From the 15th of May 2022 until the 13th of June 2022 I went on an adventure. I felt a little like Bilbo Baggings, leaving the Shire and going on a journey to unknown lands at the beginning of the movie “The Hobbit”. I moved to Heron Island, a remote island in the Southern Great Barrier Reef, where I lived and volunteered for an entire month at the University of Queensland’s Research Station.
Getting to the island included a six-and-a-half-hour train ride with the Rockhampton Tilt Train from Brisbane to Gladstone, followed by a night at the Reef Hotel and continued with a trip on the ferry of a little over two hours to the island itself. This long journey was absolutely worth it.
Here are some pictures of my stay in the Reef Hotel in Gladstone: An ideal stop on your way to Heron Island since it is located only a very short drive or 20-minute walk to the “Heron Islander” ferry terminal.
If you missed the first article about my experience on Heron Island, you can read it here.
If you like, before continuing with my article, you can go on a virtual tour of Heron Island Research Station (HIRS), right here or watch this introduction video about the work being done at HIRS.
Thursday: Studying coral rubble in the lab
After a couple of days of weeding, reorganising the library and helping with the general maintenance of the station, a group of coral scientists involved with the Marine Spatial Ecology Lab at The University of Queensland arrived. For me, this was the moment my stay started to get really interesting since I got the opportunity to observe their scientific work and become an assistant in the lab.
Tania Kenyon is working on a PhD project related to coral rubble (which are basically dead pieces of coral) and the organisms binding them together. Due to an increase in storms and cyclones, coral reefs get exposed to a lot of damage. Because of climate change, the amount and intensity of these extreme events might increase, which will result in the creation of a lot of coral rubble. This can be a problem for baby corals since they don’t find a stable enough substrate to settle on (they will get rolled around with the waves). Therefore, Tania is focussing her research on the processes underlying the movement, stabilization and binding of these coral rubble pieces. This will help in predicting the recovery time for rubble areas.
I was helping Tania with measuring the coral rubble pieces and taking note of all the data she and her two colleagues were collecting. It was mindblowing to see how many tiny organisms were binding the coral pieces together.
On another day, I helped Tania with typing in some of her data in spreadsheets. Of course, these tasks might not seem like very exciting, but you have to start somewhere, right?
Working closely together with this team of incredible women, I learned a lot about the coral science industry and I took the opportunity to get a lot of my questions answered.
My favourite part of the lab days was the lunch break. We sat on the wooden deck in front of the research kitchen, taking in as much sun as possible. We laughed a lot about the buff-banded rails trying to steal our food and sometimes even taking a sip of our tea or coffee.
The work in the lab itself was very repetitious and after a couple of hours in the lab, everyone was always very tired. Visiting the resort for a drink, looking for sharks on the jetty or watching the sunset on the beach were the perfect activities to end a day like this.
Friday: Sneak-peak into the life of a coral scientist
Almost every day, Tania and her two colleagues went out with a tiny research vessel to some locations around the island. Together with her research assistant, Karen, she dived down to retrieve the grids to which the coral rubble pieces were attached (these grids have been underwater for months) and collect some more data. Often, they went for three to four dives a day, in very windy and cold weather conditions. I cannot imagine how cold it was for them during their surface intervals on the boat, preparing for the next dive. I can only admire Tania and Karen for their strong mindsets and willpower to keep going. I’m not sure I could be that strong.
A couple of times, I got to join them on the boat. While they were doing their underwater work, I got to relax at the surface and if the weather was warm enough I could go for a snorkel (which happened only once, I’m really not good with cold 🥶). I helped with getting everything on and off the boat and handing them over some things when they were preparing for their dives.
Shortly after Tania and her team arrived on the island, they were joined by another PhD student named Wen. Part of his work consisted of collecting big coral colonies and measuring the length of the branches. Later, he would replicate those with a 3D printer to use in experiments back at the university. He needed someone who could take notes on the boat while he swam out, collected a colony, got it back to the boat, and measured all of its branches and diametres. So, as the only volunteer at the station, that was me 😎.
The day I went out on the boat to assist Wen in his data collection was a VERY cold day. The weather was awful! I wore four layers of clothes and still felt the wind biting my skin. The waves were pushing the tiny boat up and down, which didn’t make it easy for me to write tiny numbers on data sheets. We were usually out at sea for 4 to 5 hours.
Try to imagine being stuck on the ocean in a tiny boat, going up and down, but you are focussing on a piece of paper, trying to write down some measurements. Once in a while, you look up at the horizon to try and not get seasick, while listening to the noise of the ocean and not having access to a toilet in your vicinity. Very relaxing boat trip indeed.
Here are some photos from one of the days the group of coral researchers took me with them on the boat. All credits for these pictures go to Tania Kenyon.
As a thank you, Wen treated the coral scientist team and me to dinner at the resort. We got to meet his wife and daughter who came to visit him on the island. I had a lovely evening, enjoying some food I didn’t have to cook myself for once 🥳.
I ordered the suggestion of the day, which was to my big surprise a 100 per cent vegan lentil pie with sweet potato fries and a salad. The salad could have used some dressing, but after a day on the boat I was so hungry this tasted like heaven.
If you are planning to visit Heron Island and stay at the only resort on the island (Heron Island Resort) as a vegan, I have to tell you there aren’t a lot of options for you. There is one restaurant in the resort, namely the Shearwater Restaurant. The only vegan dish on the menu, other than the suggestion of that day, is an Asian noodle dish, which is a starter. The staff told me they could possibly turn it into a main if asked. But still, one vegan option on the menu? Not a lot of choice if you are staying longer than one night. On the website, it says “Dietary requirements can be accommodated with at least 2 weeks’ notice prior to arrival.” So, my suggestion would be to get in contact with the resort and enquire about the vegan options available during your stay on the island.
Saturday: Being the assistant of a turtle biologist
Helping out the coral scientists was a big learning experience and I loved being involved in real scientific research. When David Adams, a turtle biologist (the correct word for someone that studies turtles is “cheloniologist ” or “testudinologist“, sounds fancy, right?) from Monash University, asked me to help him in the field for two days, I didn’t hesitate to say yes.
David is working in the “Richard Reina’s Ecophysiology and Conservation Research Group“. If you would like to learn more about their work, you might find this link useful.
Tip: If you are thinking about volunteering at the research station yourself, introduce yourself to every scientist that arrives and let them know you are available to help them out during their stay. This is how I got asked to volunteer for them and help with their fieldwork and data collection.
That morning I finished breakfast early, and by 7.30-8.00 am I was ready to help David on the beach. David’s PhD is looking into the effects of irrigation on the nests of the green turtle (Chelonia mydas). Due to climate change, global temperatures are increasing, and so is the temperature of the nests of sea turtles. This is a huge problem since higher temperatures mean that more hatchlings will be female (I’m planning to write another post about this phenomenon. If you’re interested in this, let me know in a comment down below this article). On the other hand, a lower nest temperature would increase the number of males. So, climate change is responsible for a higher level of females in green turtle nests, and male green turtles are increasingly becoming rarer.
David wants to try to irrigate the nests of green sea turtles with seawater in order to lower the temperature inside the nests. He hopes this will promote the number of male offspring.
David Adams was near the end of his experiment when I stayed at the station. The only thing left to do was to dig up the nest, count how many eggs hatched, how many died and at what stage of embryonic development those baby turtles died. That day, we were going to dig up the green turtle nests David had carefully relocated a couple of weeks before to a specific location on the beach. Again, I was the one in charge of writing down all the data.
The first nest we dug up was sad to behold: no eggs had hatched. David was worried this would be due to his irrigation treatment. However, the second nest was a success! There were even some live hatchlings still making their way through the sand towards the surface. I had never seen a green turtle hatchling before, so this was a very special moment for me.
The entire day, I sat on the sand, writing down the number of hatched and unhatched eggs and counting baby turtles. By seeing the contents of so many eggs, I quickly learned to determine the embryonic stage myself. Turtle biologists call this process “field staging“, which is simply put the determination of the developmental stage of an unhatched turtle in the field.
Sunday: Advanced Open Water dive course
The final thing I wanted to include in this post is what I did on my days off. To be honest, I did work on most days, since I was only required to work around 4 hours a day anyway. This meant I had every afternoon free. The only time I really didn’t work for the research station was when I did my Advanced Open Water Course with the PADI dive centre at the resort.
In September 2017, I got my Open Water dive certificate in Belgium and since then I have been looking for the time and place to achieve the next level, namely the Advanced Open Water course. Being on Heron Island for four weeks, gave me the opportunity to get the certificate (which usually takes 2 days, plus some time spent studying the e-learning part). Because the weather was so cold, I didn’t feel like diving two to three times a day (like I told you, I’m not as brave as Tania, the coral researcher I mentioned earlier). I chose to do the course over 4 days. I enjoyed this slower pace and this made the entire process much more enjoyable for me.
I haven’t dived with a lot of PADI centres before, but the staff working here on Heron Island were incredibly friendly and supportive. If you have never dived before I would definitely suggest Heron Island to plan your first dive. The currents are very gentle and the visibility is excellent: a safe and magical place for your first underwater adventure.
The course wasn’t cheap (but I guess diving in Australia is just expensive in general). But, I’m glad I did it. The corals are magnificent and I have never seen such a biodiverse community underwater. For me, diving here was entering a world I had only seen in documentaries. The fish were not scared of me, and I got to swim so close to the different marine creatures.
I must say that the dive course was tough since I still don’t feel 100 per cent comfortable in my dive gear. I’m still learning and perfecting my buoyancy. Another annoying thing I experienced twice while diving was my mask that kept fogging up. This really ruined some of my dives. But, I felt very proud of completing this next step in my dive journey and feel so grateful to have had the possibility to be a guest in this enchanting underwater city.
If you have an interest in marine science and want to know what it is like to live in a remote location in the Great Barrier Reef and learn more about what a typical fieldwork day for a marine scientist looks like, I can’t recommend enough to consider volunteering at the Heron Island Research Station. Not every day will be spent helping to collect data or being out on a boat, but you will create valuable professional connections and learn a lot about the world of science during your stay on the island. This was an experience I’ll cherish forever and probably think back to a lot in the future.
If you would like to see more pictures and videos of my trip to Heron Island, be sure to head over to my Instagram page and have a look at the “Heron Island” story on my profile. This is a collection of all my favourite moments from this trip.
Feel free to share your own volunteering stories in the comments below this post and if you visited Heron Island yourself, share your most memorable moments from your own trip.
Thank you for reading my article! Here are some of my other posts you might be interested in:
The Wandering Biologist 