The Milky Way

June 9,2010

Location: Heron Island

Today was filled with some highs and lows. I woke up this morning and the cold I have been ignoring for the past couple of days let its presence known. I had a headache, running nose, throat so sore I couldn’t talk and maybe even a little fever. I felt misirble…and there was no way I could spend the day sleeping it off. High tide was early this morning (about 7, not too early). My partner and I decided to go out after breakfast. We wanted the tide to be not too high but high enough we didn’t get stranded on coral. We headed out and miserable thing number two happened…my camera broke. I think. It just randomly decided to not register my memory card any more. Super upset. Now I can only take 10 pictures at a time. So if I wasn’t already in a bad enough mood I realize we are surrounded by a million little jellies. Freaked out I stood up hit some coral scraped up my foot. Grr not my day. I later learn that the jellies were non stinging jellies (well actually one species mixed in the heaps is a stinging jelly but I’ll talk about that later). Angry, sad, miserable I go into shore with less then an acceptable amount of data collected. I had all afternoon to recuperate do some research and figure out what was wrong with my camera. At 2 we got to go out to the coral edge to do some deep snorkeling. I was really excited but again kind of upset I couldn’t bring along my camera. I didn’t want my seemingly horrible day ruin the experience. The trip ended up being amazing. I saw so many cool fish. It kind of felt like a dream come true, swimming through schools and being completely surrounded by tropical fish with bright radiant colors. The parrat fish crunching on the coral added to the acoustics of the tranquil ocean. Lingering above a sea turtle as it causally and nonchalantly makes its way through coral looking for something to nibble. Spotting a shark lurking in the midst of coral debris. To top it off the dolphins that came within 10 meters of us as we drifted with the current. My day seemed turned around, the peacefulness of the ocean was unbelievable. As we were making our way back to shore in the boat, Glen told us about a nice spot where the sting rays go as the tide starts to turn. We decided to go for a snorkel. It was frightening getting in the water with these beasts. Giant shovel nosed rays (if you don’t know what these are, try to picture a sting ray that looks like a shark…or you could google it) by the half dozen were just sitting on the ocean floor (granted at this stage we are in 4 feet of water, so basically they were in your face). Stingrays were everywhere and so were the jellies. The same jellies I mentioned earlier. And yes, to go along with my lows of the day, I got stung by one of the stupid little stinging jelly. It didn’t hurt too badly just like a little stinging electrocution. The rays were specktular (most were cow tailed rays, like the ones that barbed Steve Irwin). I was super nervous but quickly learned that as long as your presence is known they are not frightened and thus will not harm you. If you just hover at an angle to them and not make sudden movements you would be fine. So after the rays we finally got to get out of our wetsuits and the sun was going down so we had to high tail it back to the station before it got too dark to see the trail. After dinner we had a lecture on the chemical warfare of the sea…mostly talking about chemicals fish secrete as a defense mechanism. After the lecture a few of us and the professors headed out to the beach to observe some biolumenscients (you see a bright flash of light in the water) at one point we ended up inducing the lights by scuffling around in the water (they photon nerves are activated when it runs into something). While we were on the beach the sky was amazing. You could clearly see the milky way and the southern cross. There were more stars in the sky then one could comprehend. I even saw a shooting star. After staring at the night sky and joking about sleeping on the beach (one of the many rules of this place is that you can’t sleep on the beach) we headed over to the docks to see if we could spot the sharks. We didn’t see sharks but we saw a bunch of sea turtles and a group of about 25 sting rays. We then flopped down on the dock and stared at the night sky for another hour. I was wanting to stay there all night (no rule about sleeping on the dock). So for a day filled with so many painful moments it had equally amazing moments to balance it all out.

First Snorkel on the Great Barrier Reef

June 8,2010
Location: Heron Island
Started out this morning with our first snorkel out on the reef. Finally I fulfilled a life dream of snorkeling on the Great Barrier Reef. It was a little odd because the tide was coming out as we were out there so we were barely scraping over the top of the corals. With blues and greens and yellows and reds. The fish were amazing. They were bright and colorful just like how I imagined. Looking out in the distance under the water you can see the schools of fish swimming around and through the corals. Once you swam to them then they hide out of view, but if you were patient they will reappear and go about swimming around. After we finished up our snorkel (actually when the tide got too low that we couldn’t swim over the corals any more we had brekky and a lecture soon following. The lecture was mainly over the types of fish we just saw and will see at our time on Heron Island. We then went on a reef walk. Since it was low tide we could walk through the coral beds and Glen could point out all the different types of corals. It was cool finally learning the scientific names to the wonderful corals. After a hour trek we headed back for lunch. We got started on projects soon after lunch. My project is on gobies. We want to measure the re-emergence times of gobies after they are frightened by a predator. If you don’t know much about gobies I’ll give you a little background info. Gobies have a mutalistic relationship with shrimp. The shrimp excavate a burrow in which both the shrimp and the goby in return is a watchman for any potential predators.
After we decided on a project and came up with a methodology we gained our first data set. The sun was starting to set and we were informed that a group of sea turtle hatchlings were flown in that afternoon and were scheduled to be released on the beach at sun down. We headed over to watch/help the babies find their way safely to the ocean and enjoyed another beautiful sunset.

Heron Island

June 7, 2010

Location: Gladestone/ Heron island

We got to sleep in!!! So naturally I woke up at 6. We didn’t have to check out of the motel until 10 but I caught some cartoons on TV then headed out. We rode on a catamaran (a huge boat) to the island. It was about 2 hours of the most bumpy boat ride ever. I normally do not have problems with boat rides and sea sickness but an hour on this boat had me squirming to get off. When we got to the dock we were whisked away to our research station accommodation. The only other settlement on the island is a very exclusive resort, currently only 20 people are staying at the resort. It truly is beautiful and more of what I thought an Australian island would look like. The water is that beautiful turquoise color you see in all the pictures. It is peaceful and quiet and a tad bit warmer than Straddie. It is so beautiful here. The island is a coral cay island. It was formed out by the coral larvae that settled in the sandy substrate and continued to grow and regrow ontop of each other. The island sits right on top of Heron reef, the southernmost point of the Great Barrier Reef system. We had a brief introduction like the last research center then we got to explore the island as a class. We saw new vegetation and new wildlife. It is quite the remarkable little island. You are able to walk around the entire perimeter in a half hour. And there is a nice little nature walk through the center of the island. After our walk we had dinner and then a late night lecture on how the island was formed. I can’t wait for our first snorkel tomorrow morning.

Are you afraid of heights?

June 6, 2010
Location: Tin Can Bay/Rainbow Beach
This morning we woke up bright and early to check out the humpback dolphins that come to the shore every morning. Not many people know about the feeding of the dolphins but in the 1950s there was a dolphin that was severely injured and stranded itself on the shore of tin can bay. The locals found the dolphin and nursed it back to health. The dolphin learned that it could receive fish from this area so when it came back after healing it brought with him a few other dolphins from his pod. Every generation learned and now about 4 or 5 dolphins are regularly seen coming up to the beach. After we saw the dolphins we went back to the motel and had breakfast. We started our journey to rainbow beach. Rainbow beach was named after the towering colored sand cliffs near the beach. Aboriginal legend states that an ancient aboriginal god threw himself into the sand cliffs in a fight over a woman, coloring them forever. The sand cliffs were made up of natural sand blows, basically areas of land where a natural disaster wiped all vegetation from the area. While we were walking over to the beach through one of the sand blows, we saw a dune that was prefect for sledding. There were two local kids up there already and they offered to let us use there boogey boards to slide down. The climb up the dune was the challenging part. The fine grains of sand made foot holds nearly impossible. I would move up five steps and then slide down two. But finally I made it to the top and man I was a lot higher then I thought I was. I finally gained the courage to go down on the board. It was a lot of fun. A face full of sand was well worth the adrenaline rush of falling down a cliff side on a board. After we were done with our adventures (I thought we were done, but I guess Glen had other plans in mind) we made out way down to the beach. Only problem was to get to the beach we had to slide down a rocky sand cliff. I was super scared but at the same time I was having a lot of fun. The cliff towered over the beach making the people look like microscopic ants. It was quite the climb for a person afraid of heights, you know the old saying don’t look down, well you had to look down to see where to step next. After we were all safe on the ground and we marveled at the cliff we just scaled we played on the beach for a while. We went for a swim then started walking up the beach towards the shops and stuff. It was probably a 2 hour walk along the beach before we finally found the actual beach access. We stayed in the little shopping square for a couple of hours then made our way back to the bus. We had a six hour drive ahead of us to Gladestone, the city we were picking up the boat to Heron Island. We got to our next motel found food then hit the sack.

Underwater world

Hello all,
Sorry I haven't posted in awhile. Between projects, papers and awesome adventures its tough finding time to stay current on the journal. The next few post may lack detail but its all there. Enjoy!

June 5,2010

Location: Tin Can Bay

Today we went to Underwater world just another aquarium with the typical fish, sharks, otters, even sea lions. We got to have a guided tour around the aquarium. I think I would have rather roamed the aquarium solo or with just a few of my mates. I didn’t learn a heap of information but they did have quite a few exhibits of native species that I don’t normally get to see at an aquarium. I always do enjoy going to aquariums so seeing a new one was quite exciting. After the aquarium we had a two hour bus ride up to our next accommodation in Tin Can Bay. We ate dinner at the motel and just went to sleep. We did have a tv so I finally got to see Australian news (most shows on Australian TV are American shows). Tomorrow we will continue our journey to Heron Island with a few stops along the way.

On Top of the World

June 4, 2010

Location: Stradbroke Island (Point Lookout)/ Brisbane

Today we checked out of the research center early and headed over to the northern end of the island. Finally we got to see the ocean and walk a real Australian beach. Point lookout was beautiful. We first walked main beach and saw the sand dune that used to gradually move every year. They used to dump the islands trash in front of the dune and the movement would eventually cover it up. However they finally realized the devastating effects of those actions and decided to stabilize the dune. We then walked up to point lookout. This spot (the highest on the island) is the perfect location to see the humpback whales on their yearly migration. We were hoping to see a few humpbacks but unfortunately we didn’t see any. We saw some whale watchers (those that document and survey the number of whale sightings, basically to track the population size). The journey to the top of point lookout and the journey through the rocky headlands to the different lookout points deserve a blog post of their own, however, I don’t have much time to describe the view. We followed a trail all the way to the top (basically hiking only most of us were in flip flops). The view was so beautiful. You could see the bottom of the ocean from a few hundred feet up. The shallower waters had a crystal clear turquoise color. There were rocky caves that the water waves crashed into creating the most wonderful sounds. We also saw some turtles and rays. One white spotted eagle ray that we saw in the second lookout point leaped clear out of the water twice. It was truly spectacular. Also we did see a couple of bottle nosed dolphins at the second lookout point. One was a little baby calf. After failing at spotting a whale we headed down to the beach. We followed the beach all the way around the point curve of the island. We eventually made our way to a swim beach (patrolled by lifeguards). We sat on the beach for awhile before lunch (a bunch of people were tanning) I went to play on a playground. We then decided to go to the other beach because of the way the wind was hitting the island the other beach was warmer and calmer. I fell asleep on the beach and woke up about a half hour before we were leaving. We started heading over to the barge to make our way back to the mainland for the night. We did stop at a freshwater spring because we were running a little early. The spring was beautiful and warm, my best descriptive analogy would be like ice tea. It was clear but brown. We caught another barge back to the main land. When we got back to Brisbane we all went out to dinner at Jo Jos. The restaurant was more like 5 restaurants in one. You were assigned a table number and went around the different restaurants to make an order, then they brought you your food. It was quite delicious. Never been to a restaurant quite like that before. We also saw a protest/demonstration (not sure what it was about but it was pretty crazy). A couple of us walked around the mall before making our way back to Tinbillys. It was a long but very much relaxing day.

Notables:
Popper: juice box (will be incorporate in my everyday vocab)

Last Day on Straddie

Another great sunset

June 3, 2010

Location: Stradebroke Island

I can’t believe it has been a whole week…actually I can (I am slightly surprised that it has only been a week). I have done so much this past week and I am ready for the new places to explore in the next couple of days. Today is our last day on Straddie. I managed to fit in going to a couple of art galleries (of the aboriginal people… I can write more about them later when I have more time). We also went to the historical museum. It was pretty awesome as well. They had a series of cottages that you could go into and each one was a replication from the housing of the first asylum on the island. The cottages had a bunch of first’s artifacts (for instance the first mail boxes on the island, and the first phones and phone insulators). They even had the top jaw bone of a sperm whale (they are humongous) that washed up on the north shore in 2001. The people that ran the museum were also very interesting (they shared a lot of stories about the aboriginal culture and traditions). One lady also let us go through the museum for free (it originally cost like 3 dollars but half of our group didn’t bring money…we were going to walk back to get some when she insisted on us just to come in and have a look). She took a great interest in how we liked the island (compared to America) and what else we were going to see while here. Most of the Aussies I have met so far have been very kind and eager to share their world with us, so much different than Americans. After our final walk around town (I didn’t want to miss anything) we went back to the research station. This afternoon, we had our group presentations on our research we have been studiously working on for the past few days. Our project went well, even though we didn’t have any significant data. I enjoyed listening to other groups projects. We all have been bouncing ideas off of each other all week which results in getting bits and pieces of each project, it was nice for everything to come all together in the end. After the presentations we went down to a local pub and watched the sun set while some enjoyed some drinks in celebration of the first complete research project. I am slightly torn that we are leaving this wonderful station and island in the morning. I have enjoyed my time here. We have had perfect sunsets and incomparable views of the water as we sat on the patio enjoying an afternoon tea. The stars at night light up the sky like never before. We did have our fare share of rainy days but the sunsets always made up for our hatred of Mother Nature. It’s hard to leave a place like this behind but there are many exciting adventures that lie ahead. I can’t wait to tell you guys all about them. Until then, Cheers!!

Notables:
Since we are traveling, and leaving this wonderful place with free internet, I do not know when I will post my upcoming blogs. But I will still document every moment, so keep an eye out for any updates.

Turtles, Rays and Dugongs…Oh my!!

Heading out to sea...in the rain


We sat on the dock to watch the sunset.

June 2, 1010

Location: Stradebroke Island

The first thing we did today was go out searching for dugongs. I have been looking forward to today since Sunday (when I found out Wed was going to be the perfect day for spotting). Dugongs (Dugong dugon) are a marine mammal related to the popular Manatees. They are a brown to light grey color with a trunk like upper lip and a forked tail (very similar to the dolphin tail). They feed off of the sea grass Halophia halodule. It is very hard to spot these wonderful creatures because they are very timid and shy away from any human activity (i.e. boats). They also only feed as the tide turns from low to high. The best way to spot dugongs is to go to their typical sea grass feeding area and wait patiently to spot a snout surfacing for air. Then you can follow them in with the tide (typically once you spot one, you will find more). I was very excited to go out to see dugongs. They are an increasingly rare species so getting the opportunity to spot one in the wild is really a chance not many get. The Moreton Bay dugong populations is also one of the largest in the world, with 400+ already accounted for and over a thousand believed to be in total. I was disappointed this morning when I woke to a steady drizzle and a less then calm breeze. I was worried that the rain would make the trip a little less enjoyable however I think it just added an element of excitement. We headed out of Dunwich and up toward the south passage. There we hit a few sand bars (we had to get out of the boat and push it along for a while because it got too shallow, an experience I never thought I would have…walking in the middle of the ocean). After about a half hour of rain needles and sea water spraying in our faces…also an extremely bumpy ride but again it just added to the excitement, we arrived on the sea grass bed where the dugongs normally feed. As we were searching for little brown snouts we saw Estuary Stingrays (Dasyatis fluviorum) and Eagle Rays (Aetobatus narinari). There were heaps of them. Then Glen spotted another dark figure moving through the water, at first it looked like a giant ray then we got closer and saw that it was a Logger head Sea Turtles. We saw maybe four or five turtles when we decided to go towards the deep water to increase our chances of finding the dugongs. We searched and searched but just couldn’t find any. Then suddenly out of no where we saw this dark patch in the water. At first we just thought it was an algae patch and then the figure started getting clearer… it was a mommy and baby dugong!!! Yay, we actually got to see some. I was talking to Glen before we left and it felt as though he was preparing us for not seeing any. I naturally started believing that it was next to impossible for us to see any so that I wouldn’t be disappointed. After seeing them I am overwhelmingly relieved we got to see them. Sadly, I did not get any pictures of them. I couldn’t get a good picture is all the rain. We followed them around for a while then started to head back for land. As we were heading back Glen saw two more!! We followed them around for a couple of minutes then lost sight of them. Our dugong trip was a success. On the way back Glen let me drive the boat into the dock. I was so nervous and at first didn’t take him seriously when he told me to take over the wheel. Luckily, I didn’t crash the boat and everyone made it back to shore alive and well…haha. The trip was so much fun but the weather was less then favorable. I have wind burn and I was freezing for a good 3 hours after we got off the boat and into dry clothes. I also scraped up my knuckles from trying to hold on to the boat as we were crashing through the waves. The rest of the day was a lot less eventful then this morning. It was raining and cold so we all stayed inside (blah) and worked on our projects. In the afternoon the skies cleared up a little so a couple of us walked around town and made it back to the beach in time to watch the sun set. Another great day. Tomorrow is the last day on the island so I’m hoping after we finish up our presentations I could get the chance to walk around more, maybe go to the historic museums and some of the art galleries up the road. It seems like today will be hard to top but somehow everyday just seems to be that much better.

Another Day in Paradise

June 1, 2010

Location: Stradebroke Island

I woke up this morning to the sound of the parakeets flying by. Every morning and every evening at dawn and a dusk, the flock of about 40 birds flies from one set of trees to another set. I much prefer being woken by the screeching of the birds (not always a welcomed sound) then to the sound of an alarm clock. However, this morning we finally got the opportunity to sleep in. Waking up with the sun wasn’t on the agenda but I was refreshed and ready to start the day. All of today was set aside so that we could work on our projects so more. My group and I are way ahead of the game, so we didn’t have too much to do. We worded and wrote our hypothesis and materials/ methods. Then we decided o the types of graphs we are going to use and which analysis types would work best. That left the rest of the morning for us to do whatever. I spent most of the time talking to the family and reading more about the organisms we were finding in the bay. During tea time we had Anzac Biscuits, which are the favorite cookie of the Aussie. They were named to honor the soldiers of Australia…if you want to read the history or try out the recipe check out http://anzacbiscuit.net/. Lunch came quick and the one scheduled lecture of the day soon followed. Today we talked about dugongs (since tomorrow we are going to search for them) and humpback whales (hopefully we will see them on Friday). After the lecture I had some more time to kill, so I went to explore the other side of the beach (and take more pictures). I didn’t get far when I realized it was getting close to collecting time. We went out (and once again our friends joined us) and completed two seines just as we did the night before. We caught a heap of fish again in the nighttime seine but nothing new came from it. However, we did catch an unusually high number of pufferfish (about 74). It is insane how many fish we catch at night. Also the highlight of my day was when one of the little girls was helping us out, and turned to me and said “Look, I’m a scientist. Just like you!”.
I don’t know what else to say about today. It was a relatively low key day. It was sunny this morning, then overcast in the afternoon and almost rainy toward night fall. Yet even the overcast skies casted a beauty over the water. The way the water almost faded into the sky was spectacular. I never thought I would say an overcast day was pretty but I got to see the ocean literally in a different light. I guess that’s all for now. Bye!!

Noteables:
Kiwis= nickname of New Zealanders
Boot= trunk

Research continues

May 31, 2010

Location: Stradeborke Island

Second day of research. We woke up early again to collect some data before breakfast, however, the tide started to beat us so we only collected in one area. After breakfast we reevaluated our projects to double check everything was moving smoothly. We then had our second lecture entitled: the ecology of sandy islands. We learned about the formation of Stradebroke Island (and other sandy islands at that, just with Stradebroke as the prime example). After lecture, we had little time before our next lecture, so my group mates and I studied up on fish from our field guides to help with identification. We also went through the fish ids we have already identified to match common names with scientific names. Our second lecture was given by Art and it was entitled: Metabolism of the Sea. Basically he gave an introduction to the rest of lectures he has planned for us. It was focused on the chemical aspects of the waters and its impact on the biology. I am excited to finally learn chemistry as its related to something of interest rather than the general chemistry courses I’ve had to suffer through the past few years. By the time the second lecture was over, we only had an hour or so before low tide (…and our next data collection). I took the chance to explore the town a little, and to take pictures on the beach. And yes, I finally climbed a tree in Australia (hurray!!). The town was very small but I am sure I only saw a portion of it. I couldn’t find the post office so I am sure there is a whole part of the island I was missing but I shall continue to keep my eye out for one. I took some awesome photos on the beach. I tried some artsy shots but I’m not sure how well they turned out (especially with just a little point and shoot digital camera). Well it finally came time to seine and as we were walking back out to the beach, our little friends came to help us out again. This time we did one day sampling and one night sampling. The sun set so quickly that by the time we were done with the first (our day one) it was already dark for our second. Our second survey was absolutely crazy. We caught so many fish, that we were struggling to get them all in the buckets before they died. And when we got them all into the buckets it took us forever to count them. Needless to say, we killed a bunch of fish (sad day). I am still amazed by the magnitude of fish we caught (that’s some good data there) and the size of the fish. Oh and we also caught a few cuttlefish (!!!) I wish I could take them back to the states with me. We threw them back in first so that they would survive and as they swam away you could see their ink trails (so cool). We also caught some very pretty pipefish. They were bright green and at first I thought it was just a piece of sea weed and then it moved, freaked me out a bit. The other cool fish we caught was the slender seamoth. They have enlarged, wing-like and horizontal pectoral fins (description out of the field guide). But that was all that was new. Only a couple more collections and we will have enough data to reach a conclusion for our project. I enjoy the work very much but it would be so much easier if we had a few more people helping us out. I don’t mind going in the water (at night is a little scary) although pulling on a wet wetsuit isn’t the most pleasant thing in the world. I am still glad with my decision to work on this project. Today the weather was perfect and beautiful. I sat out on the porch for a while basking in the sun (with sunscreen on, of course). I enjoyed my second set of lectures and the continuation of my research project. There really is not much more I could ask for.

Notables:
Barred Fortesque aka scorpionfish (Centropogon australis) have sharp venomous dorsal fins- little butt head stabbed me in the finger. The fish was too small to do any damage but I guess I appreciate the effort by the little guy. I didn’t even know they were venomous until I read the field guide.

Pipefish are in the same family as the common seahorse

South Stradebroke Island used to be attached to North Stradebroke Island until a storm wiped out a portion of the island.

Straddy= Stradebroke Island