Life on the M/V Floreat

The days on the boat have been full of learning new things and and seeing the amazing GBR. We have seen white sided dolphins swimming along side us, schools of silver tipped reef sharks, Hawksbill and green sea turtles, manta rays, cow rays, travallies, tons of little fish, coral, invertebrates, schools of squid, a 4 foot long Napoleon wrasse and we even got to swim with a manta ray!



Woody and I have become pros at laying out and rolling up the transects tapes while diving to mark our research sites and Giovannina has been taking a million photos underwater and above.


In the evenings after dinner we all sit around and usually watch a movie or play Zilch - a new dice game they taught us. We also got a chance after diving the other day to go "Skurfing" (it's like water skiiing but with a surf board) it was the flattest day we had on the water and perfect for learning. Giovannina got up on her first try - all those years of skiing at Clear Lake paying off.


After 10 days at sea, we had to return to Cairns to resupply the boat with provisions and swap out one of our science crew. This gave us a chance to put our wobbly sea legs back on land and go out to dinner with the group. Using the excuse of land-sickness, Giovannina had already fallen off her chair before she drank two beers. It was at that point, as she stared up at the trees, that we knew it would be a fun evening.

Sitting at the marina bar as the sun set over the mountains, giant fruit bats swarmed overhead. We thought this was really something, but the Aussies just said, "Yeah, they do that every night." The next day we saw all the bats sleeping and making a racket in the trees right in downtown Cairns - they are huge.

After drinks, we attempted to find a restaurant recommended by Kate. Unfortunately, our group split up and the two of us and Alistair were left behind and had no idea where we were going. Wandering through Cairns Alistair called Kate, but accidentally got his friend Ed in Perth and took the opportunity to catch up with him as you do on a good drunk dial.


After a nice walk, Alistair got directions and we found the restaurant. It was a fabulous Balinese place - we were served our food on a miniature charcoal grill and the desserts were yummy! On the walk back to the boat, we found a tree full of roosting birds. We stood under the tree wondering what kind of birds they were. Kerryn, always the biologist, thought they were loroketes and to test her theory decided to throw her flip-flop into the tree. It seemed like a good idea at the time. The flip-flop went up but didn't come down. So under the urgings of the rest of us, she threw the other one to knock out the first one. Needless to say, Kerryn walked home shoeless. We later deduced that the birds must have been swallows - Australian tree shoe swallows.


The next day Bluey flew back to Townsville and Mike flew in to join us. We headed back out onto the reef for more diving.

Unfortunately, Woody's head cold lingered and his clogged sinuses meant he had to take a week off from diving. But Giovannina got to dive every day, which she loved and we all enjoyed the company and companionship of life on the M/V Floreat.

Australia - Research on the Great Barrier Reef

We landed in Australia on February 13th - loosing the twelfth in the air as we crossed the international date line - and boarded a plane for Townsville, where we got a room and slept for about 14 hours as soon as we crawled into bed.

On Valentines Day we had a SCUBA "induction" (an interview and checking of all of our paper work to clear us for working with The Australian Institute of Marine Science (AIMS.) We were approved after about 6 hours of phone calls, questions and looking over our papers. Not the most pleasant introduction to a new country, but necessary all the same.


On the 15th we got up early - Alistair (the researcher we are working with) picked us up and we went to the airport to catch a plane to Cairns. In Cairns we met our captain and loaded the research boat with all of our gear (for the next three weeks) and headed out to the Great Barrier Reef - They call it the GBR here.
Alistair (Woodys Dive buddy)
Bluey (Giovanninas Dive Buddy)
There are six of us on the research team - Alistair and Ian are the Fish guys, Kerryn and Kate are the coral and benthic girls and me and Woody are the volunteers. We do whatever we are told. In addition to the six science folks, there is also an excellent cook, Lea, (who keeps us all stuffed), and the captain on our boat, Marcus, who's been sailing these waters for over 35 years.

On the boat, there are two people to a room which means me and woody got our own room - what a treat to have some privacy while working on a boat for three weeks.

Everyone is really nice and the mood is pretty easy going. However, even though we all speak English - though none of us are English - we feel like we have to say "What?" more here than we did in South America. The Aussie accent and words sometimes make the conversations hard to follow. Woody is keeping a journal of new Aussie words, including "Clucky", a term used to describe someone who wants to settle down and get comfortable - a nesting behavior, I guess. Slowly we are getting better and maybe by the end of the trip we will have a little Aussie in us ;-)

A rainy day out diving.
The first day of the trip was beautiful but then the wind and rain hit and blew in very large seas for the next several days. It's been hard keeping down the great food but Lea doesn't stop feeding us - she is wonderful.

Even though the seas have been high and the team complains, they keep saying "it's been worse" and we have moved forward with our work. We dive three times a day and then do "Manta Tows" in the afternoon. Below the water you wouldn't know the seas were so big the reef slows down the surge and it is beautiful.

Our daily schedule is:
7:00 Breakfast
8:00 Load the small boats
8:30 on the reef getting ready for first dive
10:30 Getting ready for the second dive
12:30 Back to the "mother ship" for Lunch and to fill tanks
13:30 Load the small boats for the afternoon dive and Manta Tow
14:00 Third dive
15:00 Manta Tows - A Manta Tow is when we pull one of the researchers behind the small boats on a line as they snorkel and take down data.
17:30 Back to the mother ship
18:30 Dinner
20:00 go to bed ;-)

Repeat. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

More details on our life at sea to follow. To see some photos from our time on the Great Barrier Reef, check out our web album.

...and back to Pichilemu

Before leaving Chile we wanted a couple of days to rest before our 18 hour plane ride to Australia. So we caught an all-night bus from Ancud, Chiloe to Santiago and looked for places to chill for our last few days in South America (Feb 9 - 11).

We thought about just hanging out in Santiago, but as soon as we got there the yellow, smog-filled sky urged us to keep moving. We wanted to head into the mountains for one more dip in a natural Andean hotspring, but the Chilean Bus Gods were against us and we couldn't find a bus to make it there and back in time. So we decided to head back to Pichilemu, the little seaside town where we began our South American adventure.

Little Pichi had grown substantially in the month since we'd last been there. When we left, it was a bustling tourist town for beach-going Chileans. Now, it was a thumping, bursting party town. Night clubs and restaurants didn't open until midnight and closed at 5 am, if they closed at all.


But we had come to relax and so we spent a day at the beach. Woody finally got that surf lesson he wanted and Giovannina got to spend a day on the beach. While Woody was out playing in the surf - and even standing up a few times - Giovannina befriended a large family from Santiago who invited us out for dancing at midnight.


How could we pass up such a great cultural experience? So we obliged and met up with them at Casa de las Empanadas and headed to The Spot (it wasn't called "The Spot", but it could've been). At 12:30, the place was still pretty empty - a few groups of girls danced while a smattering of boys hung around in the shadows, drinking enough to get the courage to make it out on the dance floor. But by 1:30 am, the place was jumping, and LOUD! Giovannina and I both regretted not bringing ear plugs.

We left around 2 am - feeling a bit awkward as we passed the long line of people just arriving. Before leaving, the family invited us to lunch at their place. They owned a vacation home outside of town and so picked us up and drove us to the outskirts of Pichilemu. Pulling into their neighborhood of summer cottages, empty lots and new summer homes, I couldn't help but think that this is how Narragansett looked 50 years ago (Woody writing).


The lunch was big and delicious and they plied both of us with wine and good conversation, of which we only understand about fifty percent, but they seemed to be very proud that they could host a couple of wandering souls.

A brief anecdote by Woody - During lunch I tried to joke with our hosts and failed miserably. They commented that I was very skinny and I said it was because Giovannina wasn't feeding me. This was a mistake. It would've been better had I said that she put rat poison in my morning coffee or she enjoyed kicking stray kittens. Everyone stopped eating and turned their gaze upon Giovannina, saying with their eyes "No wonder you don't have children. The kids would starve to death."

Our last day in South America we caught a bus back to Santiago and met up with Camilo, the great and generous boyfriend of Giovannina's cousin Anna, who let us leave our huge bag of dive gear in his apartment. We spent the afternoon with him, even Skyping with Anna and hanging out by his rooftop pool.

Then finally, it was off to the airport for our long (long, long, long) trip to Australia, where we are now. But more on that later.

Chiloe

Early on in the trip, a young woman from Australia asked us where we planned to go in Chile. When we mentioned Chiloe, she responded, "We went there. It was all right, but they don't have a lot of stuff for tourists to do." To us, this was a ringing endorsement.

Located just off of the coast of Chile between the fjords of Patagonia and the vast Pacific Ocean, Chiloe prides itself on being distinct from the rest of Chile.

As inhabitants of the second largest island in South America, Chilotans have developed their own unique culture and traditions including several unique dishes all capitalizing on the potato and a collection of wooden churches recognized as World Heritage sites by UNESCO.




The island itself is gorgeous. One magazine said it was one of the top five most beautiful islands in the world (who comes up with these things?) The west coast is lined with long wave-swept beaches and rocky headlines overlooking the Pacific ocean, while the east coast is rimmed with pastoral islands, sheltered harbors and fleets of fishing boats. In the middle are rolling hills dotted with farms and pastures.

We left Puerto Montt in the morning and arrived in the town of Ancud, Chiloe that afternoon. We decided to rent a car - our first of the trip - and head to Chepu, a small community that is a gateway to Chiloe National Park where we heard we could see penguins.


We camped out in a field that night and the next morning found a tour outfitter that took us by boat up the Chepu River.


We were dropped off at the trailhead and were told the full hike would take us about 5 hours round trip. Our Spanish still not being that great, we were a little bit fuzzy on the directions - Woody thought we had to use an abandoned boat to cross the river to get to the beach Giovannina though our guide had said don't worry the trail won't abandon you at the beach. When we got to the beach we realized, what he had really said.



We followed the beach and hooked back up with the trail on the other side.

When we got to the Island we couldn't spot any penguins and decided to try to find the ranger station and someone to ask. The woman ranger informed us that there had been Sea lions in the area and that there were not many penguins around but if we looked closely we would find them. We went back to the Bird Blind and watched but didn't see anything so we decided to walk a bit closer. Hidden up in the trees there they were ;-)

During our hike, we wandered about admiring the coast and taking photos. So by the time we found the penguins we realized we only had an hour to make it back to the boat. Practically running back to catch our ride, we joked about the tree penguins - we had never seen a penguin other than in a zoo before and as didn't expect to find them in the trees .

After finding the Penguins we looked at our time and realized we had used almost four of our Five hours and we needed to head back if we were going to catch our boat.



After the penguin excursion, we spent the next few days in Chiloe, exploring little towns and markets, marveling at the colorful homes on stilts and of course enjoying our time at the beach or in the country side.


Bee Boxes were everywhere and the honey was great !

We spent our last night on Chiloe camped out on a bluff overlooking a broad, wind-swept beach. The long, sloped sands strewn with seaweed, small fishing boats laid on their gunwales waiting for a tide to rise and carry them off. Across the water were several other islands, all deep green with hillsides rimmed with pastures. Beyond the islands, reaching into the clouds, the Andes stretched high into the sky, an impenetrable fortress leaving only the sea before us.

It was the perfect setting to end our time in Chiloe. The next day we caught an all-night bus to Santiago, leaving the green hills and beaches of Chiloe behind us.

To see more photos of our time on Chiloe, check out our Chiloe photo album. And if you'd like to see the shingles - the things on the side of the house - of Chiloe, check out this album (it's really pretty cool.)

Covered in ash

Originally we had wanted to spend more time in the Lakes region of Chile and Argentina but our month was flying by and we had heard that a near by volcano was erupting and spreading ash all over the lakes region. We decided to leave El Bolson and decided to go all the way across the boarder to Puerto Montt,Chile, all in one day. These are pictures from the bus as we passed through the ash zone - I usually don't like the buses with air conditioning and sealed windows but on this trip I was glad the windows didn't open. - Giovannina