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.