Today started at 7 a.m. spotting over 2 dozen rays in the bay by the pier along with a half dozen sharks. It wrapped up around 7 p.m. spotting 2 dozen baby turtles running down the sand right in front of us, many being greeted by black tip sharks waiting in the waters for them. So many wonders witnessed. After seeing the rays in the bay where the pier is I ran back to the room and woke Sam and then ran to the scuba room where our snorkels were and told Sam to hurry and meet me at the beach. By the time I got in the water there were still about a dozen sitting there partially buried in sand, but not the literal army of rays I saw this morning with the sharks circling. I saw a couple sharks still and many rays with huge barbs. Sam was a bit freaked by it all, they do look so spooky with the ray’s eyes sticking up and the rest of them almost buried in the sand and black tip sharks circling. We swam under the pier, that freaked me a bit because it gets darker there, and I could see a shark, but it was also so amazing. We then scurried into get breakfast before we headed out onto the dive boat for our 9 a.m. scuba dive.
The beauty of being on this island and right on the reef is that no dive is farther than a 5 minute boat ride away on smooth water.This morning we went a little further out, the water was clearer, the reef was just more colorful and varied and the current wasn’t strong. It was like looking at a garden underwater with so many different colored coral and all shapes and sizes. Tons of fish, mostly small but a few larger ones, including a shark. This shark was all shaggy and spotted, very camoflouged and never heard of it or seen anything like it: Tassled Wobbegong. Our dive master found him lying almost in a cave, more behavior like a ray. It was so cool to see! It just was the best dive of the trip. We were able to go for a long time too, almost 50 mins. The water was so warm too, even down below it was around 76 degrees. It was such a great dive we decided to go on the 11 a.m. dive too. While they were swapping out our tanks, we sat on the dock and watched schools of huge fish that looked almost like big trout swim below us and tons of sharks still circling about. The waters were just so active around the harbor.
Our second dive wasn’t quite as good as the morning, with the visibility not being as bright but Sam saw the same shaggy looking shark and I saw a normal shark and lots of fish, but the coral wasn’t as colorful. But they had almost large rocks of coral and it was cool to swim around them and see the different kinds of coral living on them.
After lunch we went out on a reef walk by ourselves. We wore water shoes and walked through calf high clear water and could see beautiful colored corals and tons and tons of sea cucumbers and colorful starfish and small fish darting around. The water had to be 85 degrees because the sun was shining and the water was shallow. We also saw tons of clams, all different colors and no two alike. We took a rest out in the middle of the reef and just sat there and relaxed for a bit, taking in the beautiful scenery that surrounded us and the marine life around us.
At 3:30 we joined a bird walk, since we have become junior birders during our world trip. It was nice to have a naturalist tell us about the birds and what we had been seeing and hearing for the past few days. Jim, my father-in-law who is a big birder, for your benefit and for Sam’s birding record here are the ones we saw and learned about: Black Noddy Tern- everywhere and breed here and their nests are everywhere, Wedge-tailed Shearwater- they are also called Mutton birds since sailors used to eat them and they sound like a baby wailing at night, and Bridled Tern. The island is named Heron Island but we learned that what they originally thought were herons are actually Egrets, Eater Reef Egrets to be exact. Egrets are only one color- grey or white, Herons are more multi colored. Saw the Buff Banded Rail- looks a bit like a chicken and are a bit pesty, Silver Eye, and the Silver Gulls who like to eat the baby turtles and are our morning alarm clock. We also saw Pacific Golden Plover, Ruddy Turnstone, Brown Booby- which is such a cool big bird that actually doesn’t really come to the island but hangs out on the markers in the water and on the shipwreck. Crested Tern, Lesser Crested Tern, and Black Naped Tern.
In the late afternoon Sam did some homework and I laid in the sun listened to Sam’s book he is reading Single Shard- great book. We stopped homework around 6:15 so we could go down to the beach and look for baby turtles being hatched. We started on the pier where we came across a group of researchers that were tagging and measuring, photographing and weighing the turtles. They had a bunch of divers out in the water that were wrestling them into the dock. They are squirmy and strong. It was fun to see them out of the water, see their bellies and take a close look at their eyes and shells. We then meandered down the beach hoping to find some babies and enjoying the sunset.
As it was getting dark and almost the full moon was up high enough to light the beach, we turned back towards the sandier beach which was actually closer to the pier. As we were walking we walked past a group of Americans that were here to do research I believe or on some study abroad. As I got about 100 feet away from the group, I almost stepped onto a baby turtle, then another, we watched these babies booking into the water. We called to the research group and they came running over. There had to be 2 dozen babies making a run for the ocean. Last night we saw one alone and then 4 but here they were coming in pairs all around us. It was so exciting and fun to see them waddling so fast down the beach, over what I am sure to them looked like huge sand dunes. They all made it into the water without any help and one dodged a shark, who charged the shore trying to get to him and as soon as the shark swam away he made it into the water and flew through the water. We did see the sharks flailing and almost jumping out of the water going for the little turtles but hopefully most of them made it safely out into the ocean. It was just like a show. Sam had just been saying before we came across the turtles how last night was more exciting and then I said, the night isn’t over yet and then we literally stumbled onto all those babies. We were so lucky to have witnessed all these happenings tonight. As we walked back to the pier there were tons of teenage turtles swimming right next to shore. What an amazing night. We saw so much today. Just beautiful.
We took some time off to reflect as we ate pizza in the lounge and talked about all the amazing animals and marine life we saw today.
See the "army" of rays below that I came into this morning
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