When I grow up.......

I want to be a marine biologist.

I got back yesterday from my five day Marine and Estuarine Biology field camp and have finally gotten a taste of what it's like to be a marine biologist. The camp was located in Rockingham, WA about 30 minutes south of where I'm studying. More specifically, we were on Point Peron which is a peninsula in the Indian Ocean. The camp was pretty basic, kind of like a boy scout camp back home. Spiders everywhere! And heaps of other crazy Australian little critters. But the views were not to be believed.

View from the cabins

The water was always crystal clear and a gorgeous shade of blue. The limestone outcroppings and various small, uninhabited islands just offshore only added to how gorgeous this part of the world is. Our weather was great the first few days, and again on our last day. Hot, sunny, and with a cool sea breeze by lunch time. Wednesday and Thursday started off overcast and cool, but by mid-afternoon the sun was shinning.

The whole purpose of the camp is to provide the students with an opportunity to get first hand experience doing field work. So Monday and Tuesday were all about the field work. My group (another American student in my program and two Australian students) was studying the intertidal zone of two different bays-Long Bay and Haliotus Bay.

Long Bay

Field work started every morning about 7 am and had to end by about 1 pm because of the sea breeze. We ended up sampling tons of different algae species and having no idea what they were until we got back to the lab and could work on identifying them, which was a task in itself. Lab work would continue throughout the day and after dinner. Very long days, but a great experience!

Wednesday morning we did an exercise in fish sampling and identification. We headed over to Mangles Bay and used to seine nets to collect fish from both a sea grass and a sandy environment. Once again, we headed back to the lab with our samples to identify everything, measure them, etc. This was a much quicker exercise than our main projects for the week and my group ended up being done by lunchtime.

Some of us decided to make the most of our free time that afternoon and headed over to Penguin Island (but not before a run to IGA for some Tim-Tams! I think I ate the whole box that afternoon). Penguin Island is only about 300 meters from shore, and we could see the island from one of our study sites. Unfortunately, we only saw penguins when we were in the Discovery Center during feeding time, but we found out that that is pretty common. The penguins on the island are Little Penguins, and are just that. About ten of them came out for dinner during feeding time that afternoon. We saw them swim around in the pool and grab some dinner, and then decided to go explore the island before the last ferry of the day left.

hungry little penguins

The rest of the island was gorgeous-great views, tons of different bird species (including huge pelicans), and great walking paths. We took our time walking around and just soaked in the amazing views. Pictures really can't capture how gorgeous it was here-all my photos just seem so flat. This next photo was taken right after the sun came out (that's right, about 30 minutes before this there were clouds everywhere, and now not a cloud in the sky) and is a view of the back of the island that faces the Indian Ocean.

I don't miss Lake Michigan

Everyone was pretty much done with their field work and lab work by Thursday afternoon, allowing for another lazy afternoon on the beach and time to catch the sunset before the barbi that night. That's just one of the perks of living on the west coast of Australia-you can always catch an amazing sunset on the beach. It was a great end to the trip, and a great reward for all the hard during the week.

can life get any better?

Friday morning was cleaning up the camp and a not so short lecture on statistical analyses for the huge amounts of data we gathered throughout the week. I'm glad classes don't start until Monday-I am not in lecture mode yet! But, classes do start this week and they seem pretty promising, updates to come!

More of a visual person? Check out all of my photos here