Paradise in a jewel-sea

Aerial view of Heron Island

Hi all! So, I just had 2 of the most amazing weeks of my life. Our field trip whirlwind began with Carnarvon Gorge (previous post) and then we spent 10 days on a remote island in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef. On Heron Island, we conducted our own research projects in small groups on anything we wanted. Our group decided to study coral haloes- I won't get too into it, but basically little fishies live on isolated coral and graze the surrounding sediment for little teeny tiny plankton. Little fishies get eaten by larger fishies so they don't usually stray too far from the safety of the coral home, leading to overgrazed surrounding sediment. Or so we thought. We discovered that these "haloes" of unevenly distributed meiofauna are actually due to currents and the baffling effect of isolated coral structures. Science is neat!

When we weren't doing our research, which pretty much consisted of 5 of my close friends goofing around while snorkeling and trying to not lose all of our equipment to the drifting current, the staff took us on boat trips all around the island to various snorkel sites. You can see in the map above that Heron Island is very small- you could walk around the circumference in about 15 minutes, but the surrounding reef is quite large. Each snorkel site we visited had secrets of its own. Some were sheltered from the wind and displayed big beautiful valleys of fragile branching coral. Some had caves and crevices we could crawl through. They were all absolutely stunning, and I still cannot believe I was blessed enough to experience it. I really don't know how to explain in words the beauty of the island, so here are a few pictures to help you understand:

You can see why it was one of the breathtaking and memorable places I have ever visited. Half of the island is a National Park and the other half is a "green zone," meaning that nothing can be removed, leaving an incredibly in-tact coral reef ecosystem. As soon as our ferry pulled up to the dock, we spotted 2 black tip reef sharks coming to welcome us to their home.

Black tip swimming through a bait school next to the dock

We hurriedly scrambled into our snorkel gear and jumped into the water. We saw turtles, sharks, an octopus, eels, thousands of beautiful fish, and intricately complex corals that came in every shape and color. I was able to snorkel at least three times a day, usually at sunrise, sometime after lunch, and again at sunset. Marine animals are active at all different times of day, so by swimming throughout the day, I was able to see all sorts of creatures emerge and feed. Our professor, Ian Tibbetts, led us on a night snorkel once as well. With glow sticks attached to our snorkels, we drifted into the harbor and searched the dark overhangs for sharks and nightlife.

White tip reef shark

One of the coolest parts about Heron Reef was the incredible abundance of sharks. As ecosystems grow in diversity, the number of top predators also increases. Since coral reefs are the most biodiverse ecosystems in the world, they are full of impressive predators such as sharks.

Wobbegong shark

shark to the top left!

The majority of the sharks we saw were white tip or black tip reef sharks, but there were also a few lemon, nurse, and wobbegong sightings. Only about 4 or 5 feet long, the reef sharks we saw were quite comfortable hanging out near us, but were definitely no threat. Every time I got too close, they would quickly swim away. That being said, I touched or nearly touched quite a few =]

Heron Reef is home to parrotfish, angel fish, wrasses, butterfly fish, clown fish, and so many other gorgeous species. I saw some of the largest parrotfish I have ever seen, probably about two and half feet long! When I dove down, I could hear them scraping away at the coral substrate.

cleaner wrasses

One of my new favorite fish is the cleaner wrasse- only a few inches long and clothed in blue,yellow, and black, they are the beauticians of the sea. They befriend fish of all sizes and climb into their gills, where they find and eat their client's parasites. The client fish often goes into a comatose-like state- they stop moving their fins, roll onto their side, and kind of float towards the surface with a great look of pleasure and gratitude for the cleaner wrasse. It was pretty cute to watch the cleaner wrasse making all his neighbors happy.

There were turtles EVERYWHERE! Many turtles travel to Heron Island to lay their eggs each year; we even saw a mother lay her eggs and triumphantly cross a series of rocks back to the shore one day.

Mama turtle; photo cred: Jessica Glazner

Me and a turtle!

 The turtles were out almost every time we went snorkeling and were always the cause of great excitement. Their laid back attitude and generous eyes made me giggle every time I saw them, they are just so fun to be around. They would often pose for us on a massive coral so we could swim by to take a quick picture or give them a nice shell-rub.

Green Sea Turtle; Photo cred: Alexa Kownacki

I saw one of the most beautiful sunsets of my life on November 1st. The sky glistened with red and purple and outlined the clouds with a layer of gold. The sun set just beyond the silhouette of the shipwreck for an absolutely picture-perfect landscape. It was one of those fateful moments that makes you really appreciate each minute that we have on this beautiful planet.

As you can see from the photos, I was living and studying in paradise. I could not be more thankful for my parents, who have supported me through everything, both financially and mentally. I am thankful for friends and family who have been praying for me and reminding me how loved I am all over the world. And I am most thankful for my God, who doesn't have to create such beauty, but chooses to. He could have created a functional world, but instead He created a world that not only functions, but also stuns us with its allure. The entire time I have spent in the land down under, I have been comforted by an overwhelming feeling that I am exactly where I am supposed to be. I  feel as though my entire life has been building up to this moment, where my studies and my love for the ocean really come together and marine biology becomes applicable. I believe it is a feeling we rarely feel- that there is no better place we could be - but it is entirely satisfying and I encourage everyone to get to a place where such satisfaction can be found. Tonight is my last night in Australia, my parents and I will be leaving for Fiji tomorrow morning. Unlike many trips, I do not feel as though my time here has flown by because each of my days here were lived so fully, exactly as they should have been. For the first time in my life, I feel like I truly lived every day like it was my last, not just because Australia is full of venomous animals, but because life is perfect and the world is just too big to let it pass us by. With giddiness I entered the border of this glorious country, and solemnly I leave with a wealth of memories to reside forever in my heart. I have grown in countless ways. I have opened my heart to 38 Californians and lifelong friends, I have further confirmed my passion for marine biology, and I have understood the passion that God has for creating wonderful things. Tomorrow I leave for a 4-day vacation in Fiji followed by a 12-day adventure through the fjords and mountains of New Zealand. The blessings just keep coming, but Australia will forever remain sacred in my heart. I am nearly speechless when I reflect on the time I have spent here, so I will allow the Australian poet, Dorothea Mackellar, to describe the great love that I now have for Australia:

The love of field and coppice 
Of green and shaded lanes, 
Of ordered woods and gardens 
Is running in your veins. 
Strong love of grey-blue distance, 
Brown streams and soft, dim skies 
I know, but cannot share it, 
My love is otherwise. 

I love a sunburnt country, 
A land of sweeping plains, 
Of ragged mountain ranges, 
Of droughts and flooding rains. 
I love her far horizons, 
I love her jewel-sea, 
Her beauty and her terror 
The wide brown land for me! 

The stark white ring-barked forests, 
All tragic to the moon, 
The sapphire-misted mountains, 
The hot gold hush of noon, 
Green tangle of the brushes 
Where lithe lianas coil, 
And orchids deck the tree-tops, 
And ferns the warm dark soil. 

Core of my heart, my country! 
Her pitiless blue sky, 
When, sick at heart, around us 
We see the cattle die 
But then the grey clouds gather, 
And we can bless again 
The drumming of an army, 
The steady soaking rain. 

Core of my heart, my country! 
Land of the rainbow gold, 
For flood and fire and famine 
She pays us back threefold. 
Over the thirsty paddocks, 
Watch, after many days, 
The filmy veil of greenness 
That thickens as we gaze ... 

An opal-hearted country, 
A wilful, lavish land 
All you who have not loved her, 
You will not understand 
though Earth holds many splendours, 
Wherever I may die, 
I know to what brown country 
My homing thoughts will fly.