leading serious cave teamsters for the first time on Christmas Island, under the expert guidance of Boothy teaching everyone how to rig up their gear safely, with the idea of mapping some previously unchartered caves. We are hoping that maps will be ready some time next year.

The only other news to share, is the pending delivery of the newest member of our Wet’n'Dry team, expected in early September. So it may be some time for our next update. Stay tuned for pictures of our little snorkeller. Happy diving!!

Whalesharks.

On the Surface. Despite our whaleshark protection policy of “Don’t Chase. Don’t Touch” there were certainly a lot of close encounters with these friendly giants. Many of the sharks follow the snorkellers, swimming directly towards them and even bump into them, if the snorkeller’s efforts to back peddle fail.

On Scuba. While some whalesharks are content just to have a casual look as they cruise on by, some lucky divers had 50 minutes of non-stop whaleshark action as the shark swam around and around them in the diver’s bubbles. While another group scored 4 different whalesharks in one 50 minute dive.

Weather. It has been a very strange season weather wise, with calm water and sunny days throughout February and rain and swell throughout March. The water temperature has been up 2 degrees over average for the last 4 weeks, at 31 degrees C, causing some extensive coral bleaching in our shallow reef waters. We are hoping for a cool change soon to give the corals a chance to recover.

Season Highlights (Its not all about whalesharks!)

Swimming with a rare school of dolphin fish;Getting up close and personal with sailfish; 9 devil wrays dancing with divers for 40 mins, with a whaleshark to boot; Numerous mantas, hammerheads, silkys and other shark action; JCU fish research team return and find  5 new fish records, including 1 new species ( 1 wrasse, 2 unicornfish, 1 parrotfish and 1 butterfly fish).

Thank you to all our visiting and local divers and snorkelers for a fun-filled season.

Stay tuned to this blog to hear about all the thrills of the island’s inaugural hosting of the Underwater Festival in April.

September was filled with excitement as several family groups of humpbacks took to the ‘island’ life, cruising quietly along the coast in the settled areas, very close to shore.

One of Hama’s lifelong dreams has been to swim with a humpback whale, but I don’t think he ever expected it to happen on Christmas Island! Lin even went as far as Tonga in the Pacific to find Humpbacks in 2004. In our combined 17-year history on the island, there have been only rare, unconfirmed sightings here on the island.

After the first sighting on 4th September, we were blessed with many amazing encounters and sightings throughout the month, with the last sighting in early October……

After a particularly festive Saturday night, we got an early morning call from Lynny. She was in her backyard watching a family of Humpbacks cruising quietly back and forth, just 5m from the cliffs, where a small crowd had gathered with cameras, binoculars, armchairs and coffee. When we arrived we had just missed a very close passing, what appeared to be two adults and a baby.

Hama debated whether it was worth putting the boat in for a closer look – maybe they would move on by the time we got organized? In the end we decided to take the risk and everyone was invited. However, some chose the AFL Grand Final footage over the chance to see these amazing creatures up close, can you believe that? Lynny, Linda, Jen, Jamie, Celine, Brendan, Lin, Hama and Leila jumped aboard Feral in a whale-watching frenzy. We sped around the point and waited just past the drop-off until we saw a water spout.

Hama gave us the word and we hit the water with our mask and snorkels, swimming towards the coast hoping to catch sight of the whales swimming past. About 15m from the cliffs we heard Jen scream and we saw this beautiful little baby humpback (about 5m long) swimming below us. The weird sight of all our arms and legs must have intrigued the little fellow, who continued to circle around us 4 times, looking us in the eye!

Unbelievable!!!!! What an awesome 40^th Birthday present for Jen!!

Humpback whales migrate from Antarctica to the sub-tropical coastal waters of Australia to give birth and mate during winter and spring. Therefore this species is typically seen in the coastal waters of eastern and western Australia.

In the early days of white settlement, whaling operations in these areas seriously depleted the humpback populations. Could their sudden appearance around Christmas Island indicate growing numbers of this species? It has now been over 45 years (1963) since whaling was banned!

Or are they being forced here due to changes in water temperature or lack of food in their typical zones?

Whatever the reason for their visit, it was pure joy to have them here. We can’t wait until next year to find out if they return or if this just another of those magical ‘blue planet’ events that we are sometimes blessed with because we have our eyes permanently trained on the water?

Thanks to Brendan Tiernan for this awesome photo!

Our most recent notable dive event, 18^th August, was an unexpected treat at the end of the second dive of the day.

Lynny was guiding a mixed group of 6 divers: 4 from Australia, 1 from Italy and a very lucky and very new local diver.

As the diver’s began their ascent, around 8m depth, a curious 5m whale shark swam past, just 5m from the dive group. It is always a treat to see these gentle giants, but in August, wow, these diver’s were extremely lucky.

In all of our experience, spanning 25 years here on the island, we have never heard of a sighting at this time of the year. It certainly raises a few hairy questions such as: What is going on with the weather? Or; Are whale sharks here the whole year round but ‘hiding out’ somewhere?

Water temperatures have been low, 25-26°C, for an extended time period this year. There has also been a record amount of rainfall during our so-called ‘dry’ season. So, can we attribute unusual sightings like this to climate change? If so, will they happen more frequently? We aren’t scientists, but you do have to wonder……

Despite the weird science aspect, Lynny was celebrating with a “ guess what we saw” victory dance on the surface, while we couldn’t get the grins off the guests’ faces.

There is something magical about an encounter with a very large fish, a feeling that is multiplied by 100 when you never expected it. Perhaps if we could keep our attitude to every dive like this, just taking whatever comes, we could do a victory dance every time we surfaced?

Every year on (or close to) World Environment Day our local environmental group, Island Care, organise an island –wide community clean up to raise awareness and generally tidy up our town.

For the last few years, this has included an underwater component, with local divers rallying to scour the bottom our house reef, Flying Fish Cove, for human debris. Tanks were provided, free of charge, courtesy of CI Wet’n’ Dry Adventures- thanks Lin and Hama!

Sunday 7^th June 2009, was our best turnout yet, with 16 local divers showing up to do their bit. There must be something about a free tank that inspires folk to pull themselves out of bed at 8am on a Sunday morning; or maybe it was the promise of a sausage sizzle that did it? Whatever the motivation, the underwater team did a fantastic job.

Some of the landlubbers complained that the divers were taking the soft option, but despite being surrounded by pristine corals and plenty of tropical fish, cleaning up underwater can be very tricky. Matt and Brad had to surface after 40mins, low on air, after hauling 2 huge metal pipes and a tyre back to shore. Others spent most of their dive trying to free coral of fishing line, a delicate operation.

The ubiquitous plastic bag was by far the most insidious type of litter in this year’s ‘catch’. Plastic bags represent a serious threat to the endangered hawksbill turtles, who regularly mistake the bags as squid. Filling their bellies with this indigestible flotsam causes them to die slowly of starvation. So while a small collection of bags doesn’t look very impressive volume –wise, it makes a huge difference to our turtle population. Well done guys!

Lynny and Linda even managed to save enough bar to check out the nudibranchs under the jetty and scored a rare sighting of the intricate ——-. So perhaps the land cleaners were right?

Overall, this year’s event was a huge success, with a superbly sunny day, plenty of keen workers, a fantastic sausage sizzle and lots of rubbish “off the streets”.

Article provided by Island Care.

On last month’s favourite dive, Hama had a close encounter with a very curious character.

It was during the second dive of the day. Lynnie was down-under as divemaster, Hama on the surface as skipper.

After the divers descended, Hama moved the boat off shore to watch the diver’s bubbles from a respectable distance. Just as he stopped the engine, he saw a big fin and a shadow amongst the bubbles. His immediate thought was: “whaleshark” but it was too skinny and small. Sunfish???

Ordinarily the sunfish are shy and aloof, not easy to observe closely. As she approached the boat, Hama was sure she would just swim away, but instead she circled the boat, curious.

Hama, encouraged by this bold behaviour, slid quietly into the water to get a closer look. The sunfish tentatively came to investigate, swimming to within 1m from Hama, before swimming off.  Again and again she repeated this dance.

Hama was beside himself with joy to get such a chance with this secretive creature and began to try different ways to attract the sunfish’s attention, such as:

1. Tapping surface with hand

2. Moving hands side to side 

3. Screaming underwater

Number three was the clear winner. Hama’s underwater vocal talents seemed to be very interesting for our happy sunfish. Each time he screamed the sunfish would look at Hama, turn around and swim in his direction. They played this game together for another 30mins, when Hama realised he had drifted a little away from divers’ bubbles and had to climb aboard and catch up. The sunfish continued to circle the boat as Hama started the engine.

As he cruised off, he looked behind to see the sunfish had raised one fin out of the water, and was flipping it left and right (just like a big wave). So Hama waved back and reluctantly said goodbye.

Once the diver’s had surfaced they returned to the sunfish’s playground but she was nowhere to be found.

Hama has been diving here on Christmas Island for the last 13 years and has seen 2 or 3 sunfish per year but NEVER before has he spent this much ‘quality’ time with them. A magical experience made possible by the low –level human presence in our marine environment.

Our favourite dive recently was on the 4^th March. Perfect day! After a period of grey skies and choppy conditions, the ocean was calm, inviting and full of promise.

Keen local diver, Chris Boland, was celebrating his %* birthday. The birthday rule on a Wet’n’Dry trip means the birthday boy/girl gets a cake and the choice of company and dives. The boat started the day covered in balloons and Happy Birthday signs that were soon off with the wind. Luckily the conditions lasted longer than the decorations.

Dive # 1:   Max Depth = 30m. Dive time = 50min + 5 min safety stop at 5m. Visibility = 25+m

First dive. Chris chose Perpendicular Wall, one of the steepest drop offs on the island, renowned for its stunning gorgonian fans and breathtaking vistas. On this occasion the visibility was approximately 25+m with just a mild current in the usual direction: West around the point.

Apart from the everyday fantastic features and the resident macros, Leaf scorpion fish, nudis and lionfish; Perpendicular Wall offered up plenty of big fish to keep the blue crew happy. Including a big mob of rainbow runner, dog-tooth tuna, trevally, a few reef sharks and one “big, big shark” that was too far out to be identified. With a bit of encouragement from Hama’s ‘shark whisperer’, 10 x silky sharks materialised off the reef to check out our divers near to the surface.

Surface interval is never dull and today was no exception with the Spinner dolphin’s new recruits putting on a performance for the divers. A little fellow attempted an aerial spin-twist (9.5 degrees of difficulty), but didn’t get the lift he needed to execute the jump and was sent back to the practice room. The judges [divers]were distracted from their disappointment by the arrival of the chocolate birthday cake and other tuneful festivities until the second dive at the Fuel Buoys.

Dive # 2:   Max Depth = 20m. Dive time = 50min + 5 min safety stop at 5m. Visibility = 20m

The ‘Fuel Buoys’, located just around the corner from our house reef Flying Fish Cove, keep the fuel ships secure when offloading the diesel we use to make electricity on the island. They are also home to our friendly 10ft bronze whaler Hoover, who got the name from his habit of cleaning up after local fisherman who regularly stop in this quiet bay to fillet their catch. This is also the reason a large contingent of Giant Trevally’s (GT’s) can sometimes be found lurking around this site.

Although the name may not suggest ‘exotic destination’, it is an excellent place to find elusive and mysterious little creatures, if you are prepared to nose around a bit. On this occasion, Steve managed to lose yet another pointy stick doing just that, or was it the tiger shark he spotted in the deep that caused him to lose his grip?

A great day on the water, back to the Cove by 12:40pm, plenty of time to prepare for a different kind of liquid celebration!

If you are in Singapore, get down to the Asia Dive Expo [ADEX] at Suntec Singapore, and see our Christmas Island representatives at Underwater.com and CITA stalls, and be the first to take advantage of our special ADEX ONLY packages.

The year so far has been amazing and despite an extended period of gnarly weather, we have had a fantastic 07/08 whaleshark season. Wet’n’Dry’s whaleshark count is now at 73 sightings, since the first one on 23rd November 2007.

Watch this space for exciting news, stories and updates on all things Wet’n’Dry.