Ethan's Semester In the South Pacific: Lady Elliot Island

So picking up at Lady Elliot Island, it’s now Saturday, February 16. Lady Elliot Island is an island completely formed by dried up coral and it is only 4000 years old. It is surrounded by coral flats that still remain submerged at low tide, but the waves actually break onto the flat and not on the beach. We arrived to sunny weather in mid-afternoon, which was a nice surprise given that rain’s followed us anywhere. We flew over in a little 12-passenger plane in about a 40-minute flight. We landed on a grassy strip that split the difference of the island and were greeted by the Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort staff. Once we disembarked, we were given our snorkeling gear for our stay while they put our backpacks in our rooms for us (We were only allowed to take 22 pounds of stuff to the island). They gave us a tour of the island, which didn’t take long seeing as the perimeter of the island was probably less than a mile.

We were given an hour or so of free time before having our introductory lecture, so we took about 20 minutes to walk out on the flats of the reef and check out what we were about to see. During our lecture, we were given some information about some venomous creatures in the reef that might’ve been nice to have before we went out. Fortunately, we got lucky and no one got stung by a stonefish or cone shell (look it up, giving CPR is part of the First Aid). After the lecture, it definitely felt like we were about to walk into mine field of venomous creatures. So of course, we went right back out to the beach for a guided reef walk. We immediately got off to a great start seeing an octopus after having walked no more than 20 feet. We saw a few more cool fish, a couple blue seas stars, and all kinds of corals. Afterwards, we had dinner, then another lecture, and then all of us went to bed because we were pretty exhausted from the day of travel. Our accommodations were on the lower end of the trip. It was basically a canvas tent with bunk bed and electricity, but the air came from a fan. For being right on the beach, it definitely wasn’t bad.

The next morning, we had a early morning reef walk at 6:30, ate breakfast, and then had a morning snorkel at 8:45. It was pretty cool because we got to go on a glass bottom boat to go out to the spot, so we could see all kinds of things as we trolled over. After snorkeling, we had free time, lunch, free time, dinner, class, and by the end of the day, we were all tired enough to pass out by 9:30 PM. I was able to spend some time during free time sitting on the beach and working on schoolwork. It’s hard to believe, but we actually have a pretty sturdy amount of schoolwork. It’s a lot for the reason that we typically have a full itinerary during the day and when we do have free time, we have to spend most of it doing work..

The next day, I got up for an optional early morning snorkel at 6 AM, which was amazing because of how clear the water was. Afterwards, we had breakfast and then got introduced to our Lady Elliot Island assignment. This one was about assessing Lady Elliot Island Eco Resort’s status as a resort in the Green Zone of the Great Barrier Reef (the most protected part of the Reef). It was our job to assess whether or not, the resort should be allowed to remain. We had to conduct a science research project and conduct interviews of some staff members. Fortunately, we were in groups of 4 and 2 of were science majors and 2 of us were not, so I didn’t touch the science part and worked on the interviews with my other non-science partner. We got to work around mid-afternoon and it was definitely really interesting talking to the staff. Besides the interview questions that related our research, we got to know some of them on a more personal level and got to hear about their motivations for working at the resort. It really reminded me a lot of camp with the way they have about 35 staff members that live on the island for 10 days on, 4 days off and are working with each other 24/7 during that and completely isolated from the real world. This is actually kind of the last week of Australian summer, so for a lot of them, they will be going back to school for fall semester (which is in two weeks for them). On the research side, it was interesting to learn about the resort. They produce all of their own water by desalination, they export waste by barge, and they treat their sewage and pump it into the airstrip. They generate electricity with solar panels and by burning 120 liters of diesel fuel day, which is about as much as the gas tank of a big truck, so really not all that much and their goal is to be 100% of gasoline in 5 years. Overall, they had a very tiny carbon footprint and the development of the resort actually coincided with an improvement in the health of fish populations, so it was pretty impressive. After working all afternoon, we had dinner and hung around the bar the rest of the night with the resort staff and our team of 4 actually won trivia (thanks to the field guide that UGA hired to come with us playing on our team) and got a free bottle of wine out of it. Finally around 11:30, I went to bed, exhausted.

The next day (Tuesday), I got up for breakfast, we had a morning snorkel after breakfast, and spent most of the morning preparing for our presentation that was part of our assignment. We finished that up and got to have most of the day off. I spent a couple hours trying to get caught up on this thing and then a couple hours on the beach. We had presentations right late in the afternoon, caught the sunset over the west coast of the island (see pictures), ate, had a lecture after dinner, hung around the dining room for a little, had a late night walk on the beach looking for nesting sea turtles (unsuccessful, but did see a great starlit sky), and went to bed.

So this morning, as I can now finally say, I woke up at 5:15 AM because last night’s sunset really inspired me to catch the sunrise. It was an unbelievable thing to have a quiet time by myself on the beach as sun came out of the ocean. It was definitely one of those things that reminds you how big God is. Around 6, I met up with everyone to go on morning snorkel for our last day at Lady Elliot. After seeing amazing things, we swam back, and I got a little morning jolt on the way in. About 100 yards from shore, I collided head on with on with a Blue Bottle jellyfish (who is a close relative to the Portuguese Man o’ War). As I flailed around, someone pointed out to me that there was a Blue Bottle on my back (“No Kidding?!” was my polite response). It’s one of those things where you’re kind of on your own as your getting stung to death because anyone that helps will probably get stung too. After 20-30 long seconds of battle, I finally got the benevolent creature off of me. In severe pain, I swam as fast as I could (which isn’t that fast when you’re fighting waves) to shore and observed lines of red bumps on my abdomen, my arm, my back and another full line that came from my shoulder, across my chest and around my back. I got to spend the next hour with a ice pack on my chest (by far the most painful one), groggy from popping a Benadryl. After breakfast, we took a quiz on species identification, checked out of our rooms, and had couple hours free time (which I spent working on this) before our flight back to the Australian mainland. As I write now, we’re riding a coach bus back to Brisbane where I will spend the next few days before flying to Christchurch, New Zealand on Saturday to meet my dad for spring break.

Writing this blog after leaving the island, it’s kind of hard to remember when we saw what, but over the course of probably 6 or 7 times snorkeling, I saw probably 10-15 Manta Rays (a couple of which made the ones at the GA Aquarium look like baby sting rays), 20-25 Sea Turtles (including one loggerhead turtle that was probably 5 ft long and 3 ft wide), a couple sting rays, and probably 50 sharks (white tip reef sharks, black tip reef sharks, tawny nurse sharks, and leopard sharks). I definitely changed my perception of sharks over the trip. Out of almost 100 species of sharks, only 4 are dangerous which are the Great White, Bull Shark, Tiger Shark, and Oceanic White tip, and even those wouldn’t be dangerous in 99 interactions out of 100. They’re definitely cool creatures and are very important to the ecology of our oceans, but a lot of them are being killed off because of a worldwide demand for shark fins and it could end up being devastating to many marine ecosystems, especially the Great Barrier Reef.

As someone who has always had pretty conservative political views (and still will have after this trip), it has been pretty eye opening to learn about sustainability and the destruction we cause to the environment. I think it’s stupid that sustainability is such a divisive political issue because really I think it starts with a personal choice, not punching a hole on a political ballot (Did you know that George Bush, not Al Gore who flies all over the world in a personal jet to lecture about sustainability, lives in a 100% green house?). I don’t consider myself to be a “tree-hugger” and probably never will, but I would be devastated if some of these picturesque views that are among the most spectacular I have ever seen were unavailable in 50 years. Ethically, I think it is important to consider the ramifications of choices we make and how they will affect people in 50+ years.

And before ending this blog, to any bros going on formal this reading that are reading, enjoy Nashville this weekend. Definitely wish I could be there with yall.

And also, to any camp folk reading, I will be thinking and praying for you all this weekend as the 2013 season kicks of off with the first staff training and ALA weekend. It kills me on the inside to not be on a weekend for what feels like the first time in years, but nonetheless, it’s exciting to think that we’re getting close to Summer 2013 when thousands of lives will be changed.

Thanks to anyone who has read what has been 3 whole pages of a Word Document. I miss Athens and home, but I’m doing great over here in Australia and doing my best to hold it down in the Southern and Eastern hemispheres. Stay tuned for a wrap up of Australia and updates from SB ’13 in New Zealand.