Heron Island

Friday September 23rd:

Soiree at the International House-a night full of cultural activities, food and music. So many housies performed and were amazing! Lots of various drinks from all over the world.

Headed to Heron at 11pm and arrived on the island at 1pm the following day

Saturday September 24th:

Arrived at the island and ate

Snorkeled out to the shipwreck. There we ran into two sharks and a lion fish which can kill you if you touch it. 

Spent the night enjoying the beach and relaxing

Sunday September 25th:

Took a blow-up boat with a motor out to the deep sea in order to snorkel! Afterwards we took a beach walk to see the entire island-jetty, resort, north beach, south beach, shark bay

After lunch we took a reef walk at low tide and walked out amongst all of the various types of corals.

That evening we developed our research projects and took a plankton sample that evening at the jetty

Monday September 26th:

woke up at 5am and went snorkeling for plankton to complete our project. Unfortunately, we changed our project and had to get rid of our plankton. 

We took another boat snorkel early morning and saw 2 huge turtles-a momma and baby!

After lunch at low tide we decided to study christmas tree worms for our project. Christmas tree worms are colorful worms that reside on corals and other hard surfaces. When they sense danger they curl into the tubes of the corals and eventually come back out forming a christmas tree shape. We measured how long it takes for the worms to come back out of their tubes. 

While these christmas tree worms counted as our invertebrates, we decided to compare the reaction times of vertebrates and this afternoon we found 8 gobie fish-little fish that build holes for protection. When they fear danger they hide in their holes-we timed how long it took for them to come back out

That night, we did a night snorkel! so awesome. We didnt many animals but we swam with flashlights and had a really great experience.

Monday September 27th:

Found 12 gobies and measured their fear reaction times

we then presented our projects to the group and were critiqued. after dinner, a few friends and i decided to sneak into the resort on the other side of the island and have a drink-too bad the so called resort was wayyy too small town and a throw back to the 80's. 

Tuesday September 28th:

beach day full of tanning and pretty pictures!

Wednesday September 29th:

Went for a morning snorkel to North Beach and Shark Bay in order to see the shark's feeding! We literally swam with sharks and sting rays and were a foot away! One of the coolest events of mah lyfe.

Then we traveled allllll the way back to IH and arrived at 12:45am-cab was coming for melbourne at 4:45 that morning!

Heron Island: