Heron Island!

Oceania » Australia » Queensland » Great Barrier Reef
April 28th 2009

Published: April 28th 2009

Edit Blog Post

AussieSteph

Time to Snorkel!

Getting ready for a few hours at sea

As I wrote in the previous entry, this is my trip to Heron Island; the second half of my mid-semester break. This island was one of the most beautiful places I've ever been to!
Day 1:
On the same evening in which I returned from Fraser Island, I left for Heron Island that very night, about 4 hours later. At about 11:30pm on the night of April 13th, we were scheduled to depart Brisbane. However, due to 5 guys not thinking we were leaving the following day, we didn't get to leave until about 12:15am as we were waiting for the 5 guys to get on the bus. The bus was very full, about every seat was taking. It definitely was not the most comfortable of rides up to Gladstone. I'm sure everyone's legs were cramped up just like mine. It was about a 7 hour drive up to Gladstone. We arrived at the ferry stop at about 8:30am. We ended up waiting about 2.5 hours because the ferry didn't leave until 11am. So we waited around in a big grass area and I managed to get bit by a green ant. These ants are so tiny but their bites hurt!

Beach time!

Laying out on the beautiful beach

They are like these little black ants with a tint of shiny green to them. I was so mad after it bit me; it stung for about a good half hour and left a big red mark on the side of my hip. It's been 2 weeks and I still have little scars from the bite. So beware of these creature if anyone goes to Australia! We finally board the ferry boat that took us on a two boat ride out east to Heron Island, which sits directly on the southern tip of the Great Barrier Reef, absolutely gorgeous. Heron Island is a very small island just east of Gladstone. Half the island is dedicated to Univeristy of Queensland's Research Station and the other half is a resort. We obviously stayed and worked in and around the research station which was very accomodating and great food. Here's the website to where I was at for more about the wonderful island: http://www.cms.uq.edu.au/index.html?page=54940
Upon arriving on the island, we ate a very good lunch and then had an introduction to the island, health and safety. Afterwords we chose our bunks; we were in rooms of 4 bunks accomodating 8 people per room.

Hatchlings!

the baby sea turtles we helped out of their hole, but then got eaten by the seagulls :(, quite upsetting

We then had an introductory snorkel and we got to snorkel out in the water for about an hour before dinner. After dinner we went sea turtle watching on the beach. Turtle nesting season was still going on and at night the babies sea turtles come out of their holes in the sand and to the water. It was so neat to see the little babies making their way to the water. Sometimes they got confused especially when someone flashed their camera. The babies thing the flash is the sun and they follow the light. After that we went to bed as we were all pretty exhausted from a long trip.

Day 2:
Breakfast was at 7am just like in Fraser Island. Today were takin on boats about 15min away from the island to snorkel the reef for about 2 hours (10am-12pm). It was so cool! I saw so many fish and sea creatures including a stone fish! These guys are venemous so we kinda just swam away. We were snorkelling right on the reef and I can't begin to explain how beautiful it is out there and the colors you see under water are just phenomenal. I had

Gorgeous sunset!

breathtaking, isn't it?!?!

boughten an underwater camera just to use for snorkelling. After we came back from snorkelling we had lunch and after lunch we went on a reef walk. Basically we just took a long walk on into the ocean or on the reef since the island is surrounded by the reef. I managaed to get a couple scrapes from the coral but its fine as long as I put antibacterial stuff on afterwords, which I did. You have to do this if you get cut by coral because the coral contains a bacteria which can infect the skin if not treated properly. After the reef walk, we had to start on our group projects/experiments. There were three people total in my group and our experiment was to find out Sea Cucumber abundance on the north side of the island vs. the south side of the island. We didn't get out to the field that day, but we just organized our experiment and planned for the next day. After group discussions we had dinner then got to do a night snorkel! This was the best part yet! We went out snorkelling at about 9pm in pitch black water. We were given waterproof

Underwater fins

taking a picture of my fins underwater :)

flash lights and wore a glow stick on our snorkel. The students were yellow glow sticks and teh tutors wore purple ones so we could distinguish one another. We saw HUGE sea turtles and babies. It was so awesome, the baby sea turtles would literally swim right up to me and hit my goggles! We mostly saw Loggerhead sea turtles but there were a few other species as well. We also saw a shark (one that doesn't feed on humans), and a big Eagle Ray and another type of shark. It was just so cool to be able to see all this marine life.

Day 3:
Today we had pancakes for breakfast and they were very yummy. We got to go out and snorkell again from 8:30am-10:30am on a different area of the reef. Today was a better day as the skies were sunny and water was very clear. I saw so many more species of fish, and turtles too! There were a couple of sharks out too, but not to harm us. I was so amazed by how many fish I saw and how beautiful the reef really is! I could have stayed out there all day with

The reef!

Some of the GBR with the fishies :)

my face in the water just staring at the reef and all the biodiversity. After snorkelling, me and a couple people layed out on the beach until lunch was ready. While we were leaving the beach to get lunch, I walked across a big hole and had to look twice. There were two baby sea turtles (hatchlings) trying to climb out of the hole!! I called my friends back to get a look; they were soooo cute!! They couldn't get out of the hole, so me and Kirithika helped them out a little bit and watched them run on the sand towards the beach. However, there were seagulls all over the place, just swarming us; they obviously saw the hatchlings and they feed on them. We were scaring of the seagulls as much as we could so the hatchlings could reach the water. We finally watched them reach the water and I was so happy! Then it was just too difficult to keep the birds away and they just came swooping down and took both the hatchlings; I was so upset!! But it's just part of the food chain, I guess. I felt so bad because we helped them all

Reef

and a cute yellow fish

the way for nothing, poor babies. So after lunch, we actually started on our group projects. It took us until dinner to finish up our experiment. Me and Lindsay (group member) snorkelled finding the different species and counting the number of cucumbers while Grant set up the transects. We did 10, 20meter transects for each side of the island so 20 transects all together. It was busy work, but at least we were out in the beautiful sun and got it done. After a delicious dinner, we listened to a speaker who did a presentation on sea turtles because he works with the conservation of sea turtles. It was a really good presentation and I would love to help with the conservation of sea turtles in my future.

Day 4:
Today we pretty much had the whole day to finish up our experiements and write up a powerpoint presentation for later on in the afternoon. Because our group finished it all the previous day, we immediately did our powerpoint right after breakfast so we could have the rest of the day to just chill out, lay on the beach, swim etc. At about 3:30pm we presented our research to

Underwater face

I was so happy at that moment

the class. The presentations took about and hour and a half. After that we had some time to spare before dinner, so we went to the jetty to see the last beautiful sunset on the island. While there, some of us (including me) jumped off the jetty into the water below; it was actually really fun! At first just the guys were doing it, then me and three other girls were just like, let's do it! So jumped it about 4 times, then headed back to dry off before dinner. After dinner, the tutors told us they had a suprise and that we were able to do a another night snorkel!! I was so excited, I signed up for the first group to go so we would be the group to see everything first 😉. We ended up see a few giant sea turtles again including a a few Loggerheads. We didn't really see any baby sea turtles, but we did see another shark that swam past us, but below us, really cool! We would be swimming and some medium sized sea turtles would literally swim right past us! After the snorkel, I showered and went back out to the

Night Snorkel!

a group of us after our awesome night snorkel!

jetty to look up at the stars and look for more creatures in the water. The stars are amazing here! We can really see the Milky Way really clear, it was breathtaking. There are sooooo many stars here, more than I've ever seen. I've never been able to see the Milky Way like I did that night. Also, while looking out at the water from the jetty, we saw a couple sting, manta and eagle rays as well as sharks. We also so creatures that looked like giant squid, weren't too sure though. At one point we saw a shark chase a sting ray some where, but those sting rays are fast and just dart off. We also saw another huge sea turtle swim under the jetty and probably went to sleep under there somewhere.

Day 5: (Last Day)
Today was our last day at Heron Island. We spent the majority of the morning cleaning up our rooms and returning all our snorkeling suits and equipment. We got got a chance to go to the little shop on the other side of the island where the resort is. The resort looks to be very nice, and I hear the

Done Snorkelling!

Kirithika and I on the boat after we were done snorkelling

guests pay quite the some of money to stay there. The resort also has private helicopters that take guests to and from the island. We all ended up getting on the boat that would take us back to Gladstone at about 1:30pm. At this point I did not want to leave; it was too beautiful. It was about a 2 hour boat ride back to Gladstone and then once we got to Gladstone, we immediately got on the coach bus for another 7 hour adventure back to Brisbane. I arrived back at my apartment at about midnight that night and just went to bed. Heron Island was an amazing trip and a beyond gorgeous island; I would love to go back there someday.

Additional photos below

Photos: 23, Displayed: 23