Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Great Barrier Reef

We spent 5 nights on Heron Island, which is at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. It was amazing! We saw nesting turtles, and swam with sharks, rays, turtles, giant groupers, coral, seastars, and all sorts of other marine life. Gavin and Gabe learned to snorkel very well, and on the last day we snorkeled out the edge of the reef and swam through a sunken ship and swam just inches from a green sea turtle. Below are a few photos of the amazing wildlife.

We saw two species of sea turtle, loggerheads and green turtles.

Turtle tracks.

We saw lots of sharks and rays!

And lots and lots of coral.

And colorful fish.


And of course amazing invertebrates!


A nudibranch (shell-less snail).

A flatworm.

A sea cucumber pooping.


A shrimp hiding.

Vase sponge with Melissa in the background.

A sea squirt.

There were also lots (and I mean lots) of birds on the island!

Black noddy terns.

Cranky seagull.

Gavin and Gabe snorkeling!

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3 comments:

  1. AprilDecember 5, 2012 at 1:29 PM

    Wow! Amazing photos. Thanks so much for sharing!! What kind of camera did you use to get those underwater shots. Incredible.

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  2. UnknownDecember 5, 2012 at 11:30 PM

    Agreed - really nice photos! Were those with a standard point and shoot underwater camera, or did you have something with a more powerful flash?

    And what about those sharks? Big nasties, or small reef sharks? Tough to tell the scale.

    Glad you all are having a great time!
    Dave

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  3. Ben MinerDecember 7, 2012 at 2:28 PM

    Hi Guys--The camera is my dslr in a housing and I use two large underwater strobes. As for the sharks, both underwater pictures are lemon sharks, 5 to 6 long. The image from above water is a black-tipped reef shark about 4 feet long. Cheers Mates

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