Days 12-15 Heron Island

(Check back for photos)

Sorry about the dearth of blog entries for the past few days, but Heron Island is a bit isolated.  It is situated 45 miles off the coast from Gladstone, and the Tropic of Capricorn runs about 50 yards off the southern shore of the island, which allows you to swim from the subtropics to the tropics.  The other important point regarding location is that it lies at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef.  Access is by floatplane (for the rich and famous), helicopter (for the rich), and high speed catamaran (for the not so rich or famous).  We came by water.  

The ferry carried about 50 people and the ride over was fairly smooth with bright sunny skies.  We hoped this was a good omen for fair weather on the island.  On board I offered to take a photo of a young family of Australians who were headed to the island to celebrate the father’s birthday. They had 2 children, a six-year-old boy, and a 7-year-old girl, who befriended us immediately.  Both kids were unbelievable with grownups, and reminded me of our kids at that age.  Over the next few days, we saw quite a bit of them, and had a great last evening together (more about this later).

As we approached Heron Island, we began seeing the reef to our north.  The demarcation of deep water  and the reef was remarkable with an abrupt change from deep dark blue to bright azure.  We were close to low tide, so there were areas of coral just at the surface adding texture to the seascape.  The entrance harbor to Heron Island is marked by a hulk of an old shipwreck. 

This was a bit disconcerting until we found out that the wreck was put there as a barrier to help prevent silt filling in the channel. As soon as we disembarked we realized that Heron Island was going to be a totally new experience for us.

The island is only about ½ mi. long and ¼ mi wide so getting around the entire island is simple In addition to being amidst the wonders of the Great Barrier Reef,  Heron Island is a national park, a research facility, also the major breeding grounds for the white-capped noddie terns as well as for the rail, Australian seagull, the shearwater (aka mutton bird due to the taste similarities to mutton, noted by early explorers who ate these birds)and the green and loggerhead turtles.  We were very fortunate to be here in breeding season for all of these. We observed Seagull, rail, and noddie tern nests with chicks in many of them as well as shearwater burrows.  The shearwaters spend the day out fishing and return in the evening.  They burrow, often under footpaths, requiring care to avoid crashing into a deep hole while walking. 
    
One of the resident rails had her nest adjacent to the dining area hoping for a few crumbs to feed to its chicks. But the majority of birds on the island are the noddie terns.  There are thousands of them, filling the trees with nests everywhere.  In addition, they are prolific poopers, using their fecal matter to help create their nests by using it to glue pieces of leaves and twigs together.  They also have pretty good aim, and unfortunately, had their crosshairs on Jeri.  They got bull’s eyes at least 4 maybe 5 times.  I was much quicker (no just luckier) and didn’t get a single hit. 

Heron Island is also home to Southern Egrets (used to be classified as herons, thus the name), crested terns, black fronted boobies, plovers, and sandpipers as well as several other species.
 

                                                       

We truly lucked into perfect timing to observe green sea turtles laying their eggs.  In addition, we had a full moon and clear skies, which gave us light to see by.  Green sea turtles, three times a year, will haul themselves up the beach around high tide, above the high water line to lay their eggs.  Jeri and I went out after dinner our second day here in search of turtles laying (is that part of the “Twelve Days of Christmas”?).  There are several phases of the process, which could take several hours.  The first is just getting out of the water and finding an ideal site.  Turtles can sometimes try out two or three sites before finding the best. 
     
Next, she must dig a pit around her using her hind flippers flinging sand high in the air.
                                             
                                         
 After this, she digs the chamber with alternating flippers carefully creating a chamber in which to deposit her eggs.
                                                
Then comes the actual egg laying process and finally, the covering over of the eggs with sand.  We spent a while trying to see and take pictures in the dark-not very satisfying.  I thought if we got up early, we might see some late layers.  I got up the next morning (Jeri wisely chose to sleep in) just after dawn, and though it was a beautiful walk, still struck out.
                                    

That evening, we had plans to have dinner with our new Aussie friends from the ferry over.  Our room had absolutely perfect western views (if you go-get room 4, it was perfect) and we invited them over to watch the sunset before dinner. We come to find out, that they are actually turtle experts!  They had been involved in doing turtle research when they were younger.  After dinner we had an amazing turtle walk.  Nash found a turtle that was just finishing chambering, and he was able to give us a very clear view to watch the 100 or so, eggs be laid. 
                                       

                                                    
It was truly amazing. Both he and Kylie were a wealth of knowledge about not only turtles, but the wildlife of the area in general. 

The primary reason, though, for coming to the Reef was to fulfill a wish of mine since first getting certified to scuba dive- to dive on the Great Barrier Reef.  I planned to get 3 dives in, as well as doing a lot of snorkeling with Jeri.  It was a bit intimidating, though, when we first arrived, from the jetty, you could see a half a dozen sharks and rays swimming about.  After getting over our initial trepidation,  the diving and snorkeling was amazing.  The corals seemed very healthy, and the variety of sea life was overwhelming.  It took me a little while to get used to my new IPhone underwater camera, but it took great pictures.  My biggest problem was that I couldn’t get through 2 dives without running out of battery life. Fortunately, I had plenty of battery to use for our best find, an enormous manta ray.  It swam around us for about ten minutes and I was able to get some decent video (try to post some) and pics.  Also saw green turtles, beautiful nudibranchs (small marine gastropods that are bright and multicolored-after the battery ran out), several sharks, and fish of every size and color pattern. 

                                  

                                   

                                   
                                   
                                   
                                   
                                 
                                       

The area around the jetty was by far the best of the snorkeling.  
                                 

There were several sharks that hung around (I think they may have been lying in wait for small children) and a huge number of shovel nose and sparsely-spotted stingrays.  The shovel nose rays are really weird.  They have 3 dorsal fins that make them look like dragons.  They also have huge puppy-dog eyes that are constantly blinking at you. 
                                           
                                 
                                 

Jeri was initially concerned about swimming with these creatures, but quickly warmed up to the fact that they were really not interested in us as a meal. 

One other highlight of our stay was a reef walk at low tide with a marine biologist on staff at the resort.  We spent about 2 ½ hours walking through the reef learning about sea cucumbers (for which we now have a much greater appreciation), starfish ( including blue stars), corals, and sea hares.  On the walk, we also crossed into the tropics by walking across the Tropic of Capricorn (the southernmost latitude where the Sun can be directly overhead, S 23° 26' 14.908. Its northern equivalent is the Tropic of Cancer).

 

                                      
       
                                        
                                     
                                     

As bad as the weather was for our Great Ocean Road drive, we made it up in spades on Heron Island.  Every day was spectacular, and we were a bit sad to have to leave.

The ferry back to Gladstone was a little rougher than the trip over, but some ginger tablets worked great for me to prevent seasickness. We bid farewell to our new Australian friends, and left for Gladstone airport  for our flight to Brisbane. 

We were met at the airport by the whole crew, Rhonda, Milt, and their friends Christine and John and drove to their home on Mount Tambourine.  We will spend the next couple of days here with them, then off to Tasmania.