Continued

I ordered a $260,000, 20 meter imitation sub coral viewing vessel a 50 x 30 meter pontoon & 100 tons of mooring gear, but no one would even talk to me regarding approvals to install it at Hardy Reef. In desperation I wrote to all & any department or authority who could be interested. I would have included SR if I had known how important he is. I received not a single reply, took that as tactic approval, & installed the facility.

It was a great success apart from the bird poo. I had to install an accommodation module for a skipper & his lady to contain the poo & the smell problem.

Some time later I invited people from James Cook, AIMS & the marine park authority for an exclusive run to the authority. I took 148 all up to the reef on a low tide day, so they could see the waterfalls. Hardy reef although 8Ft under water on a spring high is 5Ft dry on a big spring low. 30 nautical miles of reef thus encloses 34,000 acres of water 5Ft above the sea level. This is drained by 3 small channels grouped at the north western end of the lagoon. These are a spectacular sight I have never found elsewhere in my 53,000 nautical miles Pacific wanderings.

Anyone who has an interest in the reef should put seeing this high on their bucket list.

Listening to the people on the trip it was obvious few of them had seen much of the reef. The chair lady of the marine park authority had only been on a boat twice before. How they pick the gravy train riders I don't know, but it sure isn't on knowledge or usefulness.

I dived on ribbon # 5 & # 2 and found it had a little more marine life that the average council kerb. The coral is showing signs of regrowth but sadly the fish life has been so decimated by fishing that it'll be a while yet before they learn how to breed faster than the morons catch them.
Heard a moron say on the ABC that recreational fishing is no longer viable since the fuel hikes of recent.
I truly hope that stops them for some years going out & ruining the marine ecology for "Sport".

Regarding oil on the GBR I recall in the late 70's when an island leader showed me the charts of five (5) oil fields found by drilling on the northern GBR.
Some drilling framework supposedly remained for quite a few years on the reef before saltwater did to the steel what it normally does. He told me once the embargo runs out in 1992 they'll probably go ahead with extraction.
One of these fields would have been crossed by the PNG gas pipe line had it gone ahead.

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This is what the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority reports on its website :

"With recent surveys and environmental conditions indicating the mass bleaching event is ending, the extent of recovery versus mortality following accumulated heat stress can only be estimated once the Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS) Long-Term Monitoring Program surveys are completed in mid-2023" :

http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/the-reef/reef-health

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Dear hasbeen,

How's it going old cock? Good?

Let's see what you are having a grizzle over now.

"SR is back again with the lefty hym book garbage, but who cares."

What part of my post was lefty? All I did was allude to the fact that it is pretty hypocritical to lambast the AIMS findings and call them highly inaccurate and the result of ideologically driven processes but then go all cock a hoop when their findings show the significant return of coral cover.

What on earth is lefty about that? Look, I know you prefer the information you swallow to be bite sized, palatable and of a form you are able to brush over the inconvenient truths, but some of us are slightly more intelligent that that.

My view indicates there will be widespread coral 'bleaching' on the GBR, during the coming 2022-2023 summe, likely early summer and not due to C02 emissions.

JF Aus,
If we keep un-balancing the ecology by out-of-control fishing then yes, bleaching along with other more closely related effects from over-fishing, bleaching will continue.
As with everything else people do, they simply can not fish in moderation !
I once asked a Qld "recreational" teacher why he had so many fish in his esky he replied "I sell them, I got to get my fuel money back" !
If only we could do something about this mentality by which 97% of the population are afflicted by !