Henry's Diary
Monday 31 March 2008
I am currently about 30 kilometres off the coast from Outer Harbour. I was lucky enough to find a good school of whiting so have had a good feed. These are not particularly big or tasty but hey, they are food.
It has been six weeks now since my Team glued the sattelite tracker to me so the batteries are going to run out soon. One day this week, they intend to remove it - I know they are watching my movement closely waiting for me to be in a convenient spot to make sure that I am safe when they give me a brief anaesthetic to take it off. At the same time, they are going to try to weigh me and give me another check up. I feel okay but it is better to be safe than sorry.
For now, they will have to wait. I am not going to leave a school of whiting just to make them happy!
Saturday 29 and Sunday 30 March 2008
Having explored around Noarlunga and Hallett Cove, I slowly made my way back up to Glenelg. It wasn't as busy as it was over Easter but there were still a lot of people around.
There was some huge beach volleyball thing happening so there were players and spectators and traffic all over the place. But it was drizzling with rain on and off most of the weekend so it was a bit quieter than it has been. I hung around for a while but then decided to head to Semaphore and Outer Harbour and see if there were any crabs available.
The Outer Harbour area used to be one of my faviourite haul outs - especially the breakwater. From there you can see all the shipping coming into Port Adelaide but be far enough away to stop people from being annoying. A few years ago, some other sea lions moved in. At first there was just one female and she was quite good company but then a couple of young guys decided they would hang out there too. Like most young male sea lions, these guys always seemed to be trying to prove how big and tough there were. After a while they got more annoying than people so I started spending more time at Glenelg and less time on the Outer Harbour breakwater.
This weekend, I had the breakwater to myself for a while which was nice, then I went fishing. I caught some blue swimmer crabs up near St Kilda - and this time I didn't get nippped! Its funny how things work out. I caught one crab and then saw another a bit further out so followed that, then saw a nice sized whiting further out still and followed that one and managed to catch it and then saw a small sting ray gliding through the water even further from the shore and thought that he would make a good feed. I think he saw me because he buried himself in the sand and tried to be come invisible - but I knew he was there. When I tried to grab him he did the typical sting ray thing and threw sand in my face and disappeared into the cloud he had created. They really can be annoying sometimes!
By the time the day was over, I was quite a distance from shore so decided I might as well stay out here and do some serious fishing.
Friday 28 March 2008
I spent the early part of this morning around Hallett Cove and Noarlunga. It really is a great fishing spot for sea lions - as I mentioned yesterday, it's a reserve area so you guys can't fish there. I did manage to catch a couple of really nice sized whiting though. Once I wasn't so hungry, I decided to hunt for more interesting things.
As you know, seals and sea lions are distant relatives of dogs and bears and, like them we are extremely intelligent and enjoy playing and exploring. The Noarlunga Reef is a great place to play and explore. I dived right down to the bottom of the reef. There are a whole series of caves and nooks and crannies down there. The weather was pretty clear and the visibility was good. There are always lots of little fish down there. They are mainly dull colours - not like the marine tropical fish that look like living rainbows because they hide in coral. There is only 1 species of coral in South Australian waters and it's not very common, so most South Australian fish are just silver, brown, black or white or a mixture of those colours so they blend into the sand and rocks. But, there are so many of them it really is spectacular. I don't bother trying to hunt these little guys. They are too fast for me anyway and there isn't much meat on them so it just isn't worth the effort. But sometimes I do spook them just for fun. I stuck my nose in one small cave and a heap of them panicked and swarmed around my face as they escaped. Behind them was a cuttle fish. They are worth eating so I grabbed him.
While I was exploring, I found an old tin can on the bottom of the sea floor. Being the curious animal that I am, I turned it over and a blue-ringed octapus crawled out. These are really quite small, only about ten centimetres long but they are one of the most dangerous animals in the whole of Australia. I obviously annoyed him, because his blue rings started glowing - so I backed off big time. I think I scared him as much as he scared me though because he lifted all his tenticles and did this big flicking moving movement then swam off into a rock cranny. I wasn't silly enough to follow!
If ever you get the opportunity, you should go snorkelling or diving around the Adelaide coastline - but only if you are a good swimmer and only if someone goes with you. If you do, you will get a glimpse of my world and maybe understand how I and all the other marine creatures live. Of course, it is different for us and you will probably never fully understand. I mean I have shared the human world for so many years but there are still things about you guys that amaze and bewilder me!
With a few good whiting and one cuttle fish under my belt, I decided to head back towards Glenelg and check out what was going on down there. I expect it will be a bit quieter than it was over Easter - I certainly hope so.
I will speak to you tomorrow.
Thursday 27 March 2008
I spent most of today lazing around Glenelg, some of the time down on the breakwater and a bit of time up on the Promenade. People who live in Adelaide don’t realise how lucky they are to have such beautiful beaches and clean oceans. I guess everyone takes things for granted and it takes a visitor to appreciate how good things really are. By about 11.00 pm, I realised that I was getting hungry again.
I was sick of eating little whiting so decided to go and find some bigger fish, so headed down towards the Noarlunga Reef. Speaking of beautiful spots! No humans are allowed to fish on the reef so the fish grow bigger than they do in other places around the Gulf. When cruising around I always seek out places with more adult fish than lots of babies. There is so much marine life in the area – it is a veritable smorgasbord for sea lions like me. Even before I reached the reserve itself the increase in the size and numbers of fish was obvious.
I know that people like fish nearly as much as I do, but it is great that an area like this is being protected so it will stay this good for years into the future. I hear that there is talk of creating more marine parks off the South Australian coast. I hope you do because even just swimming down here this evening has shown me again of the benefits that parks can have.
Well, I have some fishing to do. I will let you know how I go tomorrow!
Wednesday 26 March 2008
Gee it was a busy weekend down at Glenelg over Easter! I told you about the beach volley ball – so many people were around. I think quit a few of them deliberately sought me out to introduce themselves. Which was really good. They were all nice to me as well – bonus hey!
One group of kids had their skate boards and bikes and came right over to me. I was trying to sleep so one of my team asked them to leave me alone and go and check out my website. They were polite and pleasant and rode off – presumably to the skate park and promised to check out my website later when they got home. Its so good when kids do the right thing.
I think a lot of people did a lot of partying around Glenelg over Easter. It got louder and louder to the point where I thought Id rather be somewhere else than the Promenade so I swam out to the western breakwater for a bit of peace and quiet. I could still hear the people laughing and singing and carrying on. It seems like they all had a really good Easter. In between my fishing trips, I have tended to come back to the breakwater to avoid all the noise and bustle. I don’t mind. That is one of the great things about the Adelaide coast. I can choose whether to be near people or move away a bit. The breakwater gets windy and cold sometimes. Yesterday, it was even raining and it isn’t much warmer today. We sea lions have a neat trick. Remember how I told you that we can control our body temperatures by losing heat through our flippers when we get too hot? Well, it works the other way as well. I was getting a bit cold today so I slept with my flippers tucked under my tummy to keep warm. I must have looked like a big boulder out on the breakwater.
I think I will stay here out here on the breakwater for a while until Glenelg settles down and goes back to normal.
Tuesday 25 March 2008
I think I over-ate! Yesterday afternoon I mentioned that I stumbled on a patch of King George whiting to the West of Grange. These are a local delicacy in South Australia. They are a bit bland to eat, particularly raw, but many people here target them for their supper. Sea lions don’t normally bother eating whiting, but today I thought Id give them a go. As I said, they don’t taste like much, but they were fun to catch and I could eat a few of them on each dive, so I filled my belly before moving on.
I prefer to catch the bigger whiting, because they have already had a chance to spawn and make more whitings. There were some small, slow whiting in amongst the larger ones yesterday, and I probably could have caught all of the smaller ones, because they were slow and even curious or a big guy like me! But as I said, eating the bigger fish means that the baby ones will get a chance to have their won babies one day. I did accidentally catch one small whiting when I was chasing big ones yesterday, but I had grabbed him so lightly by the tail that I was able to gently release him and watch him swim away. Let me tell you, he learnt his lesson about being curious when a big sea lion is around!
I also like the challenge of trying to catch big whiting and big fish in general, because the big ones are a bit more cagey and they dart into the seagrass to avoid my teeth. Unfortunately for those big whiting, Im a bit of a seagrass specialist, so yesterday I was just darting in there after them and gobbling them all up.
Late on Tuesday I returned to Glenelg to rest my tired flippers. I had been at sea for almost 2 days straight, and I had hardly stopped diving for that entire time. Up and down through the water column I bounced like a yo-yo. Anyway, Im back at Sammy's café now thinking about where to go fishing next.
Friday 21 March 2008 to Monday 24 March 2008
Sorry to have missed most of you over the long weekend - I heard that a few holiday makers were in Adelaide and that a few people came down to Sammy’s to meet me. I came ashore on Saturday to Glenelg, after having been fishing on Easter Friday. A few people were asking me to help them on their quiz assignments, because they said they were so desperate to win the trip to Kangaroo Is. I told them that they would have a better chance of swimming with me, than getting me to help with their answers!
I lazed around Glenelg most of Saturday, moving places between break walls, Sammy’s and the man-made breakwater just off Glenelg. It really is convenient having so many places to come ashore to rest! I could see at Glenelg that there was still a stadium set up on the beach, for the beach volleyball, but I didn’t go ashore, because I’m not a sea lion that enjoys playing with balls, like my cousins in the zoo.
I’ve found a new fishing spot to the northwest of Glenelg, about 20 km away, and clearly my team has already shown you where my new spot is, because the batteries in my satellite tracker are still in great order! At this new spot, I’ve been catching blue swimmer crabs. These spiny little devils are not quite as tasty as crayfish, but they're easier for me to catch, because they’re in shallow water and they stand out nicely against the green seagrass, which makes them easy for me to spot. Although I’ve been catching these crabs for years and years, I still haven’t worked out a way to grab them without being nipped by almost every one of them. They have long pincers so I cringe each time I open my mouth to grab one - on Easter Sunday one crab even got hold of my tongue and made me bleed. I almost had a tongue piercing, but the crab got what was coming to him too!
On Monday I decided to head home to Glenelg, so I slowly started swimming the 30 or so km that I had to go. I didn’t realise that Id swum so far away, chasing the blue swimmer crabs. I swam slowly, catching more crabs as I passed the few fishing boats that had braved the windy conditions to go fishing today. I checked their lines for snapper on my way past, but none of them were catching any fish, so I couldn’t pinch myself an easy feed from them.
Cruising over and through the seagrass is a blissful pastime though. Picking up blue swimmer crabs and watching the small fish duck in and out of seagrass are some of my favourite activities when I’m swimming in the waters near Adelaide. Close to shore the seagrass habitat is not quite as lush as it is where I go fishing down at Deep Creek, near Cape Jervis. I’m not quite sure why there is less seagrass along the Adelaide coastline, but maybe it has something to do with all of the freshwater run-off and fertiliser from people's gardens and Adelaide's roads. Either way, if you get the chance to snorkel or dive when you’re south of Adelaide, or on Yorke Peninsula, make sure you do. Who knows, we might even meet up and Ill show you how to catch blue swimmer crabs without getting nipped…if you’re fast! Mind you, it hasn’t rained in a while, so I’m not sure what’s going on with this seagrass. Maybe one of my team will tell me next time I’m at Glenelg - Ill let you know!
News just in: It's now Tuesday lunchtime and I’ve just found a bountiful King George whiting spot, which is out west of Grange, and there aren't any fishing boats in sight. I think Ill delay my return to Glenelg for a few more hours and make short work of these scrumptious whiting. Some of them are 55 cm long, which is the biggest I’ve ever seen around Adelaide. They are tasty little morsels for a big guy like me, so tomorrow Ill let you know how many of them I bagged and how big the biggest one of them was. Got to go now, the whiting have seen me!
Thursday 20 March 2008
News Flash!!!
I'm excited. I just heard that yesterday a very young pup was unexpectedly found at Seal Bay . I wonder what's going on down there. We thought all the mums that live at Seal Bay stopped having babies about three months ago, so this is a bit odd. At the moment pups are being born at The Pages Islands, where I spent some time last week. Maybe one of the females from The Pages decided that the sandy beach at Seal Bay is a more comfortable place have her pup, or maybe she was out swimming when the baby decided to arrive, so she just hauled out at the most convenient spot? I guess we will never know. It is exciting news though - there are not enough of us, so one more live, healthy sea lion pup is good news. I thought you would be excited too, so I wanted to let you know as soon as I heard.
The pup was found because the staff were doing a Colony Count . Once a month staff who work at Seal Bay walk from one end of the colony to the other and count the number of sea lions (on land of course, they don't go swimming to count the sea lions that are out fishing!). Do you remember me telling you about the Rangers doing a survey on The Pages Islands early in March, well it is the same sort of thing, but they do it more frequently at Seal Bay . The Rangers started this in 1983, which is a good thing because gradually they have been able to work out whether there is more or less of us around. We certainly don't have time to worry about counting each other – we are too busy eating, staying away from sharks and rubbish in the ocean, sleeping and of course the mums are looking after their pups.
There has also been a researcher doing lots of work at Seal Bay over the last three breeding seasons. We think she is pretty good because she is the one who worked out that the number of sea lions at Seal Bay is decreasing. Now that's not good news, but at least people now know what's happening and hopefully everybody will help to do something to change things.
One of the first things that happened, partly because of the research, was that the Australian Government changed the status of Australian sea lions to “Threatened species, Vulnerable category” which all sound a bit too academic for me but it does mean that maybe now people will take a bit more notice of us.
Most of the sea lions down at Seal Bay spend two to three days and nights at sea continually feeding and then two to three days on land sleeping and resting. I heard there were 445 sea lions on land at Seal Bay yesterday: It's good to know that the staff at Seal Bay are keeping an eye on what's happening down there. I hope they can keep doing it.
Like me, the Seal Bay sea lions are used to having people come and look at them. So if you get to go to Kangaroo Island , please say “Hi from Henry” to my mates over there.
Wednesday 19 March 2008
Well, I am still at Glenelg, cruising around and enjoying the scenery and catching the occasional meal when I have the inclination. No wonder people love this as a fishing spot. There is usually something around which is edible!
I was thinking about my mates at Seal Bay on Kangaroo Island and wondering how you are going with your entry for the competition? You should “have a go” you know. If you win, you and your family get to visit my mates at Seal Bay as well as see the rest of the island. I hear Kangaroo Island is a fabulous place. They had some big fires over there last December, but that won't effect your holiday. You can still see all the sights. In fact, I hear that it is really interesting to see what's happening in the areas that were burnt. Apparently the trees and plants started to grown again very soon after the fire. Pretty amazing – I would have thought they would just die, but it seems lots of Australian plants actually need to burn to keep living a healthy life.
Remember I told you that there are new pups (sea lion babies) at The Pages at the moment. Well all sea lions don't have their babies at the same time so there are no newborn pups at Seal Bay at the moment. The last lot of pups born at Seal Bay arrived between May – December 2007 and the next lot will be born between about December this year and June next year. So if you get to go to Seal Bay soon you will see big, fat and hopefully healthy pups drinking milk from their mothers, playing in the surf and of course getting a good amount of rest too. Lots of them are now over six months old which means they are strong and smart enough to go out into the deeper water and start to learn to fish. Wow, I remember that time – it was scary. Out in the deeper water there are sharks that want to eat us. It is scary but it's O.K. really - it's their home too and they have to eat just like us.
The thing that most annoys and worries me is that some of my mates have been tangled up in all that stuff that you guys put in the ocean. I reckon humans are pretty smart and could work out a way of catching fish and looking after their rubbish that didn't mean we got tangled in that stuff. Maybe you could start to think about ways to help out.
Here's a story I heard about one of those pups at Seal Bay . As you probably know, people can go down onto the beach with a guide at Seal Bay to have a look at what my mates are up to. Well, a couple of weeks ago a group of people saw a pup with something around its neck. Yep – what a terrible thing to happen. The rangers knew that if that thing did not come off the pup would slowly die. The problem was that the pup was with its mother which meant they could not try to catch it. Australian sea lions are wonderful mothers. They don't run away when there is trouble – they stay and fight to protect their babies. So for a couple of days all the people who work at Seal Bay put in a lot of time keeping an eye on where the baby was. Thankfully the mother finally went out to sea to feed and the baby stayed on the beach and went to sleep. I heard this guy who works at Seal Bay called Clarry just snuck up and popped the baby in a big bag, cut the thing off from around its neck and then let it go again. Thank goodness that pup was seen by one of you. I worry about all those sea lions that get caught up in stuff in places where there isn't a “Clarry” to help out. The “thing” turned out to be a thick strip of rubber – don't know what that was doing in the ocean!
I also heard that Kangaroo Island , and lots of other places too, are trying to become “plastic bag free”. That would be a good way to start to try and help us sea lions. I have seen people with some great looking re-usable shopping bags while I have been hanging around Glenelg.
Tuesday 18 March 2008
I spent a fair bit of today, chasing those pesky blue mackerel in the relatively deep blue waters off Glenelg, I really should give up on them – they are too fast and I just end up hungry and frustrated. But, while I was concentrating on them, I suddenly noticed a lightning fast, electric blue shape swim up beside me. He stopped for an instant and seemed reasonably friendly, despite a mouthful of impressive teeth. It was a short fin mako shark that had just been fitted with a satellite tracker like mine! I thought I was the only sea creature that had one of these, but clearly I was wrong. The tracker was fitted to the mako shark on its dorsal fin and the tracker relays the shark's movement patterns by the same ARGOS satellites that I am using to let my Team, and you, know where I have been swimming.
Makos normally live in the waters on the edge of the continental shelf, which is more than 100 km from land – that's quite a swim even by my standards. Most makos are seen on the edge of the Great Australian Bight , where the sea-surface temperature is a warm 21 degrees and where there are many tasty small fish, so it was a bit of a surprise to see one here just off Glenelg. But the surface water heats up during these warm days – and we have had plenty of those lately. Makos need warm water because they have a high metabolic rate and need for speed. As you would know, it is very hard to swim quickly in cold water. As suddenly, just as he appeared, the mako shark took off like lightning and I never saw him again. Wow, I thought, those guys must really travel some serious distances.
After chasing those annoyingly fast little blue mackerel for a while longer I decided to head back to the relative tranquillity of Glenelg for another afternoon nap.
Sleeping, seeing interesting things and eating – what more is there in life?
Monday 17 March 2008
After all the activity in Glenelg over the weekend, I decided it was time to clear out and go fishing for a while. I was just cruising out to sea thinking. Most of the events were related to the European culture and religion – like the Procession of the Witness and the Monaro Show and Shine. But there a culture and law here long before the white man arrived. The Kauna people lived and hunted in these lands, and shared it with the sea lions, gannets, blue whales and everything else that is remarkable about this place. Their history and religion is called the Dreaming.
The Tjilbruke Dreaming is central to Southern Kaurna country. It is about the creation of seven freshwater springs along the coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula , which extends from Crystal Brook in the north to Cape Jervis in the south.
Tjilbruke was an ancestral being of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide plains. His nephew (whom he loved dearly) named Kulultuwi, killed an emu which was rightfully Tjilbruke's but he forgave his nephew for it. But Kulultuwi's two part brothers, Jurawi and Tetjawi didn't forgive him because it killing an emu that rightfully belonged to someone else. Because Tjilbruke always obeyed the law, he had to decide if Kulultuwi had been lawfully killed or whether his killing was a murdered. Tjilbruke decided that Jurawi and Tetjawi had acted illegally so, according to law he had to kill his two nephews, by spearing and burning them. This happened near Warriparinga.
Tjilbruke then carried Kulultuwi's partly smoked dried body to a fresh water spring at Kingston Park to complete the smoking and then to Rapid Bay for burial in a cave. On the way he stopped to rest and was crying over the sadness of the whole event. His tears formed the freshwater springs along the coast at Hallett Cove, Port Noarlunga, Red Ochre Cove, Port Willunga, Sellicks Beach , and near Wirrina Cove. Tjilbruke was so depressed over the deaths of his nephews that he didn't want to live as a man anymore. His spirit became a Glossy Ibis and his body became an iron pyrites outcrop at a place the Kaurna people called Brukunga – which is north of Nairne in the Adelaide Hills. This was a memorial to the nephews.
As I carried on my fishing expedition, I couldn't help thinking that, although so much in the landscape behind me had changed, the spirit of the land and the wild things that live in it remains much the same. We all share this coastline and we should treasure its beauty and all it contains.
(Derived from: Living Kaurna Cultural Centre 2006)
March 1st to 16th Diary Entries