Day 3 - Port Douglas, Queensland

We spent today on the reef! We took the Poseiden out to 3 different reef locations. Each site was different - the first was full of single, colorful fish, the second reef was deep and had schools of fish, and the third reef was shallow, you literally was less than 4 feet from the top of the reef, so you could see and touch the coral. It was a great experience. The day in total was a 9 hour trip, but it was totally worth it! We saw reef sharks, sea cucumbers (GROSS), mushroom coral, and all different types of fish and coral.



The sea cucumbers are really gross! They are about 3 feet long and 2 feet wide, they look like logs, but they are soft and slimy and living creatures! They lay on the bottom of the sea and eat sand, the worms they have (SICK) eat the sand, which prevents them from growing too large. If you pick one up from the bottom of the ocean floor, you physically have to put it back. Simply dropping the cucumber could kill it, if it lands on it's back it can't roll itself over to eat and it dies!



The mushroom coral was really cool. Of course it looks like a mushroom, but once you take it out of the sea and expose it to the sunlight, the water that drips from it soon resembles a thick mucus like substance. This is its defense mechanism that protects it from the sun. The cool thing about this is that that same substance is equivalent to SPF 75! So if you are ever stuck in the ocean and need sunscreen, you just need to find mushroom coral!

A few facts about the reef:

• The world largest coral reef
• 29000 reefs and over 900 islands stretching over 1900 miles
• Total sq mileage: 133,000
• A 10,000 old coral is actually really young. The established coral is well over 2-18 million years old!