Erin Loury’s Blog

viagraGoodbyes are always hard. But this one – a full sixth months after I actually left Australia – well, it’s bordering on plain ridiculous. Thank goodness for my impending graduation slapping a deadline on the project, or I would have stretched my Australia ruminations out as long as I possibly could, leaving you hanging for months on end (or did I already do that?).

But really, can you blame me? After having visited and returned from such an amazing place, writing about it is surely the next best thing. And so I want to thank you for letting me retell my stories and share my pictures with you, for patiently waiting as I mulled over experiences for months before spitting them out, for giving me a reason to relive my time abroad again and again.

I recently finished interviewing several graduating seniors for a story on the UC Davis webpage, asking them “What is the most valuable lesson you’ve learned from a professor at UC Davis?” I’ve had several extraordinary instructors at UC Davis, and learned so many valuable things in their classes, but try as I might, I could not seem to answer that question myself. But while writing this journal entry, I realized that I received perhaps the most valuable piece of life advice Eric Schroeder, the director of Summer Sessions Abroad and my instructor during the Scotland program I took as a freshman.
“Travel as much as you can while you’re still a student,” he told me as I toyed with the idea of going to Australia. I had already gone to Scotland, shouldn’t I be satisfied with that? He said not to let the opportunity pass me by. After graduation, he reminded me, after entry into the working world of two weeks vacation, the chance to see somewhere so spectacular for so long and for such a comparatively low price would be a long time coming. Thank you, Eric, for helping me see that leaving again was possible.
What could have been just another quarter in my senior year, another series of lecture halls and routines, became instead it an adventure and experience of a lifetime because I made traveling a priority, and because my parents had the insight to let me. While cost presents an obstacle for many students, my friends on the program shared with me that there are many means to making a dream happen. For those with itchy feet and backpack in hand, ready to do what it takes to hit the road, I commend your daring and boldness to explore. But for those (and I was one), who might need the gentlest push to the open door and a few words of encouragement to take a big step into the word, I hope this journal can be that impetus, that window into the possible.
In a sense, finishing up this blog long after my program ended emphasized for me that the adventure isn’t over after the traveler returns home. I still carry whole continents and oceans, all the people and places I’ve seen, experience that enrich my life here on my home soil. And returning from one journey has made it that much easier to embark on another. As my dad pointed out to me, I’ve traveled to more countries and continents than he had at twice my age, not an uncommon trend in this globally connected generation of college students. The process of all my comings and goings has actually gotten my family in on the act. In 2004, I went searching for distant Scottish roots from my dad’s side of the family. Now in a few short weeks, I will be leaving the country yet again – this time to trace back some more immediate roots by visiting Vietnam with my mom. Whoever chose the Dr. Seuss book Oh the Places You’ll Go for my high school grad night theme sure got it right.
Before signing out, I feel I ought to share the very sad news I received at the time of my last post. In late March, the beautiful research station at Heron Island burned down in a fire caused by an exploding oxygen tank. The loss is all the more heartbreaking because the facilities were only about two years old, and my time there such a central highlight to my experience. I am sure rebuilding the $10 million facility will be no easy or instantaneous process, and I feel so fortunate to have studied in that truly remarkable place that I will never forget. To see the Great Barrier Reef was a dream come true. But diving there struck me with a sense of urgency, that this treasure may also be lost one day, that my generation may be one of the last to see it as it is. The memories of my Australian experience will be my drive to enter the world of marine conservation and education, and fuel to the fight worth fighting.
I thought I would leave you with two parting recommendations for your future travels. First, bring a journal and write in it. Traveling got me in the practice of writing in a journal every day, even if just a few lines. Those scrawled notes, those details of the day would otherwise be lost as the next day brings a flood of new and foreign experiences.
And second, take pictures. Although I advise you to step out from behind your lens to truly experience a time and place, my pictures are some of my most treasured souvenirs from Australia, quick links that pull a pile of jumbled memories into clear focus. My pictures of the Heron Island Research Station will be a poignant reminder of the importance of recording my experience as it was.
On the subject of pictures, I encountered a pleasant surprise and reminder of my time in Scotland while traveling in Melbourne after my Australia program ended. It seems that the inspiring Earth From the Air exhibit had followed me to Australia. The stunning aerial photography of Yann Arthus-Bertrand dissolves the boundaries of country and culture, a powerful reminder to a global community that what happens to the planet, whether here or there, affects us all. The exhibit reminded me that people are people the world over, and my world was no longer as alien and vast as it once seemed. My college travels had come full circle.
I hope you too have enjoyed coming along for the ride. Whether you’ve followed my exploits from the beginning, or stumble across this blog months or years from now, I would love to hear your thoughts and reactions, your own traveler’s tales. Please send them to me at ekloury@ucdavis.edu. And I urge you to explore your world for the sake learning and discovery, for understanding history and culture, people and nature. Become the world’s traveler, and its student, one and the same. I wish you a safe and happy journey!

It’s amazing how, even after returning home, elements of my trip abroad keep popping up and weaving themselves into my life. For example, a lecture in my Animal Behavior class last quarter included a section on the blue fetish of satin bowerbirds, which I got to observe first hand at Lamington National Park.

I also now have a new perspective on some bigger issues as well. It’s true that studying abroad expands not only my own experience, but the frame of reference I have to relate to the world.

Rain rain, not enough in the right places? Whitney Ong (UCSB) and Calvin Lee (UCSD) enjoy a rare shower.

The lack of rain in Northern California this winter has spurred some mutterings of water availability during summer months – always a hot issue in this large, thirsty state. But the issue also shoots me back to the current water shortage gripping arid Australia. Australia is currently facing the longest ongoing drought in its history, and the consequences for residents are emerging in full force. I first heard of the water restrictions during my first conversation with an Australian on my trans-Pacific flight. During my time in Australia, water levels in the dams supplying Brisbane hovered around a meager 22%, and short showers were the order of the day. Water for gardens and car washing had to be carried by bucket, and news stories discussed everything from pool covers to prevent evaporation to water recycling and treatment options.

For a while it seemed that I had found my own ingenious solution to Australia’s water woes – I just had to do more laundry. In a land as hot and dry as Australia, it makes sense that every house should boast a vintage-looking clothes tree, rather than an energy-consuming clothes dryer. I admit, hanging my laundry with (gasp) actual clothes pins fulfilled some childhood desire to experience life from a time gone by (read: Little House on the Prairie). Yet hanging my clothes out to dry (especially when I was down to my last clean set of the limited wardrobe I had packed) seemed to be am invariable magnet for rain…

In fact, for a country in the throes of a mega-drought, I was surprised by how much rain we actually received while I was there. But unfortunately the rain hardly makes a dent in the water shortage unless it falls on the dams. Drought, it seems, is not a matter of no rain, but of not enough – and not enough in the right places. After coming home to yet another line of soaked clothing, my host dad suggested taking me to hang my laundry to dry at the dams. And after learning about my hopes for graduate school, he suggested I dedicate my Ph. D. to unraveling this puzzling phenomenon.

But wet undies aside, the water issue in Australia is really heating up, and the government is under pressure to act. So they create a seemingly logical solution just build more dams. Wrong. According to some of our guest lecturers, creating more dams will only wreak ecological havoc on Australia’s already stressed river system, destroying habitat for many rare and vulnerable species. The Queensland government has currently proposed to dam the Mary river, which would essentially destroy the last remaining habitat of the Queensland lungfish.

The Queensland lungfish: up a creek

We received multiple lectures from Anne Kemp, an expert who has studied this living fossil for decades. Though far from charismatic, these fish are an intriguing study – the Neoceratodus forsteri is found only in Queensland, and was the first Australian species to be listed as endangered in their large gelatinous eggs are an important food source for many aquatic species. Kemp expressed dire sentiments regarding the fate of these long-lived, slow breeding animals - she has not seen any juvenille lungfish for several years, and with the loss of their few remaining breedings sites, the future looks grim.

Corals: getting into hot water

And a drier, or more importantly, hotter, climate spells trouble for tropical coral reefs around the world. Corals live very close to their thermal limits, and are highly sensitive to changes in temperature. While in Australia, my class became quite familiar with the graph showing coral bleaching events plotted against rising sea surface temperatures. When the ocean surface reaches a certain temperature threshold, corals are highly likely to bleach – that is, expel the photosynthetic zooxanthellae that they depend on for food. There is no arguing with the numbers: at the current rate of climate change, the global temperatures (and the resulting sea surface temperatures) are predicted to climb until they are well over this threshold. This could mean bleaching may be an annual event.

It is hard for scientists to remain optimistic in the face of such predictions. Australian scientists can only invest so much energy trying to convince their government, which, like the U.S. government, has not ratified the Kyoto Protocol to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions. What then, is the alternative, I asked one our guest lecturers. She repleid that it is to take as good of care of the existing coral reefs as possible, since a healthy reef is less likely than a stressed reef to bleach. This means addressing other factors such as pollution, crown of thorns starfish (which eat coral), and the disruption of the coral ecosystem from over-fishing. With any luck, corals and the rich ecosystems they support will have a fighting chance as things start heating up.

Although now back home, I hope to remain engaged with the many issues I learned about while abroad, because the the problems are truly global ones. The outlook can be grim, and the battle is often uphill. But the bottom line is that these challenging issues must be a call to arm for me and my fellow students, the stoking of our fire in the pursuit of science, education, and conservation. The health of the planet and all it encompasses (ourselves included), is at stake.

In an article I once read about the coral reefs of the Caribbean, the author wrote that the first time he saw a coral reef as a child, he felt like Alice falling into Wonderland.
I felt a similar rush of wonder each time I ducked below the surface of Australia’s true blue water of looking-glass clarity. Sitting at a computer in Davis, CA, these photos are my portal back into that fantastic world, a reminder that I indeed was there.
It’s enough to make me advise anyone: if you plan to dive at all in an exotic location, invest in an underwater camera or camera case! But do your homework first, and get one that has received good reviews. I used a Canon underwater case that was designed for my model of camera. A few other students also had Canon cases, and none of ours leaked. However, traveling in general was unkind to cameras on this particular program – by my count, at least eight of us experienced mishaps with our cameras (me included) and some were seriously water related (me not included – phew).

One of the best parts of having these pictures is that I get to share them with you. As I wrap up my coverage of my Australian experience, I invite you to take one last dive with me and discover some of the most incredible critters that I found. These are the highlights, the favorites, some of the flashiest (and splashiest) creatures I saw. This is where the wild things are.

Erin goes through the looking glass

One of Heron Island’s specialties, the green turtle

Huge eagle ray in the Heron Island harbor channel

Hark! A shark! Luckily white tips aren’t too fiesty. Just don’t touch.

Pretty squid, fun to follow around

Giant clams have photosynthetic algae in the brilliantly colored “lips” of their mantle.

These crinoids (sea lillies) can actually walk on these “feet”!

I took the following photos at the Great Barrier Reef on the Whitsunday Islands:

The shadowy figure of a big-lipped Napolean wrasse

Nudibranch sighting! A colorful cousin of my research subjects at Bodega Bay

Assorted Christmas tree worms

Carey Batha (UCSB) with some giant batfish

An enormous buffalo parrot fish! To think that such things exist!

Erin with the roaming herd buffalo fish. Can’t I stay a little longer?

Wake up. Eat. Snorkel. Repeat.

Not a bad description of our ten-day stay on Heron Island. Who wouldn’t jump to participate in a program where snorkeling is actually part of your daily curriculum? Whether snorkeling or diving, I was in the water every day during those ten days, visiting different parts of Heron Island reef, and constantly seeing something new or seeing it in a new way.

But lest you think our days were merely spent splashing and tanning on an island in the sun, read on. Life, in its many-splendored array of shapes and colors, was all around us, and we experienced it not just as tourists, but as active, inquisitive members of our research station home. The opportunity to study on the Great Barrier Reef is any undergraduate marine enthusiast’s dream, and for a many of us, a huge draw to this study abroad program. Now we were living it.

We were assigned to research project groups at random, and received topics as varied as the effects of fish grazing on reef systems, the distribution of sea cucumbers, and the recoil response of giant clams and tubeworms. Much to my excitement, my project was to compare the symbionts in two different color morphs the coral Pocillopora damicornis, also known as lace coral. For me, this would be an adventure into previously uncharted waters – the world of DNA analysis.

Corals are the classic textbook example of symbiotic relationships. Coral polyps, the tiny animals which secrete the hard skeletons of a coral colony, house microscopic algae within their tissues. In return for a safe place to live, and the use of coral waste material products, these algal symbionts, called zooxanthellae, perform photosynthesis and provide the coral with a major source of its food. These algae also contribute some of the brownish tinge of their pigments to the coral.

Pocillopora damicornis, a common coral constituent of the Heron reef, comes in both pink and brown varieties. As part of unraveling why these different colors might exist, our project was to determine whether the zooxanthellae of the different color morphs were genetically identical or distinct. Different zooxanthellae, we reasoned, might best utilize the different wavelengths of light absorbed by corals of different colors. We also set out to compare any differences in macro-symbionts, such as fish, crabs, and shrimp, that call the corals home.

Just to add insult to injury to my friends doing DNA analysis in claustrophobic, windowless labs, not only did I get to do my research on a tropical island, I got to extract my tissue sample by air blasting. We hit the coral with a stream of pressurized air (from a scuba tank, incidentally) to strip off the thin film of live tissue covering the coral skeleton. After removing these cells, we mixed them with a concoction of buffers and other chemicals, extracted and amplified the DNA, and visualized it on a series of gels. Much nail biting and finger crossing ensued as we waited to see if our gels would be successfully show the bands of our isolated DNA fragment

Luckily, we had fieldwork to keep us busy. Donning our wetsuits, my group joined rest of our classmates on the reef flat that literally stretched from our doorstep.
Though snorkeling for data sounds like a dream, we quickly learned that fieldwork is taxing and tiring, even in paradise.

Working underwater came with its own special set of challenges. Some groups ran transect lines down the reef and swam down them, recording any fish they saw. The simple task of holding equipment – clipboard, fish identification cards, transect tape – while swimming quickly became a challenge.

Wind whipped up across the reef on one of our key data collection days, and hours of kneeling or hovering in a damp wetsuit sapped the enthusiasm of even the most avid snorkeler. Although it was late spring, we were at the tip of the Great Barrier Reef farthest from the equator, and wind and water chilled us quickly. Some groups were in the water for four hours at a time! Not to mention the 5 A.M. start for one group trying to catch a good low tide.

It was then that I appreciated more than ever the value and importance of studying an ecosystem that I am truly passionate about. Though shivering and hungry, and desperately trying to not let any equipment float away, I felt a thrill of excitement (and cold) when poking my head below the water to get an up-close look at a coral colony. Like an underwater sleuth, I peered into the crevices and recesses of coral branches, scanning for the tiny flitting form of a lemon damselfish, or the defensive jab of a small crab claw, warning me to stay back. Field observation captivated my attention while immersing me in another world.

Back at the lab, our DNA appeared successfully on the gels, but did not show any differences between the zooxanthellae from pink and brown corals. The same type of algae is therefore able to perform photosynthesis using the different wavelengths of light absorbed by both pink and brown coral. We didn’t discern major differences in the fish and crab distribution either, and reasoned that coral structure rather than coral color is a bigger aid to macrosymbiont camouflage in this case.

Though far from major scientific breakthroughs, our hands-on research was an unforgettable experience that was not without its perks. My friends reported seeing everything from a black and white eel cleverly disguised as a sea snake to enormous schools of parrotfish while gathering their data. More than anything, the experience turned coral reef research from an idea to reality for all of us, and was a motivating introduction to a world worth protecting.

Charles Darwin got many things right in his day, but according to one of my Australian guest lecturers, the colorful splendor of coral reef fishes baffled him. The reasons behind splashy fish colors is still an intriguing area of study, as researchers investigate how fish perceive their own colors underwater. These bright displays are now thought to be forms of communication and defense, used for attracting mates and confusing or warning adversaries.

With ample chances to swim alongside thsese living jewels, I found them to be a quick chase and sometiemes hard to catch on film. Here are a few of the most charismatic mugs.

A rabbitfish

A boxfish

Butterflyfish

A parrotfish

A moon wrasse

A parrotfish

Feeding damselfish

A coral trout opens wide for a cleaner wrasse

Some enormous batfish (taken at the Whistsunday Islands, Great Barrier Reef)

Before we departed for Heron Island, one of my professors described the coral colors we might see (or colours, as Australians would have it), and included florescent shades of pinks, purples, even blue and green. I couldn’t help but be skeptical. This sounded like a better inventory of my junior high nail polish collection, or at least reef fish rather than corals themselves. All the coral I had seen before sported unassuming shades of brownish yellow or yellowish brown. Even at the Great Barrier Reef, I was expecting the same, just more of it.

That’s where I was soundly surprised. These animals (and yes, for all their plant-like branching and unfolding, corals are actually colonies of thousands of tiny animals) put on a colorful display that is intriguing and sometimes baffling to scientists. Why invest energy into producing such vivid hues? One answer is sunscreen - coral pigments offer protection from harmful UV rays, an especially important role in shallowly located corals that are exposed to air during low tide.

Whatever their reasons for such variation in color in shape, they are certainly a sight to behold. Here for your perusal are a few of my favorite coral photos, showing the tiniest toenail sliver of the diversity found on Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.

Photo editor’s note: These pictures have been enhanced to filter out much of the blue of the water. The colors you see are all naturally occurring, but perhaps more vivid than they appeared to me underwater.

“Redback, funnel-web, blue-ringed octopus,
taipan, tigersnake, and a box jellyfish,
stonefish, and the poison thing that lives in a shell
that spikes you when you pick it up.
Come to Australia!
You might accidentally get killed!”

These are lyrics from the song “Deadly Animals (Come to Australia)” by a Melbourne-based comedic duo called Scared Weird Little Guys. I heard their CD while traveling in Melbourne after my program ended, and immediately fell in love with this song because of how it conveyed my initial impression of Australian fauna. One of our first marine lectures that detailed all of the cute venomous animals we might encounter (yes, even “the poison thing” that spikes you, also known as a cone shell), pretty much convinced me that I did not want to set a foot anywhere near Australian water. At all.

Luckily for me, I dispensed with this silly notion after spending all of two minutes on Heron Island. I never seriously considered that I would come all the way to the Great Barrier Reef and then not even jump in. But it would also be misleading you to say that I wasn’t at all nervous in preparation for my first Australian SCUBA dive.

Hi mom! Even homebodies can try diving!

It struck me as incredible that I was getting ready to go diving on the Great Barrier Reef. Me! Until recently, I considered scuba something “other people” did. Although it doesn’t involve jumping out of planes or great bursts of speed, I think diving can legitimately be considered an “adventure sport” – and given the choice, I would describe myself as more of a homebody than an adventure person. But that’s not to say that I won’t try things – just in baby steps. Going abroad for the first time my freshman year helped me realize that exciting things don’t have to happen to just “other people.” And like studying abroad, you didn’t have to fit a certain mold to do be a scuba diver. Other than being physically fit, you just had to want to try it.

Now here I was, doing both. Suddenly I was faced with adventure sport + new country with deadly animals. As far as the animals went, we were told simply not to touch anything if we didn’t know it’s scientific name and a least something of its habits. On second thought, just don’t touch anything, period.

Look out below! UCAL divers ease into the deep.

Then there was the equipment. I received my basic scuba certification through a UC Davis PE class the spring before I left for Australia, and this would be my first time since my certification dives in Monterey. Things should have been fresh in my mind relatively speaking, but I was a bundle of nerves that I would forget something important. We checked out our BCs, or buoyancy compensators, to keep us afloat, and our regulators to breathe through, and suddenly I couldn’t remember how everything fit together. Luckily, all the diving students were of varying levels of experience, and we helped each other out the best we could.

On top of this, I had my trusty (or was it?) underwater camera case to worry about. I was pleased with this little submarine-shaped cover that had protected my camera thus far and helped me capture great snorkeling shots. Nevertheless, I cringed at recalling horror stories of electronic equipment croaking at depth. The increased pressure of a deep scuba dive might force water into any leaks in the waterproof seal of my case. I wouldn’t know until I got down there – and once down, I wouldn’t be able to do anything about camera problems that might arise, because of the cardinal physiologic rule of diving: Do Not Bolt To The Surface! Immersed in a steadily leaking camera case, my camera would be toast.

At a view from the bottom, the sun is another world away.

So it was with a faintly quaking heart that I followed my fellow divers to the dock to meet the Heron Resort dive boat for my first dive. Professor Ian Tibbets was even there to see us off. Since not everyone was certified or willing to shell out the funds, diving was not part of the regular class itinerary, but Ian was more than accommodating of students who wanted to fit it in. He wished us fun with some comment about being the last to see us if something went terribly wrong. The six of us nervously grinned back.

Once on the boat, we readied our equipment alongside the resort guests. Students are given last pick of the dive slots, and more than once were booted off the roster to make room for guests. So I felt lucky to be there, even though my hands were sweaty and my mouth was dry. Soon we reached the dive site, and nothing remained but to jump on in.

Hang loose! I made it!

This we did quite literally with a giant’s stride – essentially, a great big step off the side of the boat. Having had to swim out from the beach for my certification dives, this was a first for me. I took a deep breath, and after a split-second hesitation, I hit the water. I bobbed there for a moment and joined my buddy, who had splashed in a moment before me. The dive master, seeing us hovering uncertainly on the surface, told us go down below where it was calmer, and to wait at a bottom. No more stalling, this was it! I put a hand on the line descending from the dive buoy and let the air out of my BC. Down she goes!

And down, and further down. Once I slipped beneath the water, all my training came back to me. I had done this before, lots of times. Clearing my ears with the pressure change was surprisingly easy, and my breathing went from near-hyperventilation to something that could pass for normal. Before I knew it, I had touched down at the bottom, which was maybe 50 feet deep, and there I was, a diver on the Great Barrier Reef!

I suddenly realized why every one told me that Australian diving would spoil me from California diving…a) I wasn’t freezing, and b) I could see! Beautiful Monterey, much as I love it, can have the underwater visibility of a sandstorm and can turn you limbs to numbs. My fellow divers and I gazed around us and exchanged enthusiastic “hang loose” hand signals, which communicated our variations on, “How cool is this?!” Soon our dive master was leading us through dome-shaped coral formations swarming with colorful fish and unusual creatures we had never seen.

New sighting - a graceful crinoid, also called a sea lily, is an ancient relative of sea stars and urchins.

My fears evaporated while viewing this underwater landscape through new eyes. Later, I was asked if I would recommend students to become scuba certified before embarking on this program, and my answer was a resounding yes. Though the snorkeling is fantastic at Heron, and not to be missed, diving offers an entirely different perspective. To dive is to enter the world of a reef fish, not just watch it from above. When diving, I was up close with the animals that I loved and studied in a way that I hadn’t thought possible. And I could stay underwater for more time than a held breath! I could linger a while longer, and the more I saw, the longer I wanted that to be.

To dive is to enter the world of the reef fish, not just view it from above.

As our time on Heron progressed, the biggest fear with diving and snorkeling became, “What if everyone sees something really amazing and I miss it?” Eventually we became preoccupied with the big flashy things – How many turtles did you see? How many sharks? But with my camera in hand (it was still working!), I clicked away at everything on that first dive, scarcely believing how lucky I was. With color all around me, I felt like I had entered into an enormous saltwater aquarium. To think that a whole ocean could be this bright! I hovered near the bottom and looked at the huge schools of fish passing by in the shadowy blue distance, the rippling light of the sun filtering through the water far above me. The world down here is magic. Especially when you can swim eye to eye with a turtle.

Swimming side by side - a taste of underwater magic.

But the air in the tank eventually runs low. I am reminded that though I love them, my underwater visits are but transitory, and my stay must always be brief. Fair enough, considering that even in the balmy tropics, forty minutes underwater can get to be a bit chilly. Every time I leave the deep, ascending slowly and cautiously toward the sun, it is with a tinge of regret. When can I return?

Quite often, it turns out. I got in my fair share of diving in Australia, not only during our research trip to Heron Island, but during two side trips with friends – one south to Byron Bay, and another further up the Great Barrier Reef to the spectacular Whitsunday Islands. And thanks to my faithful camera, which did not fail me, though I dragged it to the depths of the sea, I can revisit that colorful world as often as I like. (And that will be quite often, I predict, with the surrounding winter chill of Davis). So if you too are in need of a subtidal vacation from the comfort of your own home, I hope that my pictures will provide you with your own personal means of escape. Dive in!

The first time I saw a coral reef, I was nine years old. From my living room, I took the plunge with Lavar Burton, host of my favorite television show Reading Rainbow. I was mesmerized by the entire colorful world that existed beneath the waves, the land of such exotic creatures as parrot fish and butterfly fish and brain coral. Somewhere in my own brain a spark flashed, the incipient beginnings of the would-be marine biologist.

Twelve years later, I found myself on a ferry, making the two hour crossing toward Heron Island. We had driven north through the night from Brisbane to reach Rockhampton on the Queensland Coast, and now we were jetting off towards a tiny jewel of an island, one of the southernmost reefs strung along the chain that is the Great Barrier Reef. I could scarcely believe that I was soon to be living a childhood dream.

Beckoningly blue - Heron Island’s harbor.

At some early point in my education, I came to view Australia’s Great Barrier Reef (or GBR) as akin to sacred in the world of marine biology. In the summer of 2005, when I began rolling around the idea of a possible study abroad trip during my senior year, Australia was the one place that jumped out at me, and the Great Barrier Reef was why. And though I had loved every prior field trip in this program, it was no secret that I and many of my classmates had been holding out for the ten day research trip to Heron Island.

Alll suited up: Kimberly Hoyt (UCSD), Stephanie Byrne (UCB), and Lea Bond (UCSC) are ready to hit the water.

Contrary to popular belief, the GBR is not one continuous barrier, but a broken series of some 2,800 reefs. Heron Island is just one of those thousands of reefs, but our trip there was its own little slice of heaven enough. After so much build up to this, one of the last major field trips of our program, it hardly seemed real – until I took my first dip in the water.

Almost immediately, we were lined up at the dive shed, outfitting ourselves with wet suits, masks and fins. Professor Ian Tibbetts wanted us to maximize every available minute in the water, and before we knew it we were headed out on our introductory snorkel, taking a brief cruise around the Heron Island harbor.

Like a garden: Branching Acropora coral (right) makes up much of the Heron Island Reef.

I floated in the clear, sun-filtered water, looking down at the landscape spreading below me. Acropora, the dominant coral on Heron, branched out like antlers, making expansive gardens teeming with life. I watched the fish dart this way and that, angel fish and damsel fish and butterfly fish, their names as beautiful as the fish themselves. And I felt a smile spreading beneath my snorkel in spite of myself – I was here, drifting over the vibrant, coral cities of my watery Mecca. The reason for coming seven thousand miles from home was incredibly obvious.

Shark or ray? The shovel-nose isn’t anything to worry much about.

We poked our heads above the water, eager to share our sightings. Some saw a white tip reef shark hiding by the wreck, an slowly corroding battleship sunk by the harbor entrance as a windbreak. Others saw one, no two, green turtles flapping slowly through the water with grace, while others glimpsed the curiously-shaped shovel nose ray. This hodgepodge of a fish has a flat triangular head like a ray, but the sinuous, fined tail of a shark. As we compared stories, the “Aw, no fair!” incredulity of little kids crept our speech. Little did we know that these sightings would become almost commonplace over the next ten days. And while they would seem incredible until the end, our stunning first impressions can never be quite replaced.

As we trudged back from the water, dripping and exhilarated, the sun dipped low behind us, setting up our first ocean sunset since leaving home. “How’d you like it?” Professor Tibbetts asked casually. Our glazed eyes and huge smiles spoke volumes. “And that was only the intro snorkel,” he said knowingly.

It was only beginning. Our time on the Great Barrier Reef unfolded into one of the most magical experiences of my time in Australia, something that I will truly treasure for the rest of my life. I appreciate your patience in awaiting this portion of my blog, as I am eager to share it with you, and I promise to reward you with many of my favorite underwater pictures! Coming soon!

Trekking through the fringes of the Australian outback makes it readily apparent why so few people live here. The land is harsh, desolate, and at times downright inhospitable. What did the early overland explorers make of this vast expanse of nothingness, so alien compared to the lushness of native England?

Then again, the face of Australia unbothered by creeping urban development is often extraordinary, for many of the same reasons that it is uninviting. Though we were remote, we were still in vegetated habitat, far from the desert center of Australia’s “dead heart.” The eucalyptus trees cut a stunning profile against the overarching sky when it flooded with the blazing colors of sunset. Even during daytime, the light had a peculiar inclination towards the spectacular, illuminating the clouds with inspiring rays and halos radiant bursts, seemingly just for fun.

A radiant light display over the distant figure of a bottle tree.

And then there were the sweeping vistas. As part of our stay at Kroombit tops, the property owner Allen, an older Australian whose cowboy hat seemed a natural extension of his person, took us on a 4-wheel drive tour around his and the neighboring land. It was some of the bumpiest, bounciest, jaw-jarring, brain-numbing driving, and the trip was something like four hours each way.

Not too close! UC students peer down into a stunning gorge.

But when we reached the lookout points, it was well worth it. At one, we beheld a wide panorama of rolling hills, and the distant forms of the Great Escarpment, an impressive rock face that runs the length of Australia’s eastern coast. Clouds passed swiftly overhead, blanketing the hills with their shadows. At another vista, we peered down from a steep rocky overhang into a gorge surrounded bycraggy red cliffs and fringed with forest. It conjured the grandeur of a sort of Australian Yosemite that was positively breathtaking.

However beautiful, we learned that those cliffs could also be deadly when we visited the nearby wreck of the Beautiful Betsy, an American World War II B-24D Liberator bomber that disappeared into the Australian forests on February 27, 1945. What became of it was not discovered until a park ranger making a survey of land newly acquired for the park stumbled across the glinting, twisted metal wreckage the early 1990’s.

The wreck of the Beautiful Betsy.

The torn and twisted metal pieces flung far and wide among the trees were a sobering testament to the force of the plane’s impact. We walked around the final resting place of all eight crew members in subdued silence, steeped in its history. Visiting two sites with wrecked planes in two weeks made me realize just how treacherous the wilds of Australia can be.

It wasn’t long before we were navigating the terrain for ourselves, hiking down into the gorge that we had beheld from above the day before. The hike followed the dry bed of a rocky creek, and while some of my classmates took to boulder hopping with gusto, the uneven footing, dense tangled vines and prickly scrub were nearly the end of me. When we finally reached our destination, a cave-like orifice in a rock wall with a welcoming water hole, I plunged into the water, complete with leaf litter and scooting bugs, with obvious relief. It was only the mild heat of late spring, but already the importance of water in this country was apparent to us. We rotated through the activities at Kroombit in two groups and had learned from the misadventures of our classmates the day before to bring water on this hike. Lots of it. The previous day’s thirsty travelers, having consumed more than half their water before reaching the cave, were parched and frantic by the end of the trek back. Australia can be truly unforgiving.

Cattle come to inspect our four-wheel drive vehicle.

One unusual feature of the landscape were the swelling bottle trees, named for the characteristic curve of their trunks that store water. Also adapted to the dry conditions is the invasive prickly pear cactus, which made an unusual addition to the scenery. Numbers are down since the introduction of a burrowing moth to keep the prickly pest in check, but the escaped garden plant has spread far and wide. Farmers bore precious water from the ground for their cattle, and the introduction of water into previously arid places has also increased the range of kangaroos, which we saw from our truck windows in addition to wild mustangs.

A true highlight of our Kroombit stay was the overnight camp out. We dragged our own a firewood to the campsite, a huge tree trunk towed behind the 4-wheel drive. Meals were cooked and eaten around the fire, and I was especially pleased by the tea boiled in a billy can, essentially a tin can with a wire strung through it, hung over the fire, like something straight out of “Waltzing Mathilda.” In the morning, our guide named Andrew gave us endless ribbing about our use of the “toaster,” a grate propped over the hot coals. “That toast don’t pop up when it’s done,” he said, laughing at the blackened remains our poorly-timed breakfast. Andrew was a hilarious introduction to the outback Australian, who spouted colorful language and ripped past us on the dusty roads popping wheelies on his motorcycle.

Andrew serves breakfast to Ryan Mayeda (UCSC).

What proper campout would be complete without some spooky stories under the stars? Our professor Mike Pole seemed to be a magnet for supernatural occurrences, and we listened with half skepticism and half wonderment to his tales of pygmies, ghostly figures, and Aboriginal spirits. Mick, our bus driver, who had spent many years as a cop in central Queensland, and claimed he had seen people die in every way imaginable, had some hair-raising tales of his own. It’s a wonder we got any sleep!

After four dusty days in Kroombit, I thought I would never be clean again. But I was grateful for our storybook adventure, and the chance to experience this slice of Australian life and culture. I felt like I had tried more new things in a short time than ever before. We had tried our hands at roping goats, cracking whips, and even had a bush dance, the outback equivalent of square dancing. I, who had never held a gun in my life, had a go at a skeet shooting, and learned that the world is safe from the likes of me, because I don’t think I could have hit even the largest stationary bulge of a bottle tree. But unlike some of my friends, I never did manage a ride on that mechanical bull. I guess that will just have to wait until next time.

Name, age: Vince Si, 21
Hometown: Placentia, Ca
Biology and Psychology major at UCSD

Vince at one of Lamington’s many spectacular falls.

Why did you decide to come abroad, and why did you choose this program?

I really wanted to do something during my college years that I would remember for the rest of my life and that stood apart from the average “college experience.” At first, I didn’t think I would have enough time to fit in going abroad with my studies and future career goals, but when I started traveling to other countries like China and France, I realized how much I was missing and how sheltered the typical college life really is. Also, I just needed a change of scenery for a few months. UCSD’s campus is beautiful, but college life was getting repetitive and boring, and I just needed a huge change to make life more exciting. Once I decided to go abroad, I wanted a program that would help me complete one of my majors, specifically Biology. Initially I planned to do the James Cook program but after talking to a couple returnees, I decided to do the UQ program because there were a lot more field trips involved.

Have you traveled abroad before?

Yes, I visited China for two weeks with my family on a tour which included the two big cities, Shanghai and Beijing, and of course the Great Wall. I also traveled to France by myself for about 10 days to visit some friends that were studying abroad in Paris, Lyon, and Bordeaux.

What were your fears or concerns before you came?

I don’t think I had any fears before I came to Australia. I didn’t want to come to Australia with any expectations; I just wanted to experience the country I was going to live in for three months. The only concern I had before leaving for Australia was trying to find someone to sublet my room. Luckily, everything worked out, and I was able to find someone to take my room for just fall quarter.

What’s been the hardest adjustment, greatest challenge, or biggest surprise about coming to
Australia?

It wasn’t very hard to adjust to the Australian lifestyle; everyone is so easy-going and friendly that you feel at home within a few days. Despite the laidback lifestyle, little things did take a while to get used to. When crossing the streets, it took me a while to look to the right first then to the left since the Aussies drive on the other side of the street. Also, stores in Australia close much earlier than in the US, which made things inconvenient at times. Also, having to take public transportation everywhere was sometimes a challenge since at home I often drove.

What’s your favorite part of the trip so far?

Heron Island was definitely the best part of the trip for me. Not only did I get to spend my 21st birthday on a small, remote island on the Great Barrier Reef, but our classroom was literally the ocean since we got to snorkel everyday and actually got to see what we were learning about instead of looking at pictures in textbooks. Not many people get to say that they were able to swim with tropical fish, sea turtles, sharks, and rays and call it class. A close second was probably the trip to Lamington National Park where we got to go on day-long hikes through the rainforest and see several waterfalls.

Was it hard to fit studying abroad into your academic schedule? Any challenges to being a
science major studying abroad?

Definitely not! I was actually able to finish my Biology degree while in Australia. At first, I thought I would have to fit a lot of classes into one quarter to be able to study abroad, but I didn’t realize how many classes I would get from doing the UQ program. After looking more closely, I didn’t have to take any more classes and would only need Psychology classes when I returned! This particular program helped me as a science major more than anything. Taking 21 units of Biology in one quarter would have killed me at UCSD, but I was able to do that in Australia and still learn a lot and have fun.

Cost is a big barrier for many students coming abroad. How are you handling the money issue?

A large portion of my tuition was covered by scholarships, grants, and loans, and the cost was comparable to a regular quarter at a UC. So, as far as paying for the program, it wasn’t a problem at all. This program also allowed a lot of traveling time with several four day weekends, and this was where my money was spent. Money didn’t become much of an issue because of budgeting what I had saved up. My parents were also helping out. So, as long as you’re smart about how you spend your money, it shouldn’t be much of a problem. However, for all that I saw and all the amazing things I did, I would say participating in the program was definitely worth the money.

What have you learned, how have you grown, or how has your outlook changed since coming to Australia?

My outlook hasn’t necessarily changed, but I have definitely learned a lot about the Australian culture. I’ve also learned a lot from the classes that I took. UCSD doesn’t offer a marine biology major, so a lot of what was taught was new to me, and even though I felt like the coursework was lighter in Australia, I’ve retained so much because class wasn’t in a lecture hall, but in rainforests, coral reefs, oceans, beaches, and aquariums. Although I have always been relatively independent, this trip has only reaffirmed it, and I have proven to myself that I can be thrown into a completely new situation and survive. Also, I became more open-minded about other people’s opinions and views, specifically the Australian perspective.

What advice do you have for students who are thinking about studying abroad, or are not sure?

Living in another country for an extended period of time is a big decision for most students, myself included, but it was probably the smartest and best decision I have made so far in my life. For those students who are hesitant about studying abroad, there are so many programs that EAP offers that almost anyone can study abroad and can easily fit into their schedule . My advice is to look into a program that really gets you excited and just apply, and once you’re abroad, you’ll realize what everyone who’s been abroad has been talking about. And when you get back from your program, you’ll be saying the same thing almost everyone else has, “I don’t want to be back in the states!”