Lizard, Part Two.

The much-awaited-next-blog-entry! Sorry I haven’t been keeping up, but since I’d given you a taste of Lizard Island, I decided to postpone the blog entries until I got a few things organized! Right now I’m in Townsville, Australia, getting to work on my Independent Study Project on sea turtles.

But first, the rest of Lizard. The end of the trip was much the same as what I described in the previous blog entry. We got up every morning to snorkel. After Darren accidentally ran over a buoy with the large boat and broke the propeller, we had to take three smaller boats out to the various reefs. Every morning, we visited Watson’s Bay, where we collected data for our marine field project. We had to choose two fish species of the same family and observe their abundance among several transects along the reef for the first several days; then we did focal observations on those fish. We were to observe how similar fish species share resources or compete for them within reef ecosystems. Megan (my snorkel buddy) and I observed two species of rabbitfish: Foxface rabbitfish (Siganus vulpinus) and Blue spinefoot (Siganus puellus). The foxface rabbitfish are almost always found in pairs because they mate for life. We collected data on underwater paper, and we wore our stinger suits every day, of course. After our morning snorkel, (and after drying off by lying in the sun on the bottom of the boats), we would go back to the research station for morning tea (bikkies with Nutella and lots of cordial), and then Darren would give us our morning lecture. Darren is currently doing his Ph.D. on how coral bleaching affects reef fish communities.

After morning lecture, we’d have lunch. This was the first time we almost always had left-overs for lunch, which was really a relief, because every day on the rainforest and camping trips we had the same sandwiches. These sandwiches were still an option, of course, but it was very refreshing to have something new to eat. (By new, of course, I mean old, because they were left-overs.) After lunch, we had about two hours to lie in the sun on the beach. It was the most relaxing part of the day, except for the sand flies. We’d meet back on the beach again each afternoon for our second snorkel of the day. These snorkels were more relaxing, because we didn’t need to do any data collection. We were able to explore much more, because we weren’t focused on a single species. We went to reefs along the lagoon, Horseshoe Reef, Clam Gardens, and Mermaid Lagoon. At some places, like Clam Gardens, we could swim to the beach when we finished our snorkel and relax there before we headed back to the station.

We had the rest of the day free to do research on our fish species, work in our Natural History Field Notebooks, and of course, to watch the sunset. I watched them religiously. It was just like at New College, when I would walk down to the bay every evening and spend an hour or more watching the sun go down and the sky change colors. Some of the nights we had barbecues on the beach beneath the stars. We went swimming in the ocean a few times without stinger suits; the water was the perfect temperature.

We saw many more sharks after our first encounter: most were black-tip reef sharks, but we also saw white-tip reef sharks and a tawny nurse shark, which was at least twice the size of me and swam directly beneath us. I saw four green sea turtles. The last one that I saw was just eating some sea grass near the shore. She just sat there eating and didn’t seem to be scared of me at all, even when I touched her shell. Angie and I ended up spending at least twenty minutes with her. We pet her head and held her flippers, and she even ate some sea grass out of my hand! It was the coolest experience ever. We also saw several sting rays, two octopuses (octopi?), an eel, and of course hundreds of different reef fish and corals. There were giant clams that I would have fit inside. We would touch their lips and try to get them to shut, and when they did, they would expel a ton of debris which then would attract many fish to the spot to eat it. If you were swimming above one of the clams when it shut, you could feel a rush of air coming up as it closed. One of the spookiest things we saw were the skeletons of giant clams: just their enormous shells, vacant and covered with algae and corals.

On our last day at Lizard Island, we climbed to the top of Cook’s Look. It’s where James Cook climbed to try to find a way to get his ship past the reef. The top was also an Aboriginal ceremony site for male initiations. It was a great hike, and the view was spectacular. It was nice to be able to hike without worrying about leeches! There wasn’t too much wildlife on the actual island except for a few birds and the goannas. On our last day, we were cleaning out the kitchen and emptying food into the compost bin. We opened the bin to find out that a goanna had tunneled its way into the bottom of the bin! A few goannas kept stealing bananas and avacados, but they would just carry them out, realize they didn’t actually want to eat such things, and leave them lying in the bushes.

It was hard to leave Lizard, because the chances that we’d ever be back are very, very slim. It’s also sad to leave the Great Barrier Reef – because if I ever have the chance to come back down here, it’s quite possible that the reef won’t be there anymore. It’s predicted to be destroyed by 2050 due to climate change.

We were able to take a larger plane back to Cairns instead of three tiny planes. On the way back, we flew over the reef that Steve Irwin died on.

Back in Cairns, we had a day to write up our marine field papers. The rest of the week was spent doing work: our final essay, our ISP proposals, our exams, and our field notebooks. It was an exhausting week of work, and we also had to make our plans for ISP. It was strange to say goodbye to everyone in the group—we’d been together every day for two months, so it was a bit disconcerting to recognize the fact that we’d be apart for the rest of the semester until we meet back in Cairns at the end of ISP.

I’m actually not alone on ISP: Geneveve and I are both in Townsville, about four hours south of Cairns. I am studying sea turtles and Geneveve is studying sharks. It’s nice to be with someone else. Geneveve is also a vegetarian, so it makes cooking dinner fun and easy. We are staying at a backpacker’s hostel right in town. I will write more about Townsville and ISP soon!