Moreton Bay Research Station, Stradbroke Island

This past weekend was my first field trip (or excursion in Australian) for my Marine Biology class. 60 of the students in the class went to North Stradbroke Island, which is just southeast of Brisbane and a short ferry ride out from the coast. The area is called Moreton Bay and it is made out of several islands one of which is the picturesque North Stradbroke. North Stradbroke is about 38 X 11km according to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Stradbroke_Island) and has a surprisingly large population of several thousand (I think our tutor said 5,000 in the off season and 9,000 in the summer). UQ runs a research station there with about 6 full time PhD students living there and other researchers and professors.

We left on Saturday morning bright and early and arrived at Straddie at about 9:30am and our group went out with all of the tutors to explore the beach area at low tide and the rocky shore area. We looked at the different flora and fauna that we could find and learned about how the general ecology of the area functions. Mostly we found small sand fish that live in the shallow low tide areas, estuary rays, sea cucumbers, and lots and lots of oysters, snails, hermit crabs, soldier crabs and other crustaceans. One of our tutors is studying a fish called a Long Tom and how they digest their food just through the enzymes in their bodies and with no stomach. (http://www.oceanfootage.com/stockfootage/Long_Tom_Fish) A man was fishing nearby and caught a long tom (which he would have just thrown back) and our tutor Jen went and got it so she could go freeze it and dissect it for her research which I got to watch.

Saturday afternoon the group went out and did two pulls with a 50 m seine net (a type of net commonly used in field research to catch basically whatever is in that part of the water). We caught lots of fish, a few small squid, and a large ray (which escaped as we got closer to the shore). So we learned about the different types of fish we caught and as we freed them from the net we would talk about it if it was a new type and just throw them back in. But since there are lots of extremely poisonous everything in QLD we learned about what we should NOT touch before we got out into the water and were touching everything with our bare hands. Several things will kill you, but lots of others will just cut, sting, or send you to the hospital... One of the more dangerous creatures is the blue ringed octopus, which we luckily did not catch. They are smaller than your fist but their venom will kill you. Apparently they completely paralyze you but you're brain still functions, so everyone thinks you're dead or dying because you can't breath or move but you're awake. Pretttttty terrible way to go. And your body fights off the toxin after about 40 minutes so if you make it to the hospital and are on oxygen you'll live. So if you're in Australia and your friend looks dead, do cpr.

Sunday we split into groups of about 5 and did mini research projects. My group measure sea cucumbers to try and determine if they get larger as you get further out from shore. (Apparently they do, because they are born nearer to shore and as they mature move out farther.) It was actually really fun even though sea cucumbers dont seem very exciting they're pretty easy to collect data from because they're relatively easy to find, dont run away, dont bite, sting, or paralyze you, and they aren't the least bit fragile. They actually mold on to your hand like those fancy pillows after a few seconds and apparently if they are supported in their middle long enough they will actually dissolve in the middle and regenerate the other halves. Pretty cool huh? After our data collection we worked on our powerpoint for that night and our group actually won the best presentation! Yay!!

Monday was pretty awesome despite the fact that it rained about 60% of the time. At least when it rains here it is warm so its not too bad. We went to a more touristy place of the island and walked out onto a point and back around the coast over rocky areas and through pristine beaches with great waves to get to the swimming beach. The channel has lots of sharks, a strong current, and everything else dangerous, including tons of Portuguese man-of-war jellyfish (aka blue-bottles) which we had to avoid stepping on. (Sorry mom you probably dont want to know all of this.) The blue-bottles are one of the worst jellyfish stings in the world- you want to avoid them. So the designated swimming area is quite small and watched by serious lifeguards, but on a beautiful beach with great waves (we could watch some surfers further out which was cool), warm water, and white sand. Basically it was a great afternoon of body surfing and beach cricket.
After that we went back to Brisbane for Saint Patty's day pub-hopping in the city! All in all a great weekend!