Orientation part 1

    Over orientation week, several trips were scheduled to see the local wonders.  On Wednesday, we took a bus tour of Townsville, the main purpose being to orientate ourselves to the local shops and restaurants.  We were shown where the local "Mackers" (Mcdonalds), bottle shops (liquor stores), and malls were, and then taken to a river center, located on a large brackish water river, where we were allowed to wander, eat, and attempt to win prizes from the coordinators. (I came in second. So close!)  Thursday was significantly more exciting when we went to Reef HQ, 

 

  Needless to say, I was in my element. Thoroughly excited, we were split up into smaller groups and taken back into 

where we saw several young green turtles and one that was about 30, all of which needed medical attention.  One of the most common issues was floating, which is deadly to an animal that needs to swim to eat.  These turtles will mistake trash like plastic bags for their regular diet, jellyfish.  The trash blocks up their digestive system, causing air to get blocked up in their gut, messing with their buoyancy and making them float.  Because these turtles get all their water from their food, they usually die from dehydration before starving to death, but not before their bodies have stolen every bit of nutrients, including from their shells, which can become paper thin.  This turtle was floating, but has been rescued by the wonderful people at Reef HQ and is on his way to recovery.

The longer curly tail shows that he is a sexually mature adult male, and you can see that his right side is floating.  This turtle was around 30 and had to be 3 feet across and 4-5ft long.  He was beautiful.

Plastic bags aren't the only thing these turtles need to look out for.  They often mistakenly eat fishing implements, like hooks, lines, and swivels which lacerate their inner organs and leave them dead or dying with collapsed lungs or lacerated intestines. 

    If they don't eat the stuff, sometimes it gets them anyway.  This turtle lost a back fin, which apparently it won't even miss, but the issue remains.

The turtles were beautiful, and incredibly interesting,

but there was far more to see. 

    We were taken into a tunnel where we could see a predator tank on our rights and the reef tank on our left.  Hundreds of multicolored fish swam in the reef tank, in and out of the coral, some of them eating the coral, And a huge and beautiful coral reef it was. 

 (sorry this one goes sideways at the end)

It was gorgeous!  So many different types of fish!  The black and white one, which they allow to bred in every tank, test the water quality and are one of the only fish that protect their young.  Parrot fish swam around eating the corals, butterfly fish moved in and out of crevasses, cleaner wrasses chased all the fish around, and so much more.  I was in heaven.  I could have sat there and stared at those fish all day.  They could only be topped by the predator tank, containing the, largest, fattest, cutest nurse shark on the planet.  

Meet cuddles, one very overweight nurse shark.  he was accompanied by several black tipped reef sharks, large carnivorous fish,  Leopard sharks, two types of rays, and my personal favorite, a grouper. 

 black tipped reef sharks

 shovel nose ray

 really cool camouflage fish

 leopard shark

 another shovel nosed ray

 

several sharks waiting to be fed, on the bottom is a spiny nosed ray

GROUPER!! :D

The aquarium wasn't just these two tanks.  There were pitch black tanks with flashlight fish, dark tanks with deep sea lobsters,  tanks with lion fish and crown of thorns, which are steadily adding to the destruction of the reef,

public enemies #1 and #2

starfish, sea cucumbers, sea horses, the list goes on and on. It was incredible! I loved every minute of it.  I can't wait to go back.