After getting home on Sunday from a whirlwind adventure with our faithful tour guide Mussels, I immediately started packing for what would turn out to be one of the most memorable trips I have ever been on. I had a quick frisbee practice in Toowong before embarking on the half day trip out to Heron Island Research Station. The bus ride sucked, a lot, and when we arrived it seemed as though a monsoon was preparing to decimate the island we were hoping to call home. Luckily, the weather cleared up while we had our safety meeting and got our living quarters. Compared to Straddie, our accommodations on Heron were...well I wouldn't say bad...but I felt like I was much more a part of nature. (loud birds, bugs, sand) I've taken on the role of a real scientist while staying here at the research station, eating meals with my research team, collecting data during the day, and crunching data and chillaxing at night.
A little about this place: Heron island is a sand cay which formed on Heron Reef on the southernmost edge of the Great Barrier Reef. The island itself only takes about 40 minutes to walk around at a leisurely pace. Sharks, rays, turtles, coral, sea cucumbers, and some of the bluest water you have ever seen lie directly off the coast. The only things on the island are the research station and a resort. There aren't even mammals here! (except for us of course) On the first day of being on Heron, Andy Barnes (our amazing professor) and the other tutors took us out snorkeling in the coral reef beds. Talk about an experience of a life time. I was inches away from coral which took hundreds of years to grow. It was as if I was in one of the coolest fish tanks ever. I am really proud of the fact that I manned up and held a sea cucumber which was bigger than my head. The most incredible thing I did while snorkeling though was to swim directly over a sting ray and then within a few feet of a shark. I knew that sharks were in the water, but I was not swimming in shark bay, so seeing one so close was completely unexpected. I did not lose my breathe and become paralyzed as I thought I would upon meeting a shark, but I did swim quickly out of the area and then look back to see if it really was, a freakin' shark. This trip has tested the limits of my fears. I've always been quite wary of open water. Add some sharks and poisonous creatures and you have a quite uncomfortable Maia.
Out of the water...I got to experience both sunrises and sunsets on this little old island home of ours. There are only a few places on Earth where you can witness the sun coming up and going down over the water without driving cross country. We even saw two sea turtles mating during one of the sunrises. Hannah and I also enjoyed the resort lifestyle and lazed on the beach for some much needed time in the sun. This is Australia, after all. My group, Hannah, Phil, Taylor, and Greg (from Texas) conducted an experiment on sea cucumber poop. We were checking out different species' eating habits. Not the most interesting thing ever, but our group had lots of laughs along the way. The cucumbers are pretty slippery suckers and spew water and sticky white stuff at you when you scare them. Hilarious. While the boys collected the specimens to begin research, Hannah and I had a sing-a-long in the shallows. It was sunset and we were singing Titanic. Yes, it's a ridiculous image, but it was amazing.
We finished up the trip by taking a group snorkel at to the ship wreck. Holy moly. I saw sea turtles, more sharks, a blue footed booby, a sting ray, and the most amazing sunset behind the shipwreck. It was absolutely breathtaking.
I can safely say that this has been a phenomenal experience and has really shown me what Australia has to offer. Can't find this stuff in Wingdale or Carlisle.
Missin' you.
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