Heron Island

The first full day on the island was full of excitement - for many different reasons!  :) The island itself is basic and of course the weather was mixed, the Queensland rainy season and my presence guaranteed that , my kidney problem took a turn and because of some really bad storms on the mainland, the visibility was beginning to suffer in the water here. You can see the lights from Gladstone at night, 72km away, and you can also see a constant stream of thunder clouds flashing away as the area was getting pummelled. Whilst New Zealand is having one of their best ever summers, Australia is having one of the worst :(

Today I was going reef walking, which I went with a park ranger guide (the woman in the blue.) They have all kind of warnings about touching horrible things...

 The surrounding water is clear in places and gets a bit cloudier near the boat jetty - that place also seems to bring in the big fish...

 Cute big fish.

 The grouper below weighs about 400lb and lives beneath a boat.

 Clams are common. Clams vary lots, they get their flesh colour from alagae they eat, so some are green, some blue, some purple...

 The tiny thin white threads are a type of worm.

 As she picks up sea slugs they exude a toxic dye - made from all the toxic things the slug has eaten. Not very harmful, but it makes a foul taste in the surrounding water so predators will leave it alone.

 Sharks abound here and show little interest in people. Here, when snorkelling next to the jetty, I was watching the fish shcools swirl round, I put my head up and some guy up top says there's a shark right in front of me. Now normally this means vacate... but I did go back under..

 This is the New Caledonia starfish.

 Slugs again.

 The sea cucumber below is the largest, it has a thin fish several inches long that lives up its rear. Odd. Lots of people walking on the reef now with their "scopes".

 The coral below is odd because it's out in sun, but also because the tentacles will kill other corals they may touch.

 This is a pearl oyster.

 Clam chowder.

 Loads and loads of things to look at.

The coral below is known as dead man's finger... it changes colour if you touch it, from brown to white...

 this giant travalli nearly gave me a heart attack - it was over a metre long and chasing parrot fish - apart from kicking up clouds of sand it wasn't happy to see me...

 In the pic below you can see a slick of slime... well the coral release it as a sun shade, it's the equivalent of spf 50. Since coral has active algae inside reacting to the sunlight, when the UV gets too high, the sun creme needs to be worn...

 A giant hermit crab.

 This cuke is known as the 'horrid cucumber' - when under attack it will just break down it's entire body and turn to slime.

 The cuce below is known as the tastiest cuke of all, it's the burned sausage cucumber.

 The coral below is a day coral, most corals feed a night, this is active during the day.

Lots of cool things! And nothing nasty despite the warnings, which is good!

I went to see the nurse on the island about the health thing, she thinks I have a parasite from the time in Vanuatu. Every time I tried to call my health insurance company Great West Life, they say the number is blocked for collect calling. Out here on the reef it's a radio payphone I have to use and there's no cell service... I did debate not coming to the island and calling it quits, but the nurse is having some antibiotics put on a supply boat and sent over - they called a hospital on land and got a doc to prescribe.

Hopefully it works! The internet however doesn't work too well on Heron - so updates will be delayed...