Heron Island Day 5

Day 5

Well, I guess I should actually mention something I forgot about Day 4 - that evening, before the presentations, we caught the sunset on the Jetty and it was beautiful. I've never experienced something so surreal as the sun disappearing in front of my eyes....I mean, I've seen sunsets before, but never over the ocean. It quite literally is there one second and gone the next - if you blink you would miss it as it all happens in an instant! I took some really trippy photos with the sun setting, as well as some classic ones that make me think of movie endings or something.

Day 5 began with another early morning snorkel - and our last one! Alexa and I decided this time to head to the harbour, as news of our success at Shark Alley had gotten around and many people were headed there. As our luck would have it, we found out later that there was no action in the Alley this morning, so we caught the best of the scenery down under the Jetty.

This morning's snorkel was another surreal moment. The water was quite murky since it was an overcast day and without the sun's rays, it was hard to see anything far away. As we swam around the turbid waters, we literally came upon a pod of over 60 rays, quite shallow in the harbour. We tried our best to go one direction, but ended up face-to-face with more rays, and so couldn't actually move for over 10 minutes! Alexa and I basically just floated above all the sleeping rays until they awoke, swam away and let us have a path through them all! I tried to take photos with my camera, but they came out under-developed. Boo. Alexa and I spent the next 30 minutes trailing these rays and watching in amazement at their gliding under the water.

We then decided to swim out to the shipwreck and take a look for anything cool near there. Nothing much was seen except one reef shark, and a couple turtles. I actually had one turtle that was trying to swim away from Alexa and ended up coming right up beneath my stomach! I was able to reach out and touch his shell before he scooted off, scared. Another really cool thing (which I have heard about but never thought I would get to experience) was a little fish that would not leave my goggles alone. He would swim in front of me, basically on my goggles and no matter how or where I turned my head, he followed. It was quite amusing for some time, then I got slightly annoyed since I couldn't see anything clearly with this little flashy guy in my face 24/7!!

After our morning snorkel - and we took some great photos of us in the water, we got out and enjoyed the last breakfast buffet on the island. The rest of the morning was spent packing, cleaning our dorms and returning the snorkeling gear to the sheds. Of course, our dorm was naturally quite quick at this, so we had finished up long before the others. Instead of spending time outside, since it was rainy and glum, all the girls in our rooms went back up and slept on the bare beds. I was so exhausted - I think all the snorkeling activities, both field trips etc had finally caught up with me and I crashed for a good couple hours before lunch and the ferry ride back to the mainland.

No one got sick on the ride home - the ferry was the smoothest it's been in years according to our professor. In fact, I felt more sick on the bus ride home than I did the ferry.....After another long ride on the bus (over 8 hours!!) we made it back into Brisbane around midnight, and I caught a taxi ride to my house, literally walked in the front door, took off my shoes and fell alseep on top of the bed with dirty clothes on and all. You can imagine the laundry I had to do the next morning - over 10 days of dirty, field trip clothes. It took me 4 loads to finish it all!

At the end of the day, I had a fantastic Easter Break - one I will probably never forget. From dingoes, to sharks, beaches to coral reefs....I had so much fun, made tons of new mates and memories to last me a lifetime. Sounds corny and cliched - I know - but it's true. I'm actually sad that I don't have more trips planned, which is why I think the group of us are toying with the idea of a Fiji excursion in the next month....

Anyways, I will leave you with some random other photos from the trip, the dives and everything in between. Thanks for being patient while I took the past week to write these up between study sessions!!!

Miss you all,

xoxo Danielle