Ant Licker

The last four days have been spent on Orpheus Island. Its this little island 30 minutes off shore. No one is on the island except for the research center and the hollywood like resort. So for the most part it typically feels like a deserted island. On the first day we went for an exploration through the mangrove forest on the island. We climbed over, up and under the propped roots of the mangrove trees until we finally reached the watery shores of the ocean. It was like the most intense obstacle course/jungle gym of all time!

 Orpheus is an unusually unique island for it has a mangrove forest and a fringing coral reef. The two are rarely ever present on the same island location. We have been learning a lot about this during lecture. We also learned about crocs and sharks too this week. It was really interesting like how sharks actually have 7 senses when they track their prey. That's just plain crazy! I mean now I know that I don't want to mess with them.

Well now for the highlight of the trip to Orpheus Island. I would like to start by saying I licked an ant's butt and I liked it...a lot. In fact it tasted like lemons. How & why did I lick an ant you asked? Well I'll tell you. It all started during that field work adventure that I was talking about earlier through the mangrove forest. All of sudden Glen stopped and looked at a vine. Then the next thing we knew he had little green tree ants crawling up his arm. Glen then looked at us and said, "Who's ready to lick an ant's butt?" Naturally I decided to volunteer so did the rest of the class. I mean wouldn't you? How many times would you ever get to do that??? As a result after I finally caught one off Glen's arm (those little guys are fast) I licked it and WALAH lemons. YUMMMMMMMmmmm! I guess the aboriginals use to them for candy and to make flavored water. Nowadays people are using them for ice cream.

I liked these ants so much we actually decided to do our research on them. They are also known by the name of weaver ants because they weave nests from leaves and the silk of their larvae. We wanted to see if we increased the size of the colony within in the tank if they would build an additional nest to accommodate for the increased colony member size. At first they tried to add another leaf to one of the nests but because they are territorial no one would let them move in. There was a bit of aggression amongst the ants too. Eventually after the experiment they did build a nest which was pretty cool.

We also went snorkeling a lot and saw tons of fringing coral reef. We also saw some of the damage done to the coral reef by Cyclone Yasi. There were more beautiful fish everywhere. Then I swam ashore to one of the beaches and with the help of some of the guys knocked coconuts down from the tree with a giant log. Then I cracked mine open after much effort on a log and a rock. It was really difficult to get the green part of the coconut open. Cracking the brown part was easy though. Then I broke it open finally and drank the sweet coconut water as it drizzled down my chin. I then ate the flesh inside. At this point though I stabbed the coconut shell through my hand. I think I may be the only person in existence that was injured by a coconut. They were delicious. After the coconut fiasco we went snorkeling again over some GIANT and I mean giant clams. They were the biggest things I've ever seen.

During the trip I also saw lots of green tree frogs. In fact one lived in the frame of our door. I also found a viper and held it. It felt so cool having its muscles contract in my hands. Overall it was a fun time minus the attack of the ants and the spider the size of an orange.

Off to Cairns and the rainforest tomorrow.

Me with the Viper

Orpheus island

Coral from the Snorkeling Trip

Snorkeling Trip

Hanging at Heron

On Wednesday after a 2 hour and ten minute ferry ride, we arrived on Heron Island. Funny thing about Heron Island is there are NO herons on Heron Island. Let’s talk about a misnomer. We are here doing more research projects at the research station. For starters there is no internet or cell phone service here so we are all going cold turkey on this technology withdrawal. But we’ll manage to tough it out somehow. There’s always the turquoise water and pinkish, white sand to enjoy.

Although I mentioned earlier that there were no herons on Heron Island, I’m afraid that I might have mislead you that their were no birds. Now that would be lie. There were birds here and they are terrirtorally mean. One actually bit me trying to get my cookie. Another one actually stole my friend Kristens PB&J sandwich right out of her hand. They just literally come out of no where. One day we will escape these darn birds. I’m seriously thinking Hitchcock took a trip to Aussie and then was inspired to make The Birds. They are evil I tell you. Evil.

Anyways enough of that…the island is on a coral cay. It’s surrounded by the Great Barrier Reef. The vegetation here is very tropical almost like a rainforest. The sand itself like I mentioned before is white and has bits of pink coral mixed in. We spent a lot of the time on the beach here when we weren’t doing research projects. However we did end up going for more reef walks and did a great deal of field work in the ocean.

I ended up working in a group with Jessica and Anna for this group project. We decided to do a study on the location and abundance of various sea cucumber species based on sediment type and coral coverage. It basically ended up as us going into the ocean with our neoprene booties and measure out a 20 by 20 meter square with the transect down the middle. We then counted and recorded the number of sea cucumbers there. We also took a sediment sample and measure the coral coverage that was found across the transect. Overall doing this project was really fun. We even discovered a new species “Sticopus brillus” on Heron Island. It has a sudsy bubble defense when irritated instead of the usual cucumber use of cubanian tubulues. It also eats the detritus off plates instead of sediment. Similar to Holthoteria leucospilota it covers its skin in this detritus as a form of camouflage. And for those of you who haven’t figured it out yet we discovered this sea cucumber in Wendy’s sink in the kitchen.

Throughout our stay on Heron Island we went on a series of snorkeling expeditions. During these we saw so many different things like sea turtles, barracuda, sharks, manta ray and miraculously colored tropical fish. We even went for a night dive, which was pretty awesome. I was so nervous once I put on my wet suit though and realized that I had to go into the water! We tied pink glow sticks around our wrists with elastic bands so that we would stand out in the water. We saw so many amazing things. The rays were directly below us when we swam under the jetty. We also went snorkeling over by the wreck. I went inside it. It was just surreal.

I also had to opportunities to go diving on the island. This was pretty fantastic because we were diving right on the Great Barrier Reef. On the first dive I was a little bit rusty and had trouble controlling my buoyancy, but that second dive…WOW….it was like being on the set of Finding Nemo. Just too fabulous. I saw clownfish swimming in the anemone. A giant see turtle was only inches away looking at me. Then there were the dory fish, parrot fish, little blue neon fish and just so much more. Then after one of the dives when the boat pulled back into the harbor, turtle eggs were hatching: right in the middle of the day. This is something that almost never happens. So we went down to the sand and watched the turtles crawl out of their eggs then trek across the sand to the water. It was fun to help the turtles find their way to the water.

Overall Heron Island was both a beautiful and amazing experience. I can’t wait to find out what else this trip has in store for me.

Sand Sledding & Cliff Sliding

The last few days have been quiet fantastic since we had left Straddie. On Monday we went to Noosa National Park. Like most everything else here in Aussie it was simply stunning. I walked through many of the trails and I felt like I was going through a tropical rainforest. The plants and other fauna on either side of the path felt out of this world. I also noticed many of the plants we had been discussing in lecture there such as Casoptera (sort of like this Australian Pine Tree). There were more dolphins at this little look out called Dolphin Point. After walking for a while I headed over the to the beach where most of the group was. Then I went for a swim. The water was wonderfully warm. We ended up spending the night is the little town called Tin Can Bay. We walked to the convenient store that night and bought Tim Tams. They were totally delish. I had black forest flavor with little bits of fruit inside.

On Tuesday we kicked off the awesomeness by heading over to the harbor at Tin Can Bay. There we waited for a wild dolphin to swim into the harbor. The family of dolphins had been coming there since the 1950s when the community nursed an injured dolphin back to health. So there we waited, hoping we too would be able to witness this event. Eventually 20-year-old Mystic swam right up to the shore in the harbor. He was absolutely stunning. We all gazed in awe for a few moments, until the rangers invited the audience to step right into the water beside the beautiful, silvery dolphin. Then I got to feed the dolphin fish. It was a wonderful experience to be able to have the opportunity to feed a wild dolphin. He literally gobbled the fish right out of my hand. I guess they only feed the dolphin about a kilo of the 25+ kilos of food it will eat in one day that way it still remains independent. It’s pretty cool. The government is now discouraging such actions in other areas of Australia but they still allow the community of Tin Can Bay to feed the dolphins because of the history and tradition that rests behind it.

Afterwards we headed over to Rainbow Beach. It was beautiful with many different shades of colored sand. We made a trek through this path until we arrived at the sand dune. It was gianormous. It stretched about 100 meters off of the ground. We saw boogie boards along the side of it. Glen our instructor explained that people slide down the dunes similar to sledding in the States. So a group of us ran up the sand dune. It was quite a ways up and my legs were burning by the time I reached the top of the steep incline. Then I ended up rolling all the way down the side of the dune on my side. I tumbled for a while until I finally reached the bottom. I was unbelievably dizzy. Then we walked to the edge of a very tall cliff and looked over Rainbow Beach. To my surprise there was no staircase down. Instead in order to get to the beach we had to SLIDE down this 200-meter cliff. It was crazy. I got so much sand all over me and inside my clothes. It was totally an adrenaline rush.

Once we got down to the beach, the water was turquoise and the sand was multicolored. It was gorgeous. We then went for a swim and sun bathed a bit.  Then after a while Pete, Lauren, Kristen, Jordan, and I had gotten hungry and decided to head into the little township. We walked for about 30 minutes across the massive sandy beach and up a windy road until we finally reached the little town.

We ate at this cute little restaurant in town. I got fish & chips again with a passion fruit soda yum! Except we had to pay 30 cents for each packet of ketchup and those who know me know that they made quite the pretty penny that day. All in all the food was great though. Then we went to some cute little shops and bought post cards. Then I ended this awesomeness with Tiramisu & Nutella gelato. Best thing ever like legit!

 Yay for a fabulous adventure.

Later, mates!