the bio excursion was realli realli good. it seemed like the best educational excursion i had ever went on. yea.. i actually learnt stuff this time around. lol.
7.15 amfi thought the bus was leaving frm fitzwilliam and so we went up to the top of the school all pumped for the excursion onli to find that there was noone there but mr mac waiting for us. i knew he said down the bottom. i was soo sure. but anyways.. yea.. he must have known there would be dim-wits like us who would have gotten the simplest of instructions wrong. was late as usual in true boarder fashion. realli, when we live in school ud expext us to be on time for any school related stuff. nope.
2 hours laterand a very long and boring bus ride..during which i slept most of the way.. we reached queensciff. was taken straight to the coastal area/ beach / barwon heads and introduced to out guide person for the day janice. were split into 2 groups. weather was awesome.. sea was soo blue.. tide was fairly high and waves were awesome. we didnt get to go splash around in the sea. yet. were shown various moluscs and sea creatures residing in the rocky areas. there were so many of them including little starfish. there were barnacles, periwinkles, sea anemones, mussels, chequerboard snails and heaps of other little creatures. hah. the best part was towards the end of out time at the beach was able to identify most of the little creatures. there were so many barnacles at some of the higher rocky areas which was simply awesome as our (lyn and i and coincidentally heaps of other ppl) chosen crustacean was the barnacle . yes they are crustaceans. did our quadrat counts pretty quickly and headed of to the marine centre for some lunch, lab classes and snorkelling.
Lunchhad a picnic lunch outside the marine centre. everyone brought heaps of food. i brought paper cups as someone was bringing cordial. but we didnt end up using them. oh well.
Marine Centreattended a lab class where we got to play around wif tube worms and kill them in order to 'get the sperms working'. yea apparently they release their gametes onli when they are about to die. was rather fun. rather amazing to see so many creatures live in such an enclosed little space. as we sliced the choral bits open, so many little creatures started swimming out. after that we were taken to their indoor rock pool thingo where we could touch and handle the various creatures. the crabs and starfish (btw they call them seastars here) and the jelly like plant things were all awesome.
SNORKELLINGfinally like the super highlight of the trip. the bus came to get us frm the marine centre and drop off the other group to do their lab work and took us to the jetty area where a boat was waiting to take us out to sea. oh man. excitingness it was. reached there.. suited up fairly quickly as my wetsuit seemed to fit on fine.. altho cant say the same for the other girls.. as i reckon a lot of the suits they had were for men and thus were rather big waist up. flippered up and got my snorkle goggles and mouthpiece going and on board the boat it was. got horrible wet on the boat as the sea spray came directly at pip, sarah and i. got to the little enclosed area in the middle of the sea. there were heaps of these fishing birds ( i cant remember wot they're called) but yea. bottoms in we were and into the deep blue ocean we went. the currents were rather strong today and so we didnt quite leave our not-so-little enclosure. there was still heaps of marine life anyways. saw heaps of fish and tried to dive in after them but was kept buoyant by wetsuit. hmmph. also saw a sting ray which was pretty kewl. to greatest dissapointment didnt see any sharks, even tho we were 'told' there would be some. bah. but yea.. it was realli fun and we were in the water for about 4o minutes. was getting rather cold. just as well we had wetsuits that kept us fairly insulated. oni went in bathers in bali and fed the fish there. waters here were much clearer here but the marine life in bali i thought was better. but anyhoos... t'was a very enjoyable snorkelling experience.
5-ishtowelled of and changed into clean clothes and went to pick up the others for dinner. stopped in the small town in queenscliff and had awesome fish and chips. ohh they were soo good. but the chips were rather salty and im feeling realli dehydrated now. despite drinking like a camel.
2 hours laterand another realli boring bus ride back, during which i also slept heaps but got realli cold and woke up quite a lot cuz the girls at the back were making quite a ruckus..we're back at MLC.
i want to become a marine biologist. i actually did seriously consider that during the lab class. well i definetly want to go snorkel down at the great barrier reef. me likey the sea. a pisces through and through. like seriously.. water is soo many element. i feel reali comfortable in water, the sea, u name it. oh and yes i intend to get my scuba diving license when im rich enuf to afford the lessons.
