Okay, so comparatively, today was pretty chill for all of us. The weather wasn’t great, with large billows of wind constantly hitting us in the face. Since there was so much wind, we couldn’t really do much in the water. So when it came time for the morning snorkel I decided to opt out, but still head down to the beach with the group. I waited on a rock for them to come back, which didn’t take long. Apparently visibility was basically zero and Russ even got chest bumped by a turtle (I’m totally jealous even though it probably hurt). That was pretty funny, and we’ve all been bringing it up throughout the day. Breakfast was great as usual, and I had an egg sandwich with a great muffin. I’m not a huge fan of mushrooms, which was the side for the meal, so that’s what I stuck with eating. After that we headed into the lab for our lecture on invertebrates. Originally today was supposed to be spent on our fish lab, but, once again, due to the weather, we rescheduled it to be about invertebrates. The lecture was fascinating, but a bit redundant. I’ve learned about all the phylogenies before in my Biology 2 class at CWI, which was before I started attending USU. We learned about stuff with a fair amount of depth, so I wasn’t really learning much, but it was great for review. After that lesson it was time to get to work. We went out to Shark Bay (in which we saw no sharks despite the name), and started to collect sediment samples to study in the lab. It was hard work since the wind was a nightmare. Edd was teasing us and videoed my partner (Zach for this lab) and I as we butted heads a few times because the water kept pushing us into each other. It was hard to get the samples since you have to plunge it into the earth, get enough of a sample, put the stopper in, then gently pull out the plunger so that you don’t lose anything and turn it over and pour it into a bag. It sounds super easy but it isn’t when there is low visibility and waves buffeting you at every turn. But, we didn’t take too long to do it regardless. I had the magic touch when it came to pushing the plunger in to take the sample so we worked quickly once we found a good reef patch to start with. Once we were changed into our clothes and back in the lab, we were putting those samples under microscopes to look at all the small invertebrates under the microscope. It was amazing! There were small annelids (worms) squirming all over and arthropods (“insects” sort of but not really) skittering all over the petri dishes. We had large enough samples that it took a while to work through. I didn't want to stop for lunch when I was reminded that we hadn't eaten yet. It was a good thing they got me out of the lab to eat too, since we had these awesome sandwiches today (like pulled pork with parmesan on sub sandwich style bread) and some really great banana muffins. Anyways, we were soon back in the lab and finishing up our samples (I so loved doing this, it got my inner microbiologist ramping up since these creatures can be as small as a millimeter long. We had to pick them out with tweezers and pipettes) before creating data spreadsheets and our lab reports. I’ll spare you the details since they would probably bore you unlike me. We were singing while working and making jokes, and honestly it was one of the best labs I have been in. After we were finally done, which was around 4:30 or so, some of the group went to try and snorkel again. I didn’t go with them. I could see enough from the jetty, so I didn't feel too bad about not being in the water. There were so many sting rays out today! And there were these tiny baby sharks that were so freaking cute!!! There even was another turtle! It was super cloudy, which didn’t make for a great sunset, but here are some pictures anyway. After that, we had food again, this time it was this weird beef stew like thing, with some heavenly (and I mean heavenly) garlic potatoes. The dessert was chocolate mousse, which I tried a bit, and didn’t like. So I handed it over to the guys so they could fight over it. But now we're all just chilling around. Tomorrow's going to be busy, so I think that's enough here for today.
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-Okay, so before I start on today’s stuff, I just wanna say that when I went stargazing with some of the others it was so amazing. The night sky was covered with stars. Edd mentioned that what we were seeing was part of the Milky Way. We also caught sight of something that might have been Jupiter while we were out there. We also discovered that Russ has wicked sense of humor too. He doesn’t talk much, but when he does he drops some dang good one liners. The stars out there were overwhelmingly beautiful, and it was almost spiritual in a sense. I definitely recommend doing some serious stargazing here. Now, today started with us getting ready to go out for a morning snorkel around 6:15 am. The morning was nice and cool, and the water felt great when we were in it. And boy did we see just what we were hoping for! There had to have been over a dozen cow headed stingrays out there with us. We even caught sight of a spotted eagle ray too later on. And there were turtles everywhere! I went still enough in the water that one got almost a foot away from me until it swam off. It was amazing! I could see almost all the details on its shell. It was by far one of my favorite parts of the day. Being that close to a turtle is just something else. There were at least three black tipped sharks, a wobbegong shark, one guitar shark, and over a hundred jellyfish. The jellyfish were really small, and we couldn’t figure out what they were at first until Edd and Trish let us know that they were. Some people in our group got stung by them, but luckily I wasn’t. After that we got a nice breakfast of eggs benedict, bacon, toast, and fruit. Vegemite was also on the table and some of the brave souls in our group took a bite of it with toast and made the funniest faces. They all think it’s disgusting. Edd says it’s a “acquired taste”. With breakfast done, it was time for us to learn about reef morphology. We learned a lot about different types of coral, formations of coral, how coral eats, and about the evolutionary history of coral. It was really neat to learn about coral, and Trisha is super passionate about it too, so that made it all the more fun. After a great lunch of chicken nachos and tea time muffins, one of which was snatched out of Brynn’s hand by two cohorting seagulls, we went out and did our first lab for the week. This one was about benthic covering in the lagoon. We were supposed to be snorkeling for it, but the tide was really low today, so we were actually able to act like it was a reef walk, which meant no stuffy wet-suit so that was great! We basically put on swimsuits, rash guards, and some wet shoes and went out and laid down these interesting looking quadrats (plastic pipes and string) to figure out what percentage of our transect line (a straight line going forward into the lagoon toward the reef flat) is filled with coral, sediment, rock, or algae. It was pretty dang awesome. I really loved doing this, and it’s actually a thing that they do a lot in the field. It’s looking more and more like I might actually want to go into field work later in life, so that’s pretty dang exciting for me. Anyways, after we did three transect lines we walked all the way back to the research center and used the data we found to make a spreadsheet to try and figure out how the different distributions of each group was along the reef. We were trying to prove what we learned in lecture about benthic coverage since we talked a lot about what kinds of organisms can live in the shallow areas if they are coral, and how unlikely you are to see a lot of coral close to shore because they become Kentucky Fried Coral (there were so many bad puns shared during this venture). Now I just need to take a moment to do this since I keep on using the word cool, and I almost used it here as well. Let’s see… this trip has been (and we’re only on day two so far!)… Awesome? Check. Grand? Check. Breathtaking? Ooh that’s a good word, definitely a check there. Splendid? Tremendous? Remarkable? (There are actually two rays in this picture, see if you can spot the hidden one) Awe-inspiring? Astounding? Check, check, check, check, and check! Anyways! After our lab reports were done, we all headed to the jetty to watch the sunset again. It was still really amazing, and this time there was clouds which made the whole area have really beautiful lighting. There were a bunch of eagle rays out tonight too, so we could see them all flying together in the water along with a few sharks and a lot of sea turtles (*internal and external squealing with joy*). When we got back for dinner I'm pretty sure most of us had died. You know how I said Pat is amazing? Yeah, I take that back. He is a food deity. Heck, at least four of us have plans to start a mini religion for Pat dedicated to worshiping him and his food. I don't blame them. I might even join them in building a sand statue of the guy. The ocean is probably made of tears of joy for his cooking around here. Let's not forget the fact that Brynn lost her tea time muffin to a couple of seagulls that sneak attacked her to get to the thing. The birds know what is going on, they know Pat's cooking is good.
He made this awesome quinoa vegetable rice and this good chicken dish that reminds me of the god-like version of tikki masala. And you won't believe what he made for desert! Apple. Freaking. Strawberry cake with this creme sauce. We were all crying over the food, I kid you not. It was beautiful. There were these chunks of apples and strawberries in it, and it was the perfect texture with the creme and it made both my mouth and my stomach so happy to eat. Life has been so great here on the island. I'm so glad that I came here to get this experience. Hi everyone, I don't really know how to start this, so let's set this blog off with a bang!
When we got to Heron Island after the ferry, we were all raring to go. Most of us had spent the ride watching the water for any sign of wildlife. We sadly, didn't see any whales, however, there was a sea turtle riding along the ferry for a little while. We got to see a lot of the reef since it was low tide. The crest of the reef near the islands was just peaking out along the waves while we went past it. Edd was sharing some cool coral facts as we passed by it, explaining the natural sunscreen that the coral gives off so that it doesn't become a baked potato in the sun. That would be a pretty miserable existence if you ask me. Heron Island itself is amazing to look at as you're docking at the jetty. By this point all of us were really hyped up to be on the island and exploring it, even if the place smells a lot like bird poop and sea water (frankly, I'm a big fan of the smell of seawater, but it's not as good mixed with bird poop smell if you know what I mean). After a quick tour, we were shown to our rooms. I'm sleeping in a room with four other girls, so things will get interesting, but they're all really chill. There’s a high school here right now at the exact same time as us, so we’ve seen them all day. They’ll be gone by Friday and we’ll have the whole island to ourselves by that point, but they’re also pretty chill, I spotted some of them playing a game of uno in their snorkeling outfits. That was pretty funny to watch. We have a great chef here named Pat, who has the Pat Challenge named after him. For the challenge we are supposed to find and collect as much plastic as possible while on the island and whoever has the most or gets the biggest piece wins a water bottle. I know the prize sounds lame, but I think the challenge will be fun anyways. After lunch we had a little bit of time to kill before we went to our Safety meeting for last minute instructions, so all of us more or less ended up at the touch tank and messing around with the fish. The touch tank is this cool mini pool where they have coral, sea stars, and sea cucumbers all hanging out. There’s even a giant clam and a few crabs in there with a few other fish. I had some help from Nora, and eventually I was able to muster up the courage to touch some of the things in there. It was so cool!!! When we finally met, we were given the structure for tomorrow, and boy, do I think I’m going to be wiped out by dinner. After that, Edd and Trisha stopped for a moment and said there was enough time for a small excursion before would meet for watching the sunset at the jetty and asked us if we wanted to go. We all, of course, said yes. So, after hurriedly putting on all of our gear, we eventually got to the beach where we were going to be snorkeling. I was paired with Edd as a buddy (we follow the buddy system here) since I was very nervous about getting in the water. It was kind of hard to get in initially, since you have to walk backwards because of the flippers, but I eventually got to where I could “gently belly flop” (Edd's words not mine) onto my stomach and just float above the coral there. I'm super clumsy so it was really hard at first, but I got the hang of it. Now let me just tell you all that snorkeling is so cool. I mean was I absolutely terrified of getting in the water? Yes. Was there a possibility (however low) of there being sharks or sting rays in the bay? Yes. But as we got farther and farther from shore, the sights we were able to see got cooler. Sure there were some mishaps, like that small moment were I panicked because my snorkel’s filter is a bit shoddy, but Edd showed me how to fix the problem in the water. But what we saw was amazing!!! There were giant flocks of parrot fish, big schools of different damsel fish, and so, so much coral!!! There were giant clams (though the first one I found of those was dead which was kind of sad) and carpet anenomes. I was even able to find a cinnamon clownfish. Edd was pretty impressed when I pointed it out and even told Trisha that I had found “Nemo, his wife and their little anemone home”. I found another cinnamon clownfish later, but Edd was gone. I actually found a lot of cool things while Edd was busy rounding up the others, including the other giant clam and what I think was a sharp-nose puffer. It was amazing. I didn’t take my camera (since I don’t think it’s necessarily water proof) and I didn’t take a go pro either. I’ll make sure to grab one next time if I can remember. It was so cool, but eventually I started to get a headache, so Edd and I went back to shore (and on the way we ran into this massive parrot fish which could almost pass for a sea bass it was so huge!). When we met up with the others I found out that Kat and her partner (Zach I think his name was? Still learning names) actually saw a turtle while they were out!! Another boy saw two eels while he was out. We were all trading stories when we saw a black-tipped shark go right around where we were just moments before. It was beyond awesome! We had to rush back in time to shower off and head to the jetty to watch the sunset. The sunset here goes down really quickly, but it’s pretty when it does happen. I'll be sure to add some pictures of it later when I have the chance to get them off of my phone. While we were out at the jetty two spotted eagle rays did jumps in the air. Sadly, I didn’t get to see it though since I was always looking the wrong direction! I’m hoping I actually get to see it happen some time. However, it wasn't just the rays that were out. While we were heading back down the dock one of the others spotted this green sea turtle hanging out near the stairs of the jetty, just chilling there. He looked like he was stuck for a while, but eventually he swam off and joined a whole group of them closer to shore. I think there was around five turtles all hanging out there. I got some really cool pictures of them too. There was also this one really fat shark and a manta ray that swam close enough that we were able to watch them below the surface. After that, we headed back for dinner, once again made by Pat. I’m fairly certain there is a wizard in the kitchen, because he made us each personal lasagnas that looked like pies. And they were good too! Don’t get me started on the desert he made!!!! He made these cute little coconut muffins with crème and oranges. I felt like I had died and gone to heaven it was so good. We're heading out to watch the stars tonight since it's a clear sky and no moon, so it's going to be awesome. Write to you all later! |