From Last Night, Will Do Today's Post Tomorrow

Oh goodness, let’s see what has happened since I last updated? A lot, is obviously the answer. I got to drive the boat! It was exciting. Not the big boat, just the little dinghy, but still. I must have not done too terrible a job either, because Jack let me drive it again the next day. While I was driving I saw frigate birds! They are so cool! They weren’t low enough for me to see the red pouch on their necks, but it was still awesome. I also watched a sea eagle hunting (it did not catch any fish while I was watching, but seeing it dive to the water was still really awesome).

I saw two ENORMOUS rays! I may have some decent pictures of them, I haven’t uploaded the pictures off my camera yet. One was bigger than I am, the other was slightly smaller. They were both amazing. I swam with a larger white tip reef shark (this I do not have pictures of), and some more squid (bigger than last time, still adorable). We also saw nudibranchs! I don’t really expect most of you to know what those are, but they are small brightly colored wormy guys with external gills. They’re awesome. I may or may not have pictures of these, too. And a huge blowfish! Not blown up, of course, but still.

Oh! I made a tiny friend! He was a juvenile golden trevally, a kind of pilot fish. Pilot fish are those ones that swim under and around bigger fish and sharks. He was itty bitty and bright yellow with black stripes and he decided I was a good big fish to swim with for a while the other afternoon. I didn’t even notice until someone pointed him out, but he swam under my armpit and in between my legs and under my stomach. Occasionally he would pop up right in front of my face. He was super adorable and I named him Pepito. I wrote and illustrated a children’s story about him in my natural history field notebook, because I’m a nerd.

So now the one really awesome thing that I haven’t swam (swum?) with is a sea turtle. I’ve seen them from the boat but never from up close. I think I might have to wake up super early tomorrow and go down to the beach, I hear they hang out there early in the morning. I think that would be worth it. I also haven’t seen a cuttlefish, which would be sweet but I saw octopi and squid, so I wouldn’t be heartbroken if I left without seeing one. A Nautilus would be awesome too (just to complete the cephalopods) but they are mostly only found much deeper, so I wasn’t really expecting to see one.

In other news: I now have a way to get to Bunbury and a place to stay. This makes me feel a whole lot better, even though I still have a giant list of stuff I have to do within the next week. I’m still a little excited but I’ve mostly moved into the anxious and sad stage. I left all my friends and family at home to come alone to Cairns and then I made eleven amazing friends! And now I have to leave them behind and go be really really alone all the way across the continent! I hope I will make friends there, too.

Okay, well I should go start work on the abovementioned giant list of stuff I have to do. I hope you are all having a wonderful time and I miss you a bunch!