Heron Island

This is a white tip reef shark. About 1.5 - 2 meters

This is Ben, but I did the same thing just before there was a camera

Doing a lot of work

The second half of my Australian spring break was spent on one of the most southernly parts of The Great Barrier Reef - Heron Island.  It's a 10 hour bus ride north of Brisbane then a 3 hour boat ride east. Everyday had at least one planned snorkel with the class, but most of the time I was in the water snorkeling 2 or 3 times a day. We did one night snorkel which was a lot of fun but didn't see as much as during the day. Everyone was equipped with a glow stick and a torch (flashlight). Independently from the class, we also did one sunrise snorkel which we found out is the best time to go. The most stunning sight was by far the sharks which I saw up close and personal. The island waters were populated with numerous white tipped reef sharks, black tipped reef sharks, sting rays that were longer than myself, loggerhead turtles which the shell easily had a diameter of my wingspan and fish that ranged from cute and pretty to big massive ugly things. By the end of my second snorkel, having 3 sharks swim only a few meters under you became a common occurrence. Same goes for seeing sleeping rays at the ocean floor or massive turtles gracefully swim by.

Fraser Island

This is my "classroom"

Here is my "bus"

No I'm not kicking him in the head, but instead I successfully jumped over his head

Lake Mackenzie

Sunrise

My October Spring Break was completely booked with two school field trips. The first half was spent on the world's largest sand island, Fraser Island.  Fraser is also where you can find the most pure breed of Dingo, where they roam wildly and in many numbers. The days were structured that the first half (until lunch) was spent doing minimal amounts of work. "Work" included playing on dunes, setting spider traps, looking for different types of snakes or measuring and identifying different types of fauna. I know, I lead a tough life. The rest of the day was spent relaxing/swimming in some sort of water hole. The second day we swam at Lake Mackenzie where my Biology professor (Steve) proved to be to coolest teacher I've had yet. Steve, a few classmates and myself were playing volleyball when out of the blue he took off into to lake. Roughly 10 minutes later he emerged out of the lake holding two turtles (one baby turtle about the size of a grapefruit) and another about the size of a basketball - he caught them both with his hands.