Twas a breezy day, and the morning snorkel session was murky. After hitting the water shortly after 6:15 am, we promptly returned to dry land having seen nearly nothing. But the day was not lost, because we soon got a lecture on marine invertebrates. For lab, we hit the water again, crouching down in the shallows to collect sediment cores in the shifting waves. My partner and I collected the cores wrong the first time, and we walked down to beach to take cores again at better spot.
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The morning began with a snorkeling session. There were turtles, turtles, and more turtles. Lots of turtles. All the green sea turtles. And lots of condrichthyans. There was a hoard of cow head stingrays hanging out beneath the boat dock, and even got to see a guitar fish! A large black tip reef shark swam real close, and the shark had two remoras. Some comb jellies would float past. For me, the highlight of the snorkel was seeing a wobbegong, also called a carpet shark, chilling under a small ledge on the edge of a shipwreck.
After four back-to-back plane rides from Portland, OR to Gladstone, QLD, I stayed last night at a neat hostel with the rest of the Heron crew. We took a ferry this morning to Heron Island, and I feel that this place must be real special to justify traveling to the other side of the globe to get here.
Technology is nice when it works.
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