A HAND-MADE sailing ship involved in marine research is basing itself in Bermagui.
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The Pelican 1 is a 19-metre catamaran that has been running whale watching tours from Bermagui this month as a break from its usual science-focused expeditions.
“It was essentially built as a platform for marine education and research,” company director and captain Garry McKechnie said.
“A large amount of people are involved, united by a desire to make a contribution to understanding the world’s oceans.
“If we don’t treat the oceans better, then we will be in serious trouble.”
The Pelican was built in 2004 after six years construction by Mr McKechnie and his team, and its design is a modern interpretation of Polynesian migratory canoes.
In its first year after construction, Mr McKechnie circumnavigated Australia and it has since travelled as far as the Solomon Islands and Vanuatu.
Many of the research projects the Pelican and its crew contribute to involve cetaceans, and it has collected data on blue and sperm whales as well as Irrawaddy dolphins.
Crew member Pauleen Harris said last April the International Fund for Animal Welfare employed the Pelican to go to a whale hotspot near Kangaroo Island, South Australia, with a group of cetacean experts from the UK.
Whales converge on this location in warmer months, when currents push krill out of Antarctica towards Australia.
Bight Petroleum wanted to conduct seismic testing at the hotspot, and there was a concern the sound blasts created by seismic airguns would drive the whales from their feeding grounds and possibly cause physical injury or death to the cetaceans as they are very sensitive to sound.
The Pelican towed underwater microphones – or hydrophones – to record the sounds of whales and dolphins in the area as well as using visual sightings, and confirmed the area was used by pilot and sperm whales, common and bottlenose dolphins and fur seals.
Ms Harris said they also spotted the rare Shepherd’s beaked whales, in the seventh recorded sighting of the living whales in history, because of which “nothing is known about them”.
Bight Petroleum withdrew their application for seismic testing at the site in February, but intended to submit one again later this year.
Other projects include the annual Two Bays project, which takes school kids onto Port Phillip and Western Port Bays in Victoria along with biologists, where they conduct water quality experiments.
For the next major project, Mr McKechnie said he is trying to arrange an expedition to the Bismarck archipelago north of Papua New Guinea in July next year, to equip natives of the islands with the resources to fight mining companies destroying their habitat.
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