Last week we went to Heron Island. So Heron Island is in the southern Great Barrier Reef. The island is 0.8 kilometers long. To get to Heron Island, we had to drive 9 hours to Gladstone and from there it was a 2-hour ferry ride to Heron. On the island, there is a resort and a research station owned by the University of Queensland. We stayed at the resort but the students stayed at the research station because families with children are not allowed to stay at the research station. There are many labs at the research station, where scientists can go to do their research on the coral reefs and animals that live there. This was the last trip for the students as a part of The Marine Biology Class.

Heron Island is full of amazing creatures. While we were there I saw a lot of marine life and a lot of birds. The island is full of birds and I am serious. When you walk up from the beach there is bird poop covering the sidewalk and birds fly into your face. One even knocked an ice cream cone out of my mom's hand. There are over 800K birds on the island. The two main kinds of birds are The Black Noddies and The Shearwaters. The Black Noddies were the ones that would fly into your faces while we walked on the island’s footpaths. The Shearwater birds make their burrows underground and sound like moaning ghosts or crying babies, we couldn’t even sleep. In the olden days, sailors would not go on the island because they thought the island was haunted by ghosts!

Everyday me, my mom, and the other family= we would go snorkeling twice a day. We would see fishes, turtles, rays, and even sharks.

While we were on the island the turtles were laying their eggs. The 2 kinds of turtles we saw were green turtles which are really large and loggerhead turtles, which are smaller. One night we went out to the beach and saw about 10 turtles making their nests. The turtles at dusk start to swim onto the shore.  Then they walk up the beach across sand and rocks to the edge of the beach where there are grasses and trees. They shimmy themselves into the sand and use their flippers to dig and shovel the sand into a huge deep hole. When they start to lay eggs, they cover up the eggs with sand as they go.  Then, the turtles cover the entire hole with sand and they slide back into the water and swim away.  We watched a turtle dig her hole for 45 minutes and she barely even done with it. Sometimes it can take most of the night for a turtle to

find the right spot, dig her hole, lay her eggs, cover it up and go back into the ocean. The baby turtles will probably hatch in December or January. I wish I could be on Heron Island to see the baby turtles hatching and going into the water.

At Heron Island, there is a lot of different kinds of coral. While we were snorkeling we saw Staghorn Coral which looks like antlers. We also saw blue, orange and purple coral. To tell you the truth I did not know that there were so many different kinds of coral. In between the coral, we saw a lot of fish and even some turtles were hiding in the coral.

And basically, this is my trip to the Heron Island with my mom .it is indeed a very fun place to go for a trip.

At last my My favorite part of the trip was:

1. The food
2. All of the cool creatures
3. Snorkeling
4. Playing pool after dinner (the game pool *not swimming in the pool)