Finishing up

Today is our last full day in Coral Bay. We're just finishing up our projects and maybe going for a final snorkel. Everyone is relieved to be going back to civilization. It has been rough living like this. It'll be sad saying goodbye to everyone though. We're all going for one last hurrah to the pub tonight. Should be fun. I might steal some of my professor's pictures and put them on facebook. Just so people can get an idea of what we've been seeing. Anyways I have a lot of work to do, but I'll update this again when I arrive back in Perth.

Swimming with mantas

Yesterday we went to swim with manta rays. First we went to a nearby reef and snorkeled. It was very cool because it was almost 100% coral cover. Saw some batfish, lots of blue/green parrotfish, and some people saw sharks. The manta swim was pretty difficult. They drove us up until they saw one and then yelled at us to get in the water. After that we had to swim for our lives to catch up with the ray. I was so tired! But once we caught up with it it slowed down and swam underneath us. I hope the pictures turn out! After that we chased humpback whales for a solid hour. It was very cool. They were about 50 feet from the boat. Some of them breached and others just came up for air. After that we went for one more snorkel and called it a day. It was very awesome!

Kind of a Bummer Day

I got up super early to go see the whale sharks. It was a really long, wet, and bumpy trip out to the open ocean. We stopped at a place where reef sharks go to get their mouths cleaned by little fish. It was very cool after I got over the initial panic of seeing sharks about 2 meters away from me. I think they were a little afraid of us. The tourist were really obnoxious. They floundered around in the water, couldn't even swim well, and scared most of the fish away. One clipped me with their fin because they were too stupid to know that they weren't the only ones in there and had to watch where they were going. We traveled over an hour out to the ocean and then they turned us right around because the wind was picking up too much. Waste of time. At least I got my money back. I bought souvenirs and I'm bummed because I bought tshirts for people and I thought I had the right size but I tried it on and I don't think it is. Hopefully they'll let me exchange it. I didn't take any tags off. Nobody gives out receipts here though.. It is nice to have an extra $400 from the whale shark tour that I can use on souvenirs. Before today I hadn't bought myself anything. Tomorrow is another free day but I'm going to swim with manta rays for most of it. It looks like it might take the whole day. The first group isn't back yet. Everyone I've talked to says that the manta rays are way cooler than whale sharks. They'll swim right up to us apparently. And manta rays are the ones that can reach like 6 meters wingspan. I hope my pictures turn out well!

Almost done with camp :(

Well it's Monday and we leave on Friday or Saturday, not sure which. It's bittersweet because I've really enjoyed all the snorkeling and being in Australia stuff. But again, I hate the tents. I'm started to get annoyed with my group also. We finished up our first project yesterday and it was really frustrating because they wouldn't let me do any of the work. I flew 16,000 miles for this class. I don't appreciate being left out of all the data analysis. They're a little younger than me and pretty immature. But they assume that since I'm American they're much smarter than me. Anyways hopefully they let me participate more in the next project. We went out to collect algae but it was really too deep for us to dive down snorkeling so our instructor had dive gear to go collect it. It was extremely choppy and it was really hard to stay in one place. We kept drifting. We decided to do our other site another day when it's less windy. Last night we had the obligatory viewing of Finding Nemo. Our teacher, Mike, is adorable. He kept acting out parts of the movie. I'm excited to swim with whale sharks tomorrow! It's supposed to be nicer and we have the day off.

Start of Research

Yesterday we started doing our first research project. My group of 3 went snorkeling in Paradise Beach to take pictures of the reef along the beach. We set down a square "quadrat" at intervals along the reef, took a picture of it, and counted the invertebrates. There weren't many in Paradise. A lot of the coral was bleached and overgrown with algae. Today we're going to Five Fingers Beach, where we are promised there will be more life. I'm hoping to see a lot of sea urchins and cucumbers. It's pretty cold this morning. I'm not looking forward to taking those first steps into the water. Once the wetsuit fills up it's not that bad but for a little while its freezing. Last night I tried curry for the first time. Even loaded with chili powder I didn't care for it. Tonight is pizza night so that should be good. I scheduled a whale shark tour for Tuesday morning, bright and early. We get to see them from the boat, but also swim with them. We aren't allowed to get close to them because when they swim they create so much force that it could hurt people. I'm ready for an adventure!

First Days in Coral Bay

Yesterday was our first day here. I really don't like the living situation. I'm in a tent with 5 people, there's sand everywhere, no way to do laundry, no lights in the tents..it's just unpleasant. The weather has also been pretty bad since we've been here. It's too windy. Yesterday was fantastic though. We went snorkeling on Ningaloo Reef. The water was very warm and with the wetsuit I wasn't shivering at all. The coral was just amazing, I've never seen anything like it. Tons of brightly colored fish, sea cucumbers, etc. A green turtle was bobbing around right next to me! I looked down at the reef and noticed another one sitting in the coral looking up at me. A few stingrays swam by me and apparently there were sharks. I didn't get to see any because they were hanging out pretty far away from the boat. I didn't want to stray too far because I was new to snorkeling. I don't have any pictures, but we're going out again so I'll bring my camera. This morning we did a coral identification lab. It's very hard! They all start to look the same after awhile. Later we're going to the pub to hear some band play and just hang out. I'll keep updating this as much as I can, but it's hard because we only have internet at the research facility. Not in the tents, surprisingly.

Day 3

Today was our first day of class. We got up earlier so that Russ could introduce us to his boss and he brought breakfast for us. Class was very interesting. Our professors, Mike, is a very funny guy. He likes Hawaiian shirts. He went over a lot of things that I already knew, concerning currents and ekman transport, but I hadn't learned some of the things about the Australian currents. We got out early, so we got our snorkeling gear (wetsuit, fins, boots, mask, snorkel) and got lunch. Then we went back to Fremantle to see it during the day. I wanted to do some shopping but nobody else wanted to so that was kind of a bummer. I don't know when I'm going to buy souvenirs because there aren't any places to do that in Coral Bay. I haven't bought anything for myself yet. Later that night we went out to downtown Perth to some restaurant. Some of us were tired and went back after that.

Day 2

After a rough night of waking up at odd hours, we all met up to go to the Caversham Wildlife Park. It was sort of a fun ride because we went way out of the city and saw a bit of the remoteness of the "bush." The park was a lot like a zoo, except all the animals were found in Australia. Petting the kangaroos was sooo awesome but they were very domesticated. We might see some wild ones once we go up to Coral Bay. The koalas were cute too, but they were too big to hold. Someday..I'll hold one. After that we went back to Murdoch. We went to Fremantle at night to see some of the bars and walk around. We went to one bar/restaurant called "Little Creatures" which was very loud, very crowded, but a lot of fun. I ordered my first alcoholic beverage, being of the legal drinking age there. I tried kangaroo meat, which was very tender and tasted a lot like steak. It was good. After that we walked around more. We stuck our feet in the Indian Ocean and walked aimlessly around an old prison, hoping for some "Ghost Hunters: International" moments. We caught the bus back to Murdoch and got some pizza. Went to bed early.

Day 1 in Perth

We arrived in Perth around 11 am on Saturday. The program coordinator, Russ, was there to meet us. There are only 9 American students taking this class, but there will be around 15 Australians taking it as well. A few students lost their luggage but thankfully I was not one of them. Russ drove us to Murdoch Village (in a sketchy van) where we would be staying. On the way he pointed out several landmarks and we got to see the Perth city skyline. We all got our keys and were assigned rooms. There are two guys living in my flat with me. Corey is Australian and he is from somewhere in the South. Mark is from China- he doesn't talk much. It is fairly cold in Perth and is rainy most of the day. The rooms only have space heaters which heat about a 6 inch radius around them. Luckily we were given a lot of blankets. We went to the shopping mall/grocery store to get anything we needed. We also went to get lunch/dinner at Chicken Treat, which is a pretty horrible version of KFC. It wasn't great but we were all hungry. Then we went back and were allowed to do our own thing until 7. I chatted with Corey for awhile and unpacked. At 7, we all met and had pizza. Then we went to hang out with some other Murdoch students which was fun. We all went to bed early. I fell asleep at 8:45ish.