Understanding the reef, let's go snorkelling!

A lot of the work we do here at Fitzroy Basin Association is about protecting the Great Barrier Reef. Reef protection starts on-farm, where good management in paddocks helps prevent erosion and run-off of diret, chemicals and other contaminants into waterways. All the waterways of the Fitzroy Basin dran into the reef lagoon. Our coastal team specifically focuses on coastal protection work including supporting reef monitoring.

To get a true sense of why this work is so important, all you have to do is spend time on the reef. It's amazing. That's why FBA took Team Dolphin snorkelling last week!

The group snorkelled around Keppel Island and up into Leeke's creek...Mitch said "I am more aware of the brilliant reef that I had no idea existed and I know a lot more about different species of jellyfish."

Mitch, Jenna from FBA, Kealie, and Shane from FBA

Kealie took an underwater camera and spotted this turtle

and lots of coral

Jenna and Mitch in Leeke's Creek

Go Team Dolphin!

Turkey attack photographic evidence

When Mitch and Kealie went to Byfield they saw turkeys attack a lizard...now here's the proof.

Mr Lizard

Angry turkey

Shane from FBA intervenes

Kealie meets mother and baby dolphin on research trip

Hi again from Kealie!

On day four, it was my turn to go out in the boat which meant a 5:45 start. It was great - we saw Bottlenose Dolphins around 7:17, it was a mother and her juvenile. It was so cute it even came up to the boat to have a look at us, the mother wasn’t too happy.

Out in the boat we saw a lot of jellyfish because spring is in a couple of weeks. After that we saw around four other schools of dolphins the highest school we saw was a group of five adults. All the dolphins we got data on were the Bottlenose Dolphins. We were lucky enough though to see a turtle, which was huge.

Well it will be Mitch and my last day on Friday, really excited but sad that it will be the last but we are going out with a bang!! We are going snorkelling over at the islands, so we will take lots of photos to put up for our last post. So bye for now...

Out on the boat and map-making with Mitch

Mitch and Jenna from FBA get ready for snorlkelling!

Hey everyone, it’s Mitch again,
I had a great time on Wednesday when Jenna, Danielle, Sam and I went out on the boat to search for dolphins. We left Roslyn Bay in the boat at about 6:30 in the morning. The water was a bit rough in some places but as we got further along the coast it got calmer. Unfortunately the dolphins weren’t as social as Danielle wanted them to be.

We did see a few, including two snub fins, but they were mainly feeding when we found them. So they didn’t want to be around us and swam away beneath the surface of the water, making it hard for Sam to take a photo.

We also encountered a turtle which we identified as a loggerhead turtle, a shark that launched itself clean out of the water and thousands of jellyfish. The jellyfish were about the size of a small soccer ball and were recognised as blue blubber jellyfish which are the most common jellyfish to come across along the Australian eastern coast.

Also, on the way back to Roslyn Bay I thought that I had spotted my first dolphin, but after Danielle had seen it, he confirmed that it was infact a dugong that was feeding on the bed off seagrass beneath us. I enjoyed just being out in the boat, seeing the marine life was a bonus.

After being out in the sun all day, I had to try not to fall asleep in the car on the way back to Rocky. When we arrived back at the FBA I was greeted by Mrs White, a great teacher from North Rocky High. She was just making sure everything was going fine on our work experience.

Visiting the nice folk at GBRMPA

Then we walked down to the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authorities’ office. They are really nice people. They gave us some booklets and pamphlets that are really interesting. They were telling us about zoning and how affects on catchments can effect everything in the Great Barrier Reef. I learnt quite a bit from that meeting .
At lunch time today I’m went with Jenna to Yeppoon for a meeting and when I got back I made a map of the area we covered yesterday, showing the dolphin sightings we made.

Mitch's map showing dolphin sightings on satellite imagery of the Fitzroy River estuary

It’s Kealie’s turn to go out on the boat today today so hopefully she’ll see some dolphins and other marine life as well.

On Friday Kealie, Jenna, Shane, Danielle and I get to go to Keppel and go snorkelling. FBA even bought  new snorkelling gear for us to use. It’s going to be awesome.