Swimming with Turtles

Staying at Heron Island Research Station has been unforgettable. First off is appreciating the fact that we even had the opportunity to visit Heron. Less than a mile around, Heron Island is home to only the research station and a resort. The resort costs upwards of $250 a night. The research station is priceless. We may not eat endless seafood buffets like at the resort, but Rodger and Maggie are pretty mean in the kitchen. (Rodger and Maggie were our cooks on Heron and every day managed to create these fantastic meals. One morning we even had homemade croissants.)

Snorkeling consumed much of our time on Heron. Every morning we were brought out in boats to the reef edge and left for an hour to swim around as we pleased. The Great Barrier Reef is everything they say it is and more. The coral structures are so numerous and go on for miles and miles. Their colors vary from dull browns and tans to bright blue and my favorite, a vibrant purple. The shapes and sizes are as variable as the colors. The ‘brain’ coral lives up to its name and is a tight tangle of brain-looking structure. Flat corals are more abundant on the outer reef because they can handle greater wave energy compared to the branching coral which tend to reside just off the outer reef and on the reef flats. The layering of the corals over time is clearly visible and often there are rubble piles of dead coral which have broken off.

My Australia check list is slowly becoming complete. While snorkeling off Heron, I got to swim with sharks, turtles, sting rays and even dolphins. The sharks are pretty harmless as long as you don’t aggravate them and same with the sting rays. The difficulty with sting ways is that they bury themselves in the sandy shallows and you never can tell if you are stepping on one until you actually do. Swimming with the turtles was my favorite. Professor Rodbell said it best, “It is almost a religious experience”. It really is something special. They are these huge creatures, the biggest we saw over five feet in length, who just swim slowly and gracefully. If you are slow and easy with your movements, they will let you swim up to them, gently touch their shells and look in their eyes. The dolphins on the other hand are a bit more difficult, especially when you are in a group of fifteen to twenty snorkeling students. The pod that I saw was a group of five or so and swam quickly beneath all of us snorkeling. It was maybe only a minute or two but still so cool. Ten seconds of the real thing beats hours in places like Sea World. I really swam with the dolphins.

Our second night on Heron, our Marine Ecology professor, Ian Tibbetts, and our PhD student tutors took us night snorkeling. A little nerve racking when you consider all the creatures in the bay that could have killed us and we would never even have seen it, but totally worth the risk. We were all given under water flashlights which gave us the chance to see all the nocturnal animals. The highlight of the night snorkeling trip was probably the giant sea turtle. It was longer than I am tall, so you can imagine the size of its shell. It was almost surreal watching it swim with our flashlights focused on it surrounded by dark blue water. It felt fake and hard for me to believe even as I watched.

Besides snorkeling and sun bathing, while on Heron groups of 4-6 students were required to create research studies and conduct experiments on a marine related topic. My group studied sea cucumbers which inhabit the reef flats out just off the beach. Our data was pretty inconclusive which is a bummer since I have to write a full report on our findings, or lack there of. Still a really good exercise though. It teaches how to conduct a study in the field and present the findings. These projects are similar to those that we did while on Stradbroke Island that Steve discussed. Mine was not too interesting, but some of the other groups had great findings and will have lots of stuff to write about in their final reports.

Not just sea creatures inhabit Heron, but also a humongous bird population. I cannot remember any of the species, but every inch of tree branch is inhabited by a bird of some sort. And also, every inch of ground has burrows which the birds dig to hatch their young. Somehow I avoided the unfortunate, but many students were pooped on during the week. The smell that these creatures create by living in such dense populations is stifling. Bird poop is everywhere and so are the birds. Also, not surprisingly, the noise that all these birds make is non stop. All night long the birds are yacking to themselves and each other. It was a good thing I was exhausted every night from endless snorkeling and being in the sun, because there is no way you can sleep through the chirps and caws and all other birdy noises in between.

Leaving Heron Island was difficult for all of us. Difficult because we all knew that we would probably never return. Heron Island thus far has been the highlight of my term in Australia, and most other student’s trips as well. The experiences that we had and the things that we were exposed to are available only on one little island in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef. It was sad leaving the place. Makes one want to study marine biology at University of Queensland…

There is much more to say about Heron Island. I figure Liz and Steve will have their own spin on the experience and hopefully information that I haven’t already shared.