I ran a fleet of tourist
boats on the Oz
Great Barrier Reef. One of our cruises was a very dangerous outer reef
cruise with
coral viewing snorkeling & walking on the drying reef occasionally when the tide permitted.
We used a couple of high speed cats with capacity of 200 & 265 tourists respectively. It was dangerous as tourists would simply dive into snorkel, not realising the tidal
current could be up to 5 knots at high spring tides.
We had a 60Ft
coral viewing vessel shaped as a submarine built, & a couple of speed
boats to retrieve tourists being swept away. I installed a 90 by 50Ft pontoon to act as a lifesaver facility, & that is when the bird problem started. Gannets are quite large birds, & some soon discovered this lovely dry perch 30 miles out to sea from any other perch, & told all their mates.
They didn't like the Sub much but loved the pontoon. They could cover it in an inch of droppings in a
single night. We had a 2" fire
pump & hose on the Sub, & it took 40 minutes with this to clean the pontoon before it smelt sweet enough to take tourists to it. I had to fly a
skipper out by sea plane before each trip. Expensive.
I installed living quarters on the pontoon, & went through a series of skippers with or without companions who spent 5 nights a week out there. None lasted long until I found a couple of naturalists who only dresses for tourist time.
I gather the pontoon became a mecca for outer reef professional fishermen who evidentially rafted up over might there in considerable numbers. I was finally happy, with a clean facility. They could do what ever they liked with the 21 hours between tourist arrivals.
Anyone who has a bird problem should smell that facility when in heavy
weather we had deserted the thing to the gannets for a week or more.