An Underwater Experience

On Wednesday, our group spent the whole day at the Reef HQ. During the day we learned about all the different types of fish and coral. The different types of coral could be soft, massive,hard, branches, and more. One thing I enjoyed about the afternoon was the dive show. I liked seeing the diver in the tank swim with a turtle. I thought that was so cool because I think turtles are so amazing and different. One thing I learned was that coral is actually an animal. When the aquarium closed we got to go behind the scenes and have a night tour. There was saw how fish slept at night and we also got to see a sick turtle. The turtle was about 30-40 years old and was dying. I thought that was so sad. After that it was off to bed for a very very early morning, the plus side was we got to sleep in the aquarium.

The morning started off at 4:00 in the morning. I felt dead. I was way to tired to go anywhere. But I manged to get up and have a nice ferry ride to Orpheus Island. This was probably the BEST part of this trip. The island is just so beautiful. I like it so much because I don't have beaches and an ocean back home.. The air is so fresh and the sand is soft! The first thing we did was have our morning snorkel. When we got into the water I was terrified of hitting myself on dome poisonous coral. As I walked into the water I got cut on a piece of coral. The pain was excruciating. It stung so bad, but I still went on. I finally got out to the deeper part and me and Shea started to find our fishes. We had to find two butterfly and two parrot. As we were following a big butterfly fish I noticed the beautiful colors of the reefs.

After an hour or so we went and had some lunch and then it was back in the water. This time we got to go out on a boat so there were no more cuts. I actually liked it better out there because it was deeper. The deeper the better. My group finished our assignment as quick as we could. We each had to measure out 50 meters and at each meter look what type of coral was underneath the tape measure. My favorite part of the day was when we finished our assignment because I got to take of my flipper and snorkel and swim in open deep water. I love swimming so I had a blast. I had so much fun jumping off the boat into the water. As the day ended everyone was getting tired. So it was off to bed. Only think 3 days left!!! :( :) It's good and bad. C ya soon!

Go Bananas!

We started the day off with a wake up call at 6:30 and we had to be packed up and left at 7:45. We had a nice little ride to the banana farm. On the way there we got to see beautiful nature. When we got to the banana farm we were treated with a delicious snack of different cakes and pastry. Then we hopped onto a tractor and rode around looking at the banana trees. One thing that really surprised me is that a banana is actually a flower. It starts off in a leaf and as the leaf opens up the small banana flower start to grow. Some bananas can grow 10 inches long as for others can grow much much larger. After the tractor ride we went to the factory were the bananas get washed and processed. That ended our banana experience.

The second thing was take a 3 hour bus ride to the Reef HQ. There we got an introduction to what we are going to be doing the next 3 days. One thing that I was completely shocked about was the Great Barrier Reef is the size of 75 million soccer fields. How crazy is that!?! I also learned that coral is an animal, I always thought it was a plant.