When you think of the Great Barrier Reef,
the world's largest coral reef system.
This is the most amazing thing I have ever seen.
What do you picture?
What do you imagine?
It may be the largest living structure on earth and it may be
hundreds of miles away from where you live,
out of sight and out of mind.
So let's go down under and join some ordinary citizens like you and I who are documenting
change down here, now that 50 of the reef is now lost.
You jump in the water, you look at the categories and it's your
visual assessment what's going on with the reef. You will be tracking change.
But before we go on, I have to explain how we got here and how we bumped into and met these amazing people.
Welcome to the Whitsundays.
While sailing up the east coast on our floating home Tucana, we met Lindsay and
her volunteers while they were picking up rubbish on Middle Percy Island.
What's your boat called?
We're just sort of collecting marine debris so...
Oh I thought that's what you guys might have been doing.
I told them I had a small youtube channel and I'd love to share their story
and so after a few weeks and several text messages later
we meet again.
Good morning everyone we're at a bit of a rush today, we're going to be going to check out the reef
so we're going to quickly whip up some breakfast while we're having a quick chat
are you happy with sundried tomatoes? I'm happy
Are you? Mmm... Oh sugar.
Okay dehydrated tomatoes coming right up.
So what's the plan today? What am i doing?
Cooking breakfast.
I am heading out to the reef. I am so excited we're leaving you behind though, sorry.
Last time i was here was about five years ago and there was a massive category five cyclone
that whipped through here and... Was there? Yes.
We want to get now to one of our reporters.
We're expecting these waters to rise another meter with the high tide, plus the storm surge.
The reef was significantly damaged, so we're going to be heading back out today. I recently
asked you guys on instagram if you were interested in checking out the reef
and actually 98% of you said that you were. Ah this is burning, oh gosh i think i've got to turn
this pan down it's really burning up. Um so we're going to do that today here in the Whitsundays.
We are in Pioneer Bay and we are right at the back of the bay. It is packed in
here. The drone footage really does it justice. We'll quickly have some breakfast,
John's going to take me to shore and we'll meet the crew and tell you about what we're up to today.
This is the first time we won't see each other for the whole day in like four months. Woohoo! Have fun.
We're swapping Tucana for a tall ship today. We are going to be heading out on Providence.
She's the classic 62-foot gaff ridge schooner, a replica of the American blackfish.
Lindsay actually is taking us out today to go coral monitoring.
She owns Providence and has planned this special expedition for us and her staff.
So where exactly is skipper Pete taking us to?
We're in the Molt Channel here at the moment about to go past North Mole then we're going to be in our beautiful Whitsunday Passage.
Five years ago we had a cyclone come through here it was called Cyclone Debbie.
She packed winds of about uh 320 kilometers an hour and blew the reef apart. So the coral that
we're going to be seeing today is roughly around about five years old. We see it growing every day.
Five years ago I was out here reporting on the cyclone and back then we didn't talk about the
reef rather the destruction on land.
Right now Cyclone Debbie is 85 kilometers offshore.
We were talking about the impact on families on businesses and houses but we weren't reporting on the fact that
the Reef was... would you say decimated, is that too big of a word? Totally decimated.
Whole bays were wiped out. And there was a lot of pressure not to say anything about that.
So let's take a look five years on.
We're heading out to the north east of Whitsunday Island to collect important data on the reef
with Whitsunday Sailing.
So we can track the change of what's happening to the Reef. Check its recovery from impacts like coral bleaching,
crown of thorns and most recently Cyclone Debbie.
All right it's time to get into our toggs (swimmers.)
And we're going to do some diving.
Steve Fisher is the project officer with Reef Catchments.
You'll see little pieces coming back. Dive down have a closer look.
I don't know why i felt the need to share this story with you
and i'm not really sure you even care to be quite honest but the reef is precious and
recently unesco made the recommendation for it to be listed as an in-danger world heritage site.
It's important to talk about something like that so something's done about it,
like i'm horrified about the unesco decision not to place it in danger. So you think it should have
called in danger? Absolutely it's in danger 50 of it according to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park
Authority outlook report, has died and its outlook is very poor quote unquote. That's not me.
Oh, that was something really special.
Before getting into tourism Lindsay used to be a reporter. She's not afraid of speaking out and in this picturesque
paradise she's actually encouraging her staff to teach tourists about the Reef here in the Whitsundays
she's not just selling the dream.
We're sort of fighting for where to actually take people to snorkel. Again you're not supposed to say anything like that
but if we don't say something... Lindsay is referring to the Whitsundays
but remember the Great Barrier Reef is vast. It's bigger than the United Kingdom, Switzerland and Holland combined,
spanning more than 2,300 kilometers.
As John and I plan to sail north we'll show you in our upcoming episodes how some of the reefs are thriving,
while the other half look like desert wastelands.
What you can do to contribute to science is you go back to the same site once a week
you jump in the water, take your sheet with you, you look at the categories
and it's your visual assessment what's going on with the reef, you will be tracking change.
But for Lindsey and her staff they're starting small and they're starting local. They're like cut in half..
something that we can do too and this is where it gets interesting.
What we're actually trying to do is go to these beaches where we met you. We found a thousand bottle tops just on one beach in the Percy's. Toothbrushes,
children's toys. The Percy's are meant to be pristine Great Barrier Reef islands but this
is the reality, we witnessed it for ourselves.
There's a sign about rubbish like on the beach and stuff. That actually looks like something's tried to bite into it.
So what's the solution?
Wow so we're at Peter's Bay and we're going to be doing a bit of a cleanup so this is part of
the program. Rubbish is analyzed they can sort of work out where it's come from. They were
saying that a lot of the rubbish that they find are actually bleach containers that have come
all the way from asia. Indonesian, made in Indonesia.
When life gets you down, you know what you got to do? I don't want to know what you got to do.
Just keep swimming, just keep swimming just keep swimming swimming swimming.
And believe it or not Finding Nemo may have contributed unintentionally.
With the demand for aquarium fish, illegal overseas fishermen were known to use bleach and sodium cyanide to stun the fish.
One of the first things happened was there was a huge uptake of people wearing clownfish for their fish tanks
so of course where they're collecting from the wild. So there was a decline in clownfish living in an anemone
they'd come out to some anemones all the clowns which were being gone so there's no protection for the anemone.
And as for our coastline... what have you found already? It is a oil drum.
There's heaps of micro plastic all in this sand here.
Stuff that keeps breaking down it turns really really small.
It doesn't actually break down just breaks up into smaller pieces.
This isn't scare mongering, this is real? This is real, we're now finding turtle hatchlings that are
dying they're cutting them open and the gut are small with micro plastics. Micro microplastics is a
broad term, it's generally something smaller than your fingernail. Because when hatchling is born
there's no maternal care, so it doesn't know what to eat. So it goes into the current
it goes out after a couple of days, it goes bit of seaweed - taste it. A bit of plastic - taste it.
And plastic is the same color as jellyfish and we're finding in the dead in there gutt. Unbelievable.
And that's true.
This isn't just about what's happening here on the Great Barrier Reef but if people are educated in this way
they can do something in their local community as well? That's what it's all about we're trying to do our bit up here
but we need help. Right this is a worldwide issue
and everyone can do their bit.
I'm so excited to share this knowledge with John who's back on Tucana once again
tearing the boat apart making it safer.
He's fixing the rope clutches on the cabin top. The cams were all worn out and the lines were slipping. It's a big job but someone has to do it.
We have some wild weather coming our way, might get a little wet in a second.
We just randomly met Lindsay on Middle Percy and i just thought that this was such an incredible
and important message to share with the world and the community.
I deeply feel we met Lindsay for a reason and I'm so grateful for this platform to share their story with you, so if you want
to continue sharing for the sake of all the little Finding Nemos out there, go for it, on your socials
or just even a small comment with your thoughts below. Like were you surprised by what you saw
here today? And if you like this video and you subscribe all those little things will help to
get the word out. Better still you could come out here and get involved. You're not only going to
enjoy the experience and walk away feeling like you've contributed but you'll also meet some
new people and contribute to the Great Barrier Reef.
PS. How are you going with that by the way? Oh i'm glad you asked.