Around Tasmania - In The Traces of the Devil
2006

Team: Jon Bowermaster • Keith Fialcowitz • Alex Nicks • Travis Holmes • Lelia Meffre

The remote and little-known Australian island of Tasmania was the seventh stop of our OCEANS 8 project. Drawn by its mysterious history and wild and rugged shores, it proved to be perfect coastline for us to explore by kayak, stopping along the 600-mile route to visit with fishermen and historians, sailors and folkloric legends.

We began our exploration in the southwest corner of the island, at Port Davey, where the weather arrives directly from Antarctica. Sparsely populated, by a solitary tin mining family and the occasional fishermen seeking cray and sharks, these were the wildest seas we met. Turning the southeast corner at Recherche Bay, we headed north - passing the appropriately named Adventure Bay - towards the capital city of Hobart. We rounded the magnificent Tasman Peninsula before heading up the northeast coastline and out to the Flinders Islands, where few visitors venture, home to mysteries of Tasmania's aboriginal history and literally millions of seabirds.

Whether cray fishing with trawler men, diving for abalone, or paddling long crossings, our month in Tasmania delivered similar revelations we've experienced on the previous OCEANS EIGHT expeditions: Adventure mixed with discovery! Given that it was summer down south, and its latitude - equivalent to southern Patagonia - we often saw four seasons in one day, from waking with a light covering of snow on the ground in the morning to ending the afternoon beached under a warming sun.

Photo Gallery

Tuamotu Slideshow

Our adventure started on the Zrmanja River, which led us to the big city of Zadar and the Adriatic. Certainly the Zrmanja had never hosted big sea kayaks like ours, understandably since it is laden with rapids and one inspiring, 40-foot horseshoe waterfall.

This tall wall on Rasip Island was typical of the islands we passed in Kornati National Park - 89 islands in a 21-by-4-mile rectangle miles off the mainland. During the initial days of our expedition it was exceedingly hot, temperatures topping 100 degrees on flat seas, which insured that a big part of each day was spent looking for even the smallest piece of shade to hide out in.

This church, its foundation built in the 6th century, boasted a motto above its door, written in fading black ink: Kraljice Mora Moli Za Nas (Queen Mother of the Sea, Pray for Us). We slept in the shade of the church, and beneath a pair of olive trees next to it, in the middle of our exploration of Kornati National Park.

It was somewhat ironic that Kornati National Park is made up of barren islands mostly - stripped of trees centuries before, by rapacious sheep farmers and greedy Venetians (needing lots of wood to construct Venice!). Beautiful in their barren-ness, each exposed island is criss-crossed by long stonewalls divvying the rock and thorn scrub into neat geographic parcels. The beauty here is ragged and rough, cultivated but untamed.

We slept on the ground wherever we could during 5 weeks on the Adriatic; most of our camps remote and beautiful, on rocky beaches. But our first camp on the island of Korcula was on the town's dock, where we slept under boats in dry-dock, only slightly concerned they might fall off their sawhorses during the night.

On the far side of Korcula we pulled up in the late afternoon to a naturist beach, which boasted big, flat spots, perfect for resting our boats and our bodies. Note the curious - and very, very naked - couple in the corner watching our put-in.

Far off the coast, on the island of Vis, we paddled past a sunken boat just offshore. Shane Braddock took an upside-down approach to checking it out. Much of the rest of this day we helped locals drag the boat ashore, learning that they had sunk it on purpose, to swell its leaking boards!

Fishing remains a main economy of Croats living along the coastline. But thanks to constant pressure from a hungry international market - as well as a booming tourist industry that demands lots of fish for its visitors - fishing is way off. Over fishing is a big problem and marine biologists along the coast are wrestling with various plans to try and protect the country's fishery, including the establishment of marine reserves where fishing is simply off-limits.

Fish farms are a growing business along the coastline. This, off the island of Brac, grows sea bass and sea bream - both species bread from larvae - and tuna, which are taken as juveniles from the wild. Most of these fish are bought by Japanese processing boats, which send them directly to Japan for sushi.

In this pen are 93 giant tunas - averaging 550 pounds each! - which require lots of herring to fatten them. Each day more than 10 tons of herring, brought from Scandinavia, are shoveled into these pens of fast-swimming tuna.

On the Peljesac Peninsula, near the town of Mali Ston, we met a young Croatian/American - Tony - whose business was growing oysters and mussels in the protected bay.

Our last stop was the beautiful, walled city of Dubrovnik, which I think could be the most beautiful city in all of Europe. From our kayaks, its red tile roofs and winding 80-foot limestone walls give the impression of a mystical fortress rising out of the waters, a Camelot of the sea.

Along our route, at each stop, we met fantastically friendly and interesting people - one of the goals of each of our expeditions! - but my favorite image from the trip was on Vis. As we paddled off the stonewalls of the small town of Komiza a raven-haired woman in a wedding dress hurled herself into the sea. Was this throwaway bride driven mad by the non-stop winds far off the mainland? No, turns out she was a Hungarian performance artist recreating scenes from Shakespeare's 'Ophelia'!.