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Cyclone Yasi hasn’t just wrought havoc on land in northern Queensland.

The destructive winds of the category five system have destroyed coral and marine life in the Great Barrier Reef and disturbed fish stocks.

The Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority is assessing the state of the reef, but reef line fishermen along the Queensland coast are already feeling the impact. They say the fish have vanished.

Nicky Redl reports from the Queensland town of Bowen.

NICKY REDL: The Bowen Marina between Mackay and Townsville is full of fishing boats. Nobody is heading to sea. The only work to be done is maintenance.

Reef line fishermen catch fish like coral trout by hand, and sell them alive to local and overseas markets. But since the cyclone, their usual catch is nowhere to be found.

On his last trip, Wayne Teakel didn’t even catch enough to cover fuel costs.

WAYNE TEAKEL: Our boat was one of the first boats to head out after the cyclone, and we’ve done two-and-a-half days for one coral trout, and 20 red throat emperor, and three stripies, which, we used 700 liters of diesel, outboard fuel, ice, bait, so you can tell we are definitely going backwards fast.

NICKY REDL: Further south has been less affected, but not everyone can travel the distance.

JAMIE LAIRD: This boat is too small to relocate. We haven’t got the fuel capacity to run out of Mackay some of the bigger boats. And the majority of the reef is damaged, basically from Cairns to Mackay, so we can’t really go anywhere.

All my savings, life savings, went into this boat so I could become a fisherman, and basically, the cyclone has taken it all away from us.

NICKY REDL: The state government has acknowledged fishermen have been affected, but says they don’t qualify for extra assistance. That means that fishermen like Jamie Laird can’t apply for loans or grants like banana or cane growers hit by cyclone Yasi, because fishermen aren’t classified as primary producers.

He says the wage subsidies they get from Centrelink are not enough to live on.

JAMIE LAIRD: You know, we are husband and wife with three children. They have offered us 400 dollars a fortnight to survive on. Like that, that wouldn’t pay your grocery bill.

I was the main money earner. My wife was at home looking after the kids. Now it’s had to change around, she’s had to go back to work, and I’m actually daddy daycare at the moment.

There is just no money coming in at all for anyone.

NICKY REDL: Seafood wholesaler Brett Bauer already had to close his business, because there is nothing to sell.

BRETT BOWER: We only sell local product, we don’t sell any imported stuff or anything, so with no catches with the boats, we’ve had nothing to do, I’ve had to lay off just about all my staff bar two people.

NICKY REDL: Some are lucky enough to have boats big enough to relocate further south, but that means a huge hike in fuel costs.

Boat owner Tanya Giles.

TANYA GILES: You know, we’ve got further distances to get to the reef, as well as the fact that we had to get down there in the first place.

You know, we’re lucky enough to have been quite welcomed by the Mackay community and the Mackay harbor, but it just means that the traveling distances for us compared to what we are used to are phenomenal. So our fuel bill has doubled.

NICKY REDL: And with all the extra boats heading south, the industry is worried that it’s only a matter of time until that area is overfished, while those who can’t relocate are left to wonder why they are being treated differently than other producers. Nicky Redl, ABC Rural, Bowen.

Backstory: I was working as an ABC Rural Reporter in Queensland when cyclone Yasi hit, and we only had audio recorders, not video cameras. I used my small automatic Canon camera with video function on a tripod for the footage, and recorded the audio separately on a Marantz recorder, later syncing audio and video in Premiere. I hadn’t been trained in Premier either at that point, so it was a long night in the studio. It was worth it, though, as the footage and audio were ultimately broadcast on state-wide and national radio and TV, and the plight of fishermen in the region received more widespread attention. The government subsequently offered fishermen the financial assistance it had previously denied them on the grounds that they were not primary producers.

Video broadcast on ABC national television channel News 24, and audio on ABC Radio National.

Online news story on the ABC website: https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2011-03-02/one-month-on—still-no-catch/6189192

Audio version on ABC Rural: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2011-03-02/reef-line-fishermen-along-the-qld-coast-say-reef/6189204

After Cyclone Ului felled an 80-foot tree onto his remote Eungella home, 72-year-old Guy Fletchere-Davies describes riding out the storm and its aftermath without access to power and running water.

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How would you feel if a tree crashed into your house, leaving you trapped in there with no power, no running water, or even a mobile phone for a week? That’s exactly what happened to Guy Fletchere-Davies during cyclone Ului in Queensland’s north.

Nicky Redl trekked out to his remote property in the Eungella forest west of Mackay, armed with a recorder – and a loaf of bread.

(Sound of footsteps)

NICKY REDL: I’m just making my way over big puddles, fallen tree trunks, and all sorts of half-chopped-up branches.

Obviously, the SES has already been at work here, because you can see a lot of work half done, branches have been chopped, but they haven’t been removed yet. So they are all over the road, and it’s quite obvious why nobody would be able to get through here.

The creek right next to the road is very full, and it’s flowing quite fast. No, nobody could get out of here. There is just a really big tree trunk right across the pathway here. And, there is a house. Beautiful. I think I have nearly arrived.

Hello! Guy!

(Sound of dog barking)

GUY FLETCHERE-DAVIES: Ho, Jay!

NICKY REDL: How are you going?

(Barking)

GUY FLETCHERE-DAVIES: Lovely. I didn’t think you’d make it.

NICKY REDL: (laughs) I didn’t think I would make it either.

(Barking)

GUY FLETCHERE-DAVIES: Hey, Jay. He won’t hurt you, by the way. He’s only a little puppy.

NICKY REDL: I brought some bread.

GUY FLETCHERE-DAVIES: Thank you very much for that.

NICKY REDL: Oh gee, so that’s the tree that has nearly come into your house.

GUY FLETCHERE-DAVIES: Well, that’s the one that is towering over the top of the house. And as it comes down, it’s starting to bury the roof, as it sinks more into the roof. So they reckon there is somewhere between 8 and 10 tons over us, which is hanging out the other side of the house.

NICKY REDL: That’s reassuring, isn’t it.

GUY FLETCHERE-DAVIES: Very (laughs).

(cluttering of cups)

Okay. One sugar, one tea bag. Hot water coming up.

NICKY REDL: So you are here with no running water, you are still kind enough to offer me a cup of tea, when did the electricity run out and when did you stop having running water?

GUY FLETCHERE-DAVIES: The electricity went down at eleven o’clock Saturday night, and the cyclone hit us just after one o’clock. The dog had disappeared with all the noise, frightened to death, came back and jumped into bed with me about ten minutes later, covered in leeches, would you believe.

We bled together through the night, listening to the thumping and banging of trees crashing around us  – there are over 50 trees on the driveway down.

Plus, this 80-foot giant leaning on my house, not to mention the fig tree, which is over 100 foot high and God knows how many tons it weighs, but it was actually a living garden. It’s full of bird nest fern, orchids; it’s now in three pieces on the ground, blocking the highway.

As you stand by it, it comes up virtually to shoulder height. And it’s sat there, and we are trapped behind it. I can’t get out.

The tree has come through the pump house,  it’s drained a 10,000-liter tank that’s on top of the hill there. So all the water is gone. Electricity only came back on yesterday, good old Ergo. Telstra was the day before.

NICKY REDL: You’ve also lost quite a few lovely trees around here that you planted?

GUY FLETCHERE-DAVIES: Oh, this place was just something else. And everybody who comes over, we’ve had the bird watching people up here … because this is the area for the Eungella honey eater. It only lives within 35 square kilometers in the world.

And I’ve had people up here from Sydney, and they’ve actually sat out there on the patio. I made them a cup of tea and toasted raisin bread. And they sat there, and they come through at 8 o’clock in the morning and about 4 o’clock at night, they were almost able to reach out and touch him, because the birds aren’t frightened here, you know, they don’t see anybody.

So yes, it’s shattering, actually. And all my rhododendrons are drowning up there with wet feet. I’m sort of living from day to day at the moment, and I don’t want to think about next week, because I don’t think I can handle it, you know.

I’m 72 now, for goodness sake. I’ve worked hard here for six years, and it was really starting to show.

And look, it might get back there. The Tropics are extraordinary; things grow very quickly here. But you’ve seen some of the holes it has knocked in the forest.

When you go back to the gate, if you can look back here, where the top of the forest continues up the hill, it’s like a giant has just reached out and grabbed a 30-meter circular section of the forest, here and there up the hillside, and just ripped the tops of the trees out.

They don’t twist, they just snap off. And you’ve got this 15- to 20-foot stump there, and the top of the tree is gone, dumped somewhere else.

MICHAEL MACKENZIE: That’s Guy Fletchere-Davies speaking to Nicky Redl inside his house in the Eungella forest west of Mackay after cyclone Ului just did the most extraordinary amount of damage not only to his premises but the forest around him.

And since that interview, Guy’s driveway has been cleared, and a local tree lopper has finally agreed to get that tree off his house.

What an amazing story of survival, and the dog and him in bed with leeches? They bled together. That was beautiful, wasn’t it?

Broadcast on ABC Radio National’s Bush Telegraph on March 31, 2010.

Online version on the ABC website: https://www.abc.net.au/news/rural/2010-04-01/surviving-a-cyclone/6205668

Online audio on ABC website: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2010-04-01/surviving-a-cyclone-in-the-eungella-forest/6205686