Our class went on a 3 day field trip to JCU's research station and I can't even begin to describe my time out at Orpheus Island, best Easter holiday ever. Hour bus ride and hour ferry transport got us there in no time, even if it was a little bumpy and stormy along the way. After loading all of our bags and equipment onto the research vessel, we finally set out for the island.
For once, I didn't get motion sick, not even in the slightest. It's the little victories along the way that really shape our success. To be fair, it might've been because I was too distracted by the gorgeous scenery and making sure my camera lens didn't get (roughly) kissed by an ocean wave ( I certainly took a few hits that had me shivering). Getting to the island was a little choppy, but paired with some awesome company, it was easy to get distracted.
First day on the island, we had a safety briefing as well as setting the stage for all of the activities that we would be doing. As soon as we were done with that and had a quick lesson on coral IDing, we were ready to get in the water.
The rest of the day was spent in the water getting familiar with all of the different corals (including making sure we could ID our own coral for our independent projects) as well as taking measurements that accounted for size of our colonies, bleaching percentage and how competitive our species were for our individual coral projects.
Now this is the part where I talk about the corals. I've decided corals are what I love, even if they're so complicated to understand. I'm sure most of you have heard about the mass bleaching event that has been terrorizing the reef and the news lately. For anybody who doesn't know what bleaching is, it is the expelling of the photosynthetic algae from the coral tissues (zooxanthellae are essential to the survival of the coral for food and growth reasons).
Unfortunately, it was pretty bad. Soft corals got hit the hardest while the hard corals were for the most part ok and nobody knows why. It was certainly interesting to be there during this critical time.
My coral happens to be Sinularia sp, a soft coral who got hit pretty hard by the bleaching and unfortunately, didn't look so great ( based on the algae cover we took note of, there were quite a few that had extensive algae covering them). It was disheartening to see the large bleached patches as we were swimming around, hopefully they will recover enough to be able to regain their zooxanthellae .
During this assessment time, I ran into my own little problem that made it a little difficult for me to see. My eyes decided to act up and swelled to maybe twice their size from all of the zooplankton and bacteria in the water, as well as the constant irritation from the sun and wind. So naturally, I got a nice little nickname of "puffy" from my teachers for the remainder of the trip.
Better yet was when I asked how bad it was and everyone's only response was cringing and shaking their head ( it was pretty funny though). It's as if the level of cringe was a direct correlation to the amount of discomfort I might've been experiencing ( it looked way worse than it felt). Thankfully, a little beer, company and water helped the swelling go down by the end of the night.
Day two of our little expedition began with us designing our own experiment
and taking to the field with our measuring tools, clipboard and determination.
Lucia (my partner) and I breezed through our experiment after ironing out an effective method for laying down the transect lines. Of course, taking a break on the barge with the nutritional help of tim tams
was certainly a major part in our overall success of the day.
This time, I made sure to firmly secure my mask on my face and to not take it off in the water but at the cost of having these lovely indents left on my face from the contours of my mask. It seems, that I just couldn't get it right.
BUT GUESS WHO'S EYES STAYED THE SAME SIZE.
That's right, this girl's did.
Once again, it's the little victories in life that matter the most muahaha.
Day three began with my friend and I waking up at 5am to go stand in the mangroves to try to spot some baby black tip reef sharks. To our utmost delight, we spotted three! Such a peaceful way to start the day, I couldn't have been happier. The rest of the morning was spent organizing our gear to put on the boat as well as cleaning up the mess we made in the kitchen and rooms ( it was actually pretty clean). After that, it was a quick boat ride in and bus ride to JCU. As soon as I got home,my gear got dumped on the floor and my head hit the pillow. Best. Nap. Ever.
All in all, it was an amazing trip and I look forward to whatever the future has in store for me.
(Below is a quick video showing what we did out there!)
