After getting all my stuff together and leaving the hostel for the Gladstone marina, I managed to make it through the ferry ride without barfing. Thank you double dose of Dramamine.
Upon arriving at Heron Island, we were given a brief tour and shown to our accommodations. There is another group here until Friday, from a high school. We only have to share a bathroom with the other group, which is nice. We have 4 rooms with 4 bunk beds in each room, so there is plenty of space for the 13 of us. There is an ocean acidification experiment that has been going on at Heron Island for about 10 years. We saw a couple of the researchers today and they might come to talk to us about their project and results, which sounds fascinating and I'm excited for. I went and talked to Pat, our chef here. I was impressed with his questions and label reading skills. I appreciate his caution and he seems like a great person and cook. So far we've eaten sandwiches, lasagna, salad, and these fantastic coconut muffins. They were REALLY good. After lunch we went to check out our snorkel gear for the rest of the trip. I remember using a two piece wetsuit during my CIMI trip, but I do not remember them being so hard to get out of. I'm slightly worried I may pants myself trying to get my wetsuit off. So there's that. This afternoon we went on our first snorkel on the island. Turns out I'm very bad at swimming in a straight line. We were very close to lots of coral during our snorkel, which was cool, but I was afraid of kicking the coral or getting my fin stuck in one. My favorite thing that we saw was the parrot fish. You can actually hear them eating underwater which is really awesome. Trisha also told me that the crackling sound you hear underwater (when you quiet your Darth Vader breathing) is actually shrimp. My dad and I went snorkeling yesterday at Lady Musgraves, but I was excited that I saw lots of fish I hadn't seen on that island. After our afternoon snorkel we went to watch the sunset on the boat jetty where we came in. We saw manta rays, green sea turtles, and black tip reef sharks in the water. The sun sets really early here, about 5:15pm today. I feel like that really messes with my biological clock and makes it hard for me to stay awake. I guess it really isn't too bad since we are going snorkeling at 6:15am tomorrow. I'm off to go look at the stars. Edd pointed out the Southern Cross to Dad and I last night. With relatively no light pollution and a clear night, there should be lots to see.
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