Hey everybody…or whoever is still reading this blog after weeks of silence. Yay, things have been very busy, considering I’m half way through my semester! OMG!!!! These past couple of week have been running me ragged I’ve had to write 3 3,000+ word papers and several exams. Blech! I’ve also been on and off sick, must be due to the campus, they are a breeding ground for travel savvy germs.
But enough about that, on to fun stuff. I finally went diving! We left the marine at 6:30 am to start the 3 hour trek to a nearby reef. You would think that you would run into reef if you swam from shore, nope. There are a bunch of ecological reasons why its out this far, but I won’t bore you. Plus 3 hours is relatively close by Aussie standards. On the way there we saw whales! This pair of humpback whales were hanging out at the surface and they were huge!!!! We slowed down to watch them, much to the befuddlement of everyone else on the deck. Diving for the first time in two years was, nerve wracking I’ll admit. I thought I’d forget everything and I’d do something really stupid. Except for my initial decent, everything went awesomely! I had problems trying to sink to the bottom. I am very buoyant plus the thick dry wetsuit wasn't helping. When I finally reached the bottom and looked around it finally hit me that after years of reading and staring at glossy photos of fish and reading about reefs I was diving on the largest and most species diverse reef network in the world. I was in full-blown geek mode. The water drag reduced my happy dance to a slow panoramic twirl. I had two dives with my dive buddy, one of the dive masters. She swam a bit too fast, but other than that it was great. All the fish were so colorful and the coral was stunning! The coral looked like statues but so alive at the same time.
Look I found Nemo and Martin! (Not really, they are clownfish just not the same species)
I didn’t see anything big, but that's the best part about the ocean, its dynamic and its never the same experience twice. We did get to see clownfish and spotted stingrays. (On a side note the dive signal for clownfish is an open palm with your thumb touching your nose and a spotted stingray is laying your hand flat and pointing at different places to indicate spots). My favorite was when we were swimming out in the open; all of a sudden this huge white stingray lifts off out of the sand and swam away. It was wonderful.
Unfortunately after the trip I got sick, fever, colds etc. and then midterm assignments hit like textbooks falling out of a messy locker, inevitable and painful. (Trust me, I would know). I haven’t been doing much since except homework. Oh, and I joined my GR (George Robert’s) choir group, we had a competition last week, yay!!!! It was so much fun. All of the dorms competed in various musical groups. Our group sung the “4 Chord Song” by the Axis of Awesome. (I’m tagged in a clip of our performance). We didn’t win, but we had so much fun doing it we didn’t care.
After all the stress of the past couple of weeks I finally had a chance to swim in the river after the chaos of this week. There is a river just a short walk away from my dorm and its big, deep and has a dock. It was relaxing to just hang out with friends and goof around for a bit because this week is lecture recess!!! This is Australia’s equivalent to spring break, but until back home classes can use this to set up week long field trips. My coral reef class is one such case. I’m spending 4 days on Orpheus Island taking coral surveys. Sounds boring, but think about it. I’m gonna be on a non-touristy island, with friends, on a beach, snorkeling on a reef all day…*faints from joy*. I thrive on research and doing this is unique experience. After that I’ll be going down to Whitsundays for a few days of fun in the sun! Until then!
