Originally posted here.
9:08 AEST Not a lot to report today. The better way of sifting sediment that I had hoped for has not materialized, so we spent pretty much all day sorting through sediment samples by hand. Aside from contaminating one of our samples with a dish cloth and discovering a small snail in one of my samples, there's not very much worth writing about. We only have four samples left to sort so we should be done with the time sinky part of the project by tomorrow morning, hopefully giving me some time to run out to the ocean and see what I can see on my own (or with a partner, rather). Only a few days left before the class ends and it's time to return home, so here's hoping I see something interesting! More tomorrow.
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Originally posted here.
10:05 PM AEST We're coming into the home stretch. The focus of the course has turned to our own research projects. I've partnered with Melissa Cobo, working on a study on microplastics (small plastic fragments of less than 5 mm) in ocean sediment. Plastic in the ocean is a major problem because creatures eat it and it gets stuck in their bodies because it doesn't degrade, so we'll be examining whether wave action washes up enough plastic onto the beach to be worth collecting. Aside from that, the day's been pretty slow. A few of us went out to the jetty at sunset, where Edd, one of our instructors, and a student we call Camp slipped into the water. Edd posted me up on the dock to keep an eye on a black-tip reef shark he'd spotted. But I wasn't supposed to warn them away, my task was to guide them to it. Black-tips are not particularly dangerous, and it would make great footage. Unfortunately, the black-tip was swift and agile in the water, while Edd and Camp were... not. We spent half an hour chasing the shark around the bay, with me bellowing directions across to them while the shark slipped past faster than they could react. They never got close, but I did get many pictures of a spectacular sunset, including a picture of a seagull against the sunset which prompted Edd to suggest a photo series entitled "Crap Animals Looking Majestic." We ended the day by watching an episode of Planet Earth. Tomorrow we start working on our project in earnest. This will involve sifting through sediment samples for plastic for 40 minutes per sample. We'll take 20 samples, so we're looking at 13 hours, 20 minutes of staring at sediment... Yeah, I'm hoping we can figure a better way. Originally posted here. Originally posted here.
8:43 PM AEST A slower day today. The main event was another trip to the back reef. We saw more big animals this time: no less than six sea turtles, one of which swam very close by, a manta ray which I missed because I was too far away, and an octopus that I found on a massive coral (a massive coral is a single, large, boulder-like coral) which scooted around the top of its perch, occasionally adjusting its camouflage. It was most likely examining us just as closely as we were examining it. It wasn't a huge octopus, but it was decent sized, with the mantle being the size of a football or so. It was a long swim against the current, and I eventually reached the limits of my (admittedly poor) endurance. I was in no danger of drowning considering I could remain afloat indefinitely just from the buoyancy of my wet suit, but when we reached the boat and started taking off our fins I could feel my legs threatening to cramp up. They never went into a full-on cramp, but I made a point to take it easy for the next few days. We're starting to look toward the end of the course. We had our last lecture today--from here we'll start designing and conducting our own research. The reef around Heron has multiple zones, among them a scientific zone and a research zone where collections are forbidden. I'm considering doing my project on evaluating whether there's an actual difference in coral impact between them. The weather is turning. We may get storms, and we seem to be getting cooler temperatures already. That's it for tonight. The only scheduled event tomorrow is a morning swim. After that, it's all working on developing proposals for our research projects. Originally posted here.
9:14 PM Phew... the trouble with being at a field school is that your days are so full that by the time you have an opportunity to stop and write up your log, you're exhausted! Today we went to the outer part of the reef (known more properly as the back reef). This is an area where the water is deeper, but the reef is still protected from the harsher ocean waves by the reef wall. The depth ranged between 2 and 6 meters, so more diving was required than normal. Call me a wimp, but I didn't do much diving--I can't quite get the hang of equalizing, and if you go farther than about 2 meters your head starts to hurt from the pressure. The back reef is a more complex and diverse environment than the patch reefs in the lagoon where we've been wondering, and has a much more numerous and diverse community of fish. Damselfish, butterfly fish, parrotfish, and even an occasional predator like a grouper. We even encountered a white-tip reef shark resting beneath a coral ledge. Contrary to popular belief, these sharks can pump water past their gills so they don't die if they stop swimming, but they do sink. At the end of the snorkel, we caught sight of a medium-sized green sea turtle and chased it around a bit. I say "chased," but I don't think it was actually fleeing from us. It swam away and kept its distance, but it also looped around and around as if it was curious about us. I was issued a GoPro this time out, so hopefully I'll have some good footage of the turtle to share when I get home. On the way back, we glimpsed some dolphins, but they didn't stick around to show off. We did spot about five medium to large spotted eagle rays coming back into the harbor. Aside from that, the day has been mostly dedicated to catching up on lectures or taking a fish ID exam. It's really hard to learn scientific names just from a list--you only really learn scientific names when you use them--but I did okay. The weather may deteriorate soon, so we're pushing our megafauna dive up to tomorrow. Hopefully some interesting stories to tell then! Originally posted here. Originally posted here.
9:16 AEST Just a short entry tonight because it's late, I'm beat, I get up early tomorrow, and have a quiz later in the day. Today's activities (a snorkel and reef walk) were hosted by CoralWatch, a citizen science group whose purpose is to train normal people how to collect basic data about coral reefs that scientists can use to evaluate reef health. This is useful because there aren't anywhere near enough scientists to study every reef, the downside being that the data quality from relatively untrained civilians often isn't that good. Nevertheless, it gets people interested and involved. Probably the highlight of the day was during the reef walk when our CoralWatch guide plunged his hand into the water and pulled out a small epauletted shark to show to us. Later! Originally posted here.
9:02 PM AEST Another pretty full day. After breakfast, it was straight out to the reef to begin today's lesson in study methods, this time in fish surveys. We began by laying out long transects much like yesterday, but rather than taking core samples, we swam along the transects with GoPros recording video that we could use to count and identify reef fish. This proved to be easier said then done, as the waves were big and choppy. My wetsuit kept me on the surface without any real effort, but the wave action made it difficult to do anything in a straight line, and made it harder to swim out along the transect. Everything not attached to the bottom moves: more than once I stopped to have a conversation and when I finished less than a minute later I discovered that I had been carried twenty or thirty feet from where I was. The waves also made the already shaky GoPro video even shakier. Turns out I'm a pretty weak swimmer. No surprise. Even with fins, I'm extremely slow, mostly because the resistance from the water on my finds causes me ankle pain, so I have to keep my movements small. I'm hoping that it's just because I'm using muscles I don't typically use, and it'll get better as time goes on. We analyzed the video until lunch time, and afterward it was a lecture and then back to the reef for the low tide treatment. The water had dropped from about 7 feet to more like 3, so rather than swim we waded along our transects. It's harder then it sounds: you pick your steps slowly due to the abundance of easily injured coral and sea cucumbers, but the waves knock you off balance, and if you do fall there's usually a sharp rock or patch reef waiting to cut you. Nobody fell, though, and the session went smoothly. After dinner, we attended a talk by CoralWatch, a citizen science group out of the University of Queensland which instructs regular people in how to monitor coral color to evaluate coral bleaching. Coral bleaching is a process where coral respond to stress from increasing water temperature by expelling the photosynthetic algae that live inside them and provide a large portion of their energy. This makes the coral lose its coral and starve. It's a widespread problem due to climate change. I feel bad for the CoralWatch team giving the presentation. We were at the resort, among tourists, and as soon as they finished their intro on what CoralWatch was and how it works, the audience lit into them with questions like "most emissions are coming from the USA and China, why should Australia do anything if they won't?" and other societal structure problems that reef scientists aren't really equipped to handle. Tomorrow we'll be going out with CoralWatch to learn their system. Punctuality is going to be important, so I'd best get to bed. See you tomorrow! Originally posted here.
8:49 PM Apologies for not checking in sooner, we just got connected to the internet this evening. The ride over went reasonably well--I started to get seasick despite the pills I'd taken, but Edd (one of our instructors) put an end to that by leading me to the upper deck of the ferry to stand in the wind and my stomach settled immediately. Strictly speaking, we mere students weren't supposed to be on the upper deck (it's for the wealthy tourists going to the Heron Island resort), but nobody raised a fuss so I stayed there for the remainder of the trip. Much more tolerable. Yesterday was mostly introduction and handing out gear, but at the end I got with a few other students and took a night walk. The night sky here is amazing, and we eavesdropped on a tour guide's presentation on the mythology of the stars. It was interesting, but I found it quite amusing that she needed to explain what "perpendicular" means to a group of rich, old tourists. Nobody asked, it was just part of the presentation, so I gather that a lot of rich old tourists don't know what it means. Wow. Today we actually got in the water. At dawn, snorkeled on the reef to a wrecked boat. It was my first time in the ocean, and everything went smoothly--everybody made it out and back without incident, though I found myself being pushed by wave action toward a stingray and flailed around a little before getting control and moving off. I was probably in no danger, but stingrays make me nervous. There are all sorts of interesting sea creatures here: just on our first dive, we saw a couple dozen stringrays, two turtles, several guitarfish, and even a blacktip shark. The shark sounds alarming, but it has no particular interest in us. Then it was off to lunch, and then back in the water for our first experiment. We collected sediment samples from the bottom of the lagoon--a task made more complicated by the extreme buoyancy of our wetsuits. It's great for staying afloat when there's nothing to grab, but not so great for when you have to drive things into the sand at the bottom of the ocean. I ended up using the downward motion of the wave action to help me drive the core samples down. The rest of the afternoon was spent sifting through the core samples picking out and counting tiny worms and snails, and working with the resulting data. Right as my partner and I finished we got word of a late-season turtle hatching, but we were on the other side of the island and didn't get there in time. There's more to tell, but it's 9 PM now and I'm beat. Blogging is part of our assignment here as Heron, so you'll be hearing from me nightly. Bandwidth is limited, so I'll wait until I get home to post my photos, though I might add a few here or there. Until next time. |