Our first
visit to the Great Barrier Reef!
On Thursday
of our second week (June 22), we had our first experience
at the Great Barrier Reef. We traveled out to one of the
2900 reefs that form the Great Barrier Reef, Hardy Reef.
Out at Hardy Reef, one of the local ecotourism operators,
FantaSea, manages a platform called "ReefWorld"
from which tourists can experience the reef in a relaxed
low stress environment. At the platform there is an underwater
viewing chamber, snorkel and scuba rentals and a series
of guide ropes leading to the reef. They also provide guided
snorkel trips and a glass bottom boat they call the semi-submersible.
Our group
went on two dives on Thursday practicing our fish and coral
growth forms identification skills. We also practiced diving
with slates. It's amazing how, even for experienced divers,
just adding that one extra piece of equipment can make you
feel like a novice. But it really helps to be able to take
notes underwater. Otherwise it’s easy to lose focus
and difficult to remember what the fish you saw looked like.
We returned
to Hardy Reef on Saturday, June 24, to conduct a proper
coral growth form transect. Basically we laid a 10m tape
measure down on the reef. We then scuba'd along the line,
stopped every 20cm and recorded on our slate what the reef
looked like at that point. The method we used is used by
Reef Check, a worldwide volunteer ocean conservation organization
(http://www.reefcheck.org/).
Also
on Saturday we each tried to identify 12 fish. By this time
we had practiced enough to actually be able to do it!
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