Heron Island

---

This blog was way too long when I first wrote it with the snorkeling details. I’ll talk about the general parts of the trip in this one then blog again with snorkel specifics!



The Heron field trip was basically a destination vacation to a tropical island. We were there to study marine biology but for most of us it was about 1% school, 99% paradise.

The school part of the trip was that everyone had to perform a research study of something on the reef. Some groups had to look at broken shells on the beach or sea cucumbers that looked like lifeless lumps but my group was assigned butterfly fish. We observed the diversity and behavior of butterfly fish in each reef habitat on the island. That’s scientific code for snorkeled on the reef all day and occasionally made a tally mark on our chart.

Living arrangements were really comfortable and we had a great time together in our room of 8 girls. The rooms were remodeled about a year ago and there was even shelf space for everyone’s luggage! I suppose it wasn’t actually anything special but we felt like royalty after our last bunkroom in Lamington.

Breakfast was from 7 to 8, so naturally I showed up around 7:50 every day. My friends made fun of me for being so lazy but it actually gave me an advantage with the kitchen staff. Maggie, the cook, thought it was funny that I always stumbled in at the last minute and really seemed to like me during our morning chats. You’re probably thinking, ‘ok, big deal?’ but believe me, you don’t want to be on Maggie’s bad side. Everyone was terrified of her because she had the strictest dining rules you could ever imagine. She barked aggressively at people who dropped any food, opened the wrong fridge, took anything vegetarian, left food on their plate, the list goes on. But I will admit, the woman knows how to cook! Every day we were served breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner and desert; all were delish.

After lecture at 8, we had the rest of the day until dinner to work on our research. For me, that meant snorkel wherever I wanted or lay out on the beach. The beach was absolutely gorgeous because the sand was the purest white and water was crystal-clear teal. The research station owned a private section of the island so the beaches were completely private for a few other friends and me. I might not have learned that much about butterfly fish but I definitely got a killer tan.

On the last night, we all went to the other half of the island that is owned by the resort. The island is small enough that you can walk around the whole place in about 15 minutes. I had a pretty good laugh thinking about how the guests started their paradise vacation with the treacherous ferry ride. The resort had live music, a nice bar, pool tables, and lots of comfy sitting areas. It was a nice way to unwind from the highly stressful and work-intensive week that we suffered through.

The ferry ride was strangely calm and bus ride seemed shorter because we weren’t sitting around at the ferry stop for 3 hours this time. It was back to reality in Brisbane but I’d do just about anything to go to Heron again.

---

Photos

Living Large
This room makes the room in Lamington look like a dungeon.

Paradise
Beautiful private beaches like this all week. Jealous?

Sunset
Our group watched the sunset from the beach before heading over to the resort.