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

Midterm update

Hello all,

I  interrupt my Easter Break updates with a few updates regarding midterm exams at UQ. I've had 2 so far - both parts of Anatomy, and I have one in Biology left on Tuesday morning. Then, it's just 3 assignments all due on April 30th, and I'm virtually home-free until finals in June!

My first part of anatomy was an oral presentation that went swimmingly. I didn't prepare except for the night before, relied on my PLA skills and rocked it. I was told that I was one of the only students to present the material as if I was actually teaching it, not memorizing a script beforehand like all the others. Turns out, 10 minutes of prep the night before landed me a 14/15......beauty!

The second part of the anatomy was a theory exam in class last Friday - not as easy as the presentation. I only studied for a couple hours (unlike my normal study habits!) and it will probably show in the results. Out of 30 MC questions, I knew about 18 solidly, had to guess on quite a few and the rest were just bizarre. One of the weird things out here was that if you didn't know the answer (and you had choices A to E) you could fill in the last bubble, which was a "?", for 0.2 marks. It was like they didn't want you to guess if you didn't know the answer. The exam then became this strategic game of, "do I take a chance and go for the full 1.0 mark, or cop out and take a guaranteed 0.2??" Never seen anything like that before, and it kind of threw me off. I ended up putting two of those question marks down for 2 of the muscle questions. I hate origin and insertions!

I think the biology one on Tuesday will be a little less intense, which is nice, but I have yet to get my head in gear and really study. That's what I'm off to do now, so I'll wrap this up by saying that the last blog entry will be coming soon, as well as as update on my experience with my first live rugby game ever!

Miss you all!
xoxo Danielle

Heron Island Day 4

Day 4

Day 4 started off with probably the most epic beginning out of the whole trip. Again, the three Queen's ladies decided to get up for another early morning snorkel, but this time our destination was Shark Alley to catch some sharks in action. We headed down to that portion of the island, and quickly realized that although the tide was in, it was rapidly moving outwards which made it much more dangerous for us as snorkelers. Before heading into the alley from the end of it (and we decided to swim towards the mouth, since that was the direction the current was heading in), we had a quick debrief about how we were going to approach this. We decided to snorkel single file, along the wall closest to the ocean, leaving a wide berth for the sharks on our left-hand side. What we didn't anticipate was the strength of the water going out to sea, bashing us up against the rocks on our right! It didn't really matter though, as we felt safer against the rocks than being bashed up against the sharks!!

                       One of the sharks at the alley - again, not one of my photos.....

We entered the water and started swimming, but didn't see anything right away. I was the chosen "leader", and in first position....let me tell you, it is scary as when you see an entire pool of large fish swimming MADLY towards you - and away from something behind it! It wasn't long before this happened and sharks were close behind. I literally was about 2 feet from 8 reef sharks at one point. It was crazy as. I think I've explained how this works, but basically, the sharks circle at the mouth of the alley, then one by one swim down the center to break apart the pools of fish and disorientate them. They then swim back up one of the sides of the rocks and repeat the process. While in the alley, we were flanked by a couple sharks, but it was at the mouth that things really began to heat up. Here, there were 6 sharks in a circle, and the tides changed a bit at the mouth, which meant unless we put a lot of effort into swimming against the current, we would end up in the center of the shark circle. This isn't a bit thing necessarily, as long as you get out quickly, since the longer time you spend disrupting the process, the madder the sharks get. We swam up the alley and back, then decided to continue down the coast towards Ray Bay, since we didn't want to end up as brekkie for the reef sharks!

Ray Bay was another spectacular site - multiple schools of sting rays would rise up from the floor as we swam past, and put on this amazing display of gliding through the water. In all, we probably saw about 40 different rays in about 3 schools. After snorkeling the equivalent of half the island, we got out on the beach and walked back to the research site for breakfast.

Today's activities basically were presentation preparation, with another organized boat snorkel in between data analysis and collection. Luckily, our group had basically finished the presentation, so we were able to spend more time out snorkeling on our own than multiple other groups. The destination for the boat snorkel today was the Canyons - an area of reef off the island where the reef beds have deteriorated in certain places and the current has carved canyons into them. Here, I saw the most spectacular display of coral reef fish yet. All beautiful colors, patterns.....it was insane. I was able to capture a few photos on my camera, but it really doesn't do them justice.

Apart from a day of snorkeling, preparation, eating and relaxing on the beach (another sunny day meant my burn only got worse, despite 60SPF), we had nothing pressing to do. The evening was devoted to presentations, as well as a competition beteween the presentations. Unlike the last trip, we all knew about the competition, so the presentations were much more intricate than last time. We didn't think we did all that well on our own, but ended up coming in second place by only a fraction of a margin. Damn. It would have been cool to place first both times.....

After the presentations ended, we all decided to drink some beverages out on the jetty, under the stars. It was our final night, with nothing to do the next day except pack up, so it was a late night out laughing and sharing stories amongst new friends. After finishing some wine with a few mates, I just laid on my back and watched the stars, before heading in for a sleep. I was one of the first ones in around 1am, but I had made up my mind that I was not going to pass up a last opportunity to snorkel again once more in the early morning. Luckily, Alexa wanted to go again, so she headed back to our dorms with me.

All in all - Day 4 started with a bang, ended with a bang and was one of the best days on the island!

Heron Island Day 3

Day 3

Today, Alexa and I woke up at 5am to watch the sunrise and go for our first morning snorkel. We chose the harbour as our destination, and man was it ever spectacular! The undisturbed dawn waters had huge sea turtles, multiple rays and our first encounter with the reef sharks. We saw 3 black tips - 8 foot beasts that swim up close to you to test if you are edible, but once they detect the size of you (about 7ft with our fins on) they turn away. Freaky at first, but eventually it is a really cool experience! We snorkeled for a good hour, before heading into the showers to clean up for breakfast at 7am.

After breakfast, we spent the entire day in and out of the water, snorkeling to collect data for our group project. You couldn't really call it work even - we had more fun with the snorkeling between our collection sites, and even when we were "on duty" observing, watching the fish come and go from the coral was entertainment enough. In all, we had to collect data 4 times throughout the day, so in between snorkel visits, we lounged on the beach, ate some food and did a couple bits of data analysis to make our final project layout a bit less work later on. It was this day, in combination with day 4, that I burnt my back really badly from being in and out of the water. I'll wait until the next entry to upload that beautiful picture....a week later and I'm still peeling/itching!

After dinner, our next organized activity was the night snorkel. We gathered at the harbour around 7pm, donned glowsticks on our snorkels, and wrist torches, then entered the pitch-black waters. It was seriously scary. The high intensity snorkel lasted only 30 minutes, but you couldn't see more than 5 feet in front of you at any point, making the trip seem much, much longer. Luckily, nothing super scary popped out of the shadows like sharks, but we did see some octopus, multiple sea turtles and one ground shark - the wobbygong shark. It basically rests along the sea floor, camouflaged with the environment. It was sleeping, so that made it a little less scary for us all....

We headed to bed shortly after this, since Alexa, Andrea and I all decided we wanted to get up early again to try and attempt a snorkel around shark alley. We all had caught shark fever, and desperately wanted to see them in their feeding zone. Our tutor told us dawn was the peak feeding time, so we should expect to see more than 3....possibly up to 10!! Needless to say, we were quite excited about the prospect of the next morning's adventures!

The photos I've attached to this post are a couple of us collecting data, the sites and buoys we used as well as a couple of those sea turtles....my underwater camera was an epic fail - I picked up the film today and out of 27 photos, only 10 were exposed enough to see. Damn. At least I can get a couple photos offline from others who posted theirs!!

Heron Island Day 2

Day 2

Began at 7am with a nice buffet breakfast to keep us going for the morning. Today was oriented around another "relaxation" day before we started our data collection and scientific projects the next couple days. Our first big thing this morning was an organized boat snorkel to the Blue Lagoon. Basically, we took these huge yellow boats out onto the reef, about a 10 minute drive from the shore. On the way out to our destination, we were fortunate enough to see a pod of dolphins! I didn't really get a good look, since they were quite scared and swam away from the boat, but I was able to catch a glimpse of their dorsal fins sticking out of the waves.

The Blue Lagoon was amazing. Basically, we jumped off the boats, swam around this shallower area and saw heaps of coral fish, rays, and a couple sea turtles. We also swam out to one location that typically has a couple sharks hanging out, but they weren't there for us to see. I think the coolest part was this one ray that I didn't see until he was right under me.....I basically stopped kicking my fins and just floated with the current as he moved under me and continued on his way. The underwater camera that I bought before the trip definitely got some use this trip, and I have the film getting developed as I type. I should have the CD in a couple days to post some photos, and hopefully they turn out ok!

                        On the walk around the island...see the wreck in the background?

After our snorkel, we had some lunch, then some time to relax on the beach before a quick debrief on our projects and the next step in the data process. We were each sent out in our teams to walk around the island for an hour to try and determine key aspects to its formation, like wind direction, sand-grain size and any changes we saw along the beaches. Our group had loads of fun coming up with stories about how the island formed....mainly things involving volcanic eruptions and cyclone deposits. It was on this trip that we localized some cool lookout points for future swims and walks.

After our walk, the tutors led us out on yet another guided snorkel, but this time it was around the island. We were able to see the island from the water point of view, as well as see the different areas around. We got in at the harbour, swam north to Shark Alley - this area where a 2m by 10-ishm area is flanked by rock walls on either side. This area is prime area for catching fish in the tides, and therefore all the sharks go stir-crazy feeding here. We were told that the sharks circle the opening of the alley, then swim down the center and up the sides to split up the pools of fish, disorienting them. The sharks in question are 8-ft reef sharks and lemon sharks - harmless to humans unless you provoke them or they are REALLY hungry. When we visited, the tide was too low to see any sharks, but I vowed to return in hopes of seeing just one before the trip ended.

Next up around the island was an area called Ray Bay, where as the name implies, you see a whole ton of different species of rays. From eagle rays, to sting rays, whiptail rays, shovel nose rays and manta rays....this bay had them all. Here, we were given a chat about how to swim with the rays - not over them as they can whip us with their tails, but to either side, giving them a wide berth to move if they feel threatened.

We continued around the island to the soft coral beds, the shipwreck and then back to the harbour and jetty. It was getting late and about suppertime, so we hopped out, showered up and hit the dining hall for some much required food. You would think that being fed 5 meals a day would equal massive weight gain, but with all the snorkeling.....we really needed the energy!

After dinner was our last meeting to create smaller teams from our 10-man team - I was put into a group with that same US guy from before....Mr. Know-it-all. He was better this trip, but I was still anticipating some issues with work habits and efforts on his behalf. We were also assigned topics to research, and we ended up with coral health and climate change. Our group then went into brainstorm mode - thinking of possible studies we could desgin and perform in 2 days time. We came up with the idea of testing fish diversity around healthy versus unhealthy corals - which meant that our "data collection methods" involved us snorkeling all day for the next 2 days. Brilliant.

                       Me, back at the research station holding a sea cucumber....

Before an early bedtime, since Alexa, Andrea and I decided to wake up the next morning to do an early morning snorkel, we sat out on the beach under the stars. They were so pretty - so clear and pristine....and I saw so many constellations, the milky way and a couple shooting stars. Made a few wishes, pinched myself to make sure I wasn't dreaming, and then hit the sack for a good sleep before our 5am alarm.

Fraser Island - Day 5, and Heron Island - Day 1

Day 5

Our last day on Fraser Island was bittersweet. We had stayed up pretty late the night before, drinking and trying to finish all the assignments due in our workbook (damn that dune transect! It seriously took ages!) and the hand-in time was 9am sharp. However, since it was our last day and after 9am nothing more was due.....we had the entire morning and afternoon to relax by yet another lake on the island.

This lake was probably the most beautiful lake of the entire trip. It's called Lake Wabby, and again, it's situated amongst some of the most incredible sand dunes. We drove to the base of the dunes, hiked up them and then spent a couple hours swimming in the freshwater lake. It's at this point that I should introduce the "bogans." Basically, bogans are a slang term for hicks - out here in Australia, there are different types of bogans, all easily identified by specific characteristics. Example: the Coastal Bogan usually has a tattoo of the Southern Cross somewhere on the back, arm, chest etc. The Inland Bogan is depicted with a large, black cowboy hat and a suped-up truck. Anyways, at the lake, there were a couple bogans present who were having the time of their lives checking out the girls in our group. So, one of our tutors, Scott (the one who told us all about classification of bogans) asked them if they were "having a nice perv." They got mad, left, and unbeknownst to us, unlocked our hub caps on the cars so we couldn't engage in 4WD. This meant that on the way to the ferry to get home, 2 of our 5 cars got stuck in the wet sand! We had to push them out, which was an adventure in itself. I've got a video which I will have to show you all at some point of how life is in the back of one of these vehicles. SUPER bumpy and quite the Indiana Jones-esque trip!

The ferry ride back to the city was pretty uneventful. The only surprise was finding out on the other end that we weren't taking a bus back to Brisbane, but the 4WDs. So 6 of us piled into the back of Claire's car, and made hilarious 30-minute movies on people's cameras....mainly us singing oldies, rap music and pretending to be bogans. It was excellent.


We arrived into Brisbane about 7:30pm, giving me just under 3 hours turnaround time before I had to head back on a bus to drive up the coast to Gladstone for the Heron Island trip. I quickly caught a cab home, changed out the dirty clothes, left them in a pile on my bed, grabbed dinner and headed back to the uni to get on another coach bus for an overnight drive. Whoopee!

Heron Island Day 1

The overnight bus to Gladstone was a disaster. I couldn't sleep at all, despite popping 2 gravol, and the seats were super uncomfortable. We made it into Gladstone, the nearest city to the ferry, around 6am and stopped at MacDonald's for brekkie. We then had a 4 hour wait before the ferry departed, so luckily, we were able to crash on the grass next to the ferry terminal and sleep for a couple hours. It's sad to say the grass was more comfortable than the bus seats!

The ferry ride over to Heron Island is the worst thing I have ever endured. It's a 2 hour, bumpy ride across a rough channel....I'm pretty good at sea, but this trip - I got really sea sick and my breakfast did not make it over to the island. It only made it about halfway before ending up overboard to feed the fish. Disgusting. I wasn't the only one - about 10 in our group did the same thing.

Upon arrival though, depsite feeling sick and tired, seeing the island made me quite happy. It's this little island in the middle of nowhere. The water is incredibly blue and clear, the wildlife is amazing and there is nothing on the island except a small resort and the research station. There is no electricity, power or water supplied to the island, so they have to recycle their own sea water and use generators for all things electric. Food is delivered once a week via barge....it truly felt like a completely different world from the mainland! I was so stoaked to get marks for spending the next 5 days on this island, snorkeling around and relaxing on beaches.....

After a huge buffet lunch, which was only an indication of more amazing catered meals to come, we had a quick debreif on safety rules etc then headed down to the shed to pick up our snorkel gear for the next 5 days. We were given colorful fins, a wettie, as well as goggles and snorkel. After sorting out our gear, we donned it all and hopped into the harbour for our first snorkel of the trip.

Nothing really exciting was seen on the trip, except for a couple sea turtles in and around the shipwreck that we swam to. It was here that I had a true "my god I'm in Australia moment," thinking about how cool it was to have seas turtles swimming beneath me and a shipwreck to my left. I felt like I was in a live version of Finding Nemo!

Our snorkel was a short one since the sun was setting, so we packed it in around 6pm, had some dinner and then headed to bed for a nice long sleep. I had been camping on the ground the past couple nights, so the bunk beds looked super inviting. I think I fell asleep in record time, and slept solidly until the next morning when the bell rang for breakfast!

Fraser Island - Day 3 and 4

Alrighty,

Day 3 began bright and early with a Bird watch along the shore. Alexa, Kelsey and I decided to choose this day over others since the shore bird watch involved more riding in the 4WDs....meaning less walking for us early in the morning! For not being a huge bird fan, this excursion wasn't partucularly the most interesting, but it certainly was enjoyable! We got to watch the sun rise, saw some neat birds as well as some more of those cute dingoes! I would have to say my favourite bird was the White-Bellied Sea Eagle - a majestic bird that "rules" the island according to Steve.

After birding, we had another fantastic breakfast followed by the next step in data collection. This time, we hiked 3km to the Eucalyptus forest near our campsite to assess tree height, diversity, leaf morphology, insect diversity and other things. Our group really wanted to study the insects, since we thought that plants were a little boring and tedious, but we we assigned plant diversity. That meant more transects, quadrats, measuring tree girth and height and trudging through more shrubbery. It wouldn't have been so bad but right before we started, our professor stumbled upon a brown snake in the brush, and promptly told us these creatures are lurking around so watch out. It didn't help our mentality when we were walking through the leaf litter on the forest floor!
 

After about 3 hours of data collection, in on and off rain, we headed back to the camp for some lunch before a 7km walk to another lake on the island. No one had told us this lake was going to be 7km away, but we stopped at a couple sites along the way which broke it up a bit. The best stop was at the dunes - huge sand dunes that have drifted into this valley. We stopped here for quite a bit, took some awesome photos of us leaping off this one portion of the dune into softer sand below (you will have to wait for photos - the professional photographer took them and has yet to upload them online for us to access). At the end was the weirdest lake I have ever seen. It's called Lake Boomanjin, and it is a tea-tree oil lake. The water color is this iodine-color and makes you look like you have jaundice when you swim in it. It did wonders for all our skin though, and after swimming in it, we all felt like we had just come from a spa!

This evening was an evening devoted solely to data analysis since we only had a couple more nights to finish up the workbooks and assignments due upon departure. We stayed up until 11:30pm, sorting through leaf litter and organizing dead leaves into their respective species....NOT fun. I've included some photos we took to show you our mood as the night progressed......

Day 4

Today was a sleep-in day since the night previous wore us out completely. Our morning activity was comprised of yet more data collection and observation - except this time we headed out to the rainforest instead of the Eucalyptus forest. Our group was stuck with more tree diversity - this time assessing canopy coverage, seedling coverage and leaf biomass. It wasn't as bad as the day before, since we knew what to expect, but this time we all were worried about leeches in addition to snakes. A couple kids on the trip ended up being sucked dry by leeches - which was the most gross thing I have ever seen. These Aussie leeches are massive and disgusting. Thank god I chose to wear pants!!!

                              Assessing the canopy coverage....

This afternoon, we drove to another lake to relax and enjoy the scenery. Here, we took some neat underwater shots with Kelsey's camera, and I played my first cricket match with the tutors and Steve while the other students slept on the beach. Unlike footy, I am not a natural at cricket and really sucked. The only thing I could do was wicket-watch or something....the position equivalent to the backcatcher in baseball. It was brutal. I'm not even going to go into my batting skills!

This evening was a brainstorm session to think about ideas for our projects and major write-up. All the data we collected is going to be complied and posted online for us to pick and choose what we want to use and how to incorporate it into the report. I've decided to compare plant density and diversity between the two types of forests.....I've started my initial research today, but with all the photo and blog updates, as well as some anatomy preparation, I haven't gotten very far. I'll let you know how I fare the next couple weeks before the due date in early May!