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