I managed to roll myself out of bed and rock up to uni in time to hop on the coach. I tried to catch some sleep on the 2 hour bus ride up but kept waking up to a surge of adrenaline because I would "half wake up" and think I was on an airplane. It was so bizarre! haha. Either that or I would wake up near hypothermia since the bus driver had the aircon cranked to the max! brrrrr.
We got to Taylor's Beach, the place where the boat to OIRS was going to pick us up, and it was raining. Not cool. We all unloaded off the tundra bus into the rain and waited for the boat to show up. I forgot to mention that it wasn't just the fact that we needed to catch the tide in time, but we needed to get 3 rounds of boats across within that tide range. It was rainy and windy and the water looked quite unfriendly.
The boat showed up and we packed as much gear and people on as we could....and I didn't make the cut. :( So, waiting in the park for at least another hour and a half was in my future. Luckily it stopped raining for a bit and a group of us decided to walk to the little servo down the road to scrounge up some food, since it was only 6:30am. I ate some time away, quite literally, and then around 8:20 the boat showed up again. I fought for a position in the front of the line because I did not want to be stuck in the park for another hour or so. By this time it had gotten more windy and the waters were a bit rougher. It took the skipper 4 tries, some help from students, and a wet professor to get the boat into the shore enough for us to load on. We stumbled aboard and got out as soon as we could so the boat would be able to return for the third group in time for the tides. We took off and it was quite a rocky ride...only to get worse once we got out into the open channel. We were literally flying in the air. It was the craziest (yet most fun) boat ride I have been on. There were a few times I was convinced that we were going tip over and a few times I was convinced the people in the back were going to fly out...but 40 minutes later when we pulled into Orpheus Islands I was (luckily) proved wrong. Phew.
We unloaded and headed to the accommodation area to pick out our rooms. The set up was a lot like hostels, with 6 beds in each room and a communal dining and bathroom area. We dropped our stuff off in our new home away from home and headed down to have some caffeine!! We fueled up and went off exploring a bit of the island before the last boat came in. 
The last boat came and it was off to lecture for us. It was quite weird to have to go to class on a remote island in the Great Barrier Reef....but kind of cool to do at the same time. After that it was off to take a walk around the island while my professor pointed out some interesting geological features. It was quite fascinating, actually. Especially since I am so trained to look at the biological indicators, not the geological indicators. We walked around Pioneer Bay (the reef flat we arrived on), behind the research station, and then out to the rocky point. A nice little guided tour by my professor. 
Old, broken coral forming a "shingle" beach
After that we went for a nice snorkel! Since it is stinger season we had to suit up in the full gear. We had stinger suits, socks, hoods, and dish washing gloves hahaha. It was a winning look! The visibility wasn't that great, which bummed me out at first...but then, within the first minute, I saw a MASSIVE sting ray! It was huge! At least 4 ft in diameter. SO cool to see! That evening was a relaxing social night filled with BBQ, ice cream, and card games. I haven't been on a field trip in years...and it was really good getting to know my fellow classmates. It was an early night though, since we had been up since the wee hours of the morning.
The next morning we woke up, had some brekky, had another lecture, and then broke off into our group. I was in a group with Ashley (US), Shane (US), and Kristina (Denmark). They were such fun people, we had a blast mucking around all day. We measured the topography of the beach on 4 different sections, looking for sea level indicators.
Our view from the dump level.
blue ringed octopus!
hard at work!That evening my professor cooked up a delicious green curry for 50 students and we chowedddd down! A day in the sun really wears you out...and makes you hungry. We spent the rest of the night working on the project, calculating numbers and mapping out the beach profiles. It was another early night after a long day in the field.
The next day was greeted with brekky and a lecture, just like yesterday. Today's duties were similar to yesterdays, jut on a different part of the island. We loaded in to some tinnies and it was off to Irish Point. On the way to Iris Point we stopped off at Cattle bay to observe the rocky beach as well as take a little bush walk into the forest to see some more interesting geological features. It was a tad rough that day so loading back in to the boats in a rocky shore was a bit of a challenge....
In the tinny.
Trying to load on the boats in the rocky shore. After we successfully loaded the boats (and overcame a stinger scare from some girl) we were off to Iris Point. Iris Point is a windward fringing reef so it gets a lot more wave energy than the other one, therefore allowing for more coral diversity. It was also an older reef than Pioneer Bay, so it had a lot more developed areas. It was really cool. Long reef flats with pool containing heaps of crabs, giant clams, sea cucumbers, and live coral. Then once we got out to the edge of the reef flat the live coral portion started and we were walking in a garden of coral! I felt really bad actually because as careful as I was walking around I still heard some crunches and cracks....whoops. My professor assured us that they're resilient things and would recover from our class tromping through. :) This part of the island was so beautiful. There were long boulder beaches (no sand at all) and then greenery surrounding it. Definitely a sight to see!
It rained pretty much the entire time we were at Iris Point, which made it hard to collect and record data...but we managed. By then end of our surveys I was hungry,cold, and just wanted to shower. I passed on the optional snorkel and managed to sneak on to the barge boat taking the first load back to the research station. We got home so much faster than the tinnies and managed to hog the showers (and the leftover curry!) before anyone else got home. Perfection.
That evening was filled with some delicious lasagna (kudos to the chef, my professor) and heaps more report writing. The undergrad students had to turn theirs in by the time we got back to uni so I helped my group crank it out. Even with four people working on it we were still up until 2:30am finishing it all up. Ugh. At a cheery 6am my professor was banging pots to wake us all up haha. I was on the first boat out and it left the island at 7am. Being the first boat out meant that I had to spend 3 hours in the park...again. I had a nice nap on the park bench though. The bus came and it was back to reality. No more island time. :(
Overall it was SUCH a fun field trip. I was really worried about it being too long but I would do it again in a heart beat! I met so many new people and saw so many amazing things! I love coral reef geomorphology!
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