On Thursday March 7th, we woke up early to leave Bungalow Bay/Magnetic Island. After stripping the sheets and cleaning up the room, I came out to grab some breakfast before getting on the bus. The bus and the ferry rides was nice and short which I appreciated because it didn’t give enough time for me to get motion sickness. After getting off from the ferry and grabbing all of our luggages, we moved on foot to Reef HQ. With carrying everything over on a very hot day, it felt like a long journey. It felt longer than 5 minutes, and by the time I reached Reef HQ, I was covered in sweat. BUT! That wasn’t even the best part yet haha. Once we arrived, we had to carry everything up to the upper floor by hand, which involved carrying my suitcase, duffle bag, and backpack which was almost 100 pounds. It was SO HEAVY! I thought I wouldn’t make it to the top. Although I could’ve chosen the easy road of asking other people to help me carry it up like others did, I didn’t want to give up yet. Although it made me be more sweaty and out of breathe than ever, I was able to successfully carry everything to the top! (Whoooo)

The day at the Reef HQ started with splitting up into smaller groups and going through rotational activities throughout the place. My group started with the Creature Feature Workshop. It was so fascinating because it was a hand on type of activity in which we were able to touch different sea life, such as a sea star (starfish), sea cucumber, shark egg, and shrimps. It was my first time pretty much touching any of those, and it was such a cool experience. After the touching activities, we were able to observe some of them under a microscope. We first saw a sea star under the microscope. Although it just looked like a regular sea star, its arms had small tentacle like things coming out of it that could help sense where the food was at. We also were able to see a stingray’s sword like sting, which was so fascinating because it was such a delicate work of art. Although it just looked like a toothpick with just bare eyes, when observed under a microscope, it showed each stings on the stick. It looked like a condensed Christmas tree that could cause serious damage (experience of this to be continued in Journal 13).

The second rotational activity was Turtle Hospital and Behind the Scenes Tour. We got to see the office part of Reef HQ and how it functioned as an aquarium. We were able to see some workers and researchers and all the scientific equipments used in order to identify and distinguish any difference in the tanks. Afterwards, we headed to the Turtle Hospital. I got to meet a turtle named Nat; it was at hype of green sea turtle, also known as Chelonia Mydas. As it was still young of age 15-20, it did not have a specific gender yet. Nat has been with Reef HQ since late October/early November of 2018 due to being malnourished and not floating. Although it took some time for Nat to recover, it has been in good hands getting the proper treatment that it needed. Nat is almost fully healed now and will be able to be released in the next couple of days. While we were looking at Nat and hearing the descriptions, it came up couple times to the surface to get some air. Every time it came up to get air, it would start swimming slowly towards the surface. Once it swam for enough to take its head out of the water, it would open the mouth and close it and then go back to the water. Nat came out so many times facing towards me, and I got to watch this happen right in front of me — it was such a cool experience.

After a quick lunch break (I got a lamb kebab and also a gelato yum ), we started our third rotational activity of Reef Diversity Tour. We got to see various different type of fishes, sharks, and reefs throughout this. It was so cool to see different type of sea animals such as a sea snake, since it’s not something that we can observe easily even when we’re out in the water. Finally, we wrapped up the rotational activities by doing Living Systems Presentation and Behind the Scenes. We first started out with a PowerPoint presentation of explanation of the Great Barrier Reef, how big it is, how it is conserved, and how it was related to different group of sea life, people, tourism, etc. It was fascinating to learn about this as we will be spending a whole week in Heron Island, which is part of the Great Barrier Reef. I appreciated having a background knowledge of what I will be able to experience for the next week. Afterwards, we went outside to observe some corals and how they do different tastings to see what the most optimal living situation it has. We also got to see a baby crocodile, which was really cool! After the rotational activities, we had an another presentation of Introduction to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park in which we were able to further learn about the different biodiversity that exist in the GBR. We were able to learn the importance of conservation of the reef’s biodiversity and what actions have been taken to ensure this essential process.

After leaving Reef HQ, we checked into our accommodation at Quest. It was such a nice place, and lucky for me and my roommates, we had the whole apartment to just 4 people (unlike other people who had 6 people in their apartment). After grabbing groceries, I cooked spaghetti for dinner for me and Brian (little bit of unfortunate event of me buying plain tomato sauce instead of flavored tomato paste — to my defense, the wrapper was very misleading. It was still okay but could’ve been better haha). I spent the rest of the night studying as I had an MSE test the following morning.

Friday was more so a chill day once classes were done. I spent the day doing laundry and repacking, went out to get paintbrushes for the service day in Fiji, went out to dinner at a Indian restaurant (and ended up getting absolutely soaked on the way back due to the pouring rain), and finished my day by talking to my sister. On Saturday, we woke up at 4 to check out and be on the road by 4:25. It was such a rough morning because I didn’t fall asleep until 1 am. Once we got to the airport and checked out luggages in and boarded on the plane, I passed out the moment we disengaged from the gate and didn’t wake up a single time until we landed. Once we got to Brisbane, we grabbed some breakfast to eat (I got some Krispy Kreme which was very yummy). The second flight was about the same as the first flight in which I fell asleep as soon as we boarded and stayed asleep until the end of the flight. After getting on the coach to the ferry terminal, we stopped briefly for a lunch break at Macca’s (McDonald’s). I got some chicken nuggets and fries and ice lemonade to cool myself on such a hot day. It was a nice little break on our busy travel day. Little while later, we finally boarded the ferry to get to Heron Island. In preparation of the motion sickness, I took some ginger pills to help the process. The ride was pretty rocky from the start, but I was able to do okay and read some book and eventually fall asleep. About 2.5 hours in, I woke up feeling awful. Before it got worse, I went upstairs out to the deck area to get some fresh air. Although it helped enough so that I didn’t have to throw up, it still didn’t help with the nausea and made me feel absolutely terrible. I was just zoning out in a seat trying to recover while couple people walked up to me to check on me. Although I couldn’t see the island when we first entered because I couldn’t stand up, once we landed, I realized how blue the ocean was and how pretty everything was here. I was so excited for the next 7 days on the island.