March 12, 2014
Today I had my second official class. It was a laboratory safety seminar. Summary of the class: Don't be stupid, use common sense .... it is a science lab people, stuff can really hurt you. Then I had 30 question homework quiz.
After class was when all the fun started. For the next few weeks the student association is doing activities to extend o-week to keep people from getting homesick. Today we had free lunch and a Uni carnival (free pizza and free stuff). I am liking these free give aways because I can stock up on school supplies without having to buy them which means more money for diving trips!
Later I went back to my room and got to talk to Eric for awhile. It is amazing how he still makes me laugh and smile just as much as when we are together! After about an hour, it was time for him to sleep and me to go to the RSPCA. It is an animal shelter here in Warrnambool. Morgan, a classmate, pick up a volunteer application for me yesterday when I was snorkeling, so we took them in today. The woman who took our applications was very nice and let us play with the animals for awhile.
They were so cute and so fun! All of us wanted to take them home (Don't worry Mom and Dad I can't bring any home). Eventually, it was dinner time for the kittens and time for us to get home.
I invited Evan over to help me with my "too much pasta dilemma." So we ate and hung out with all my housemates! I am so excited that everyone in our house is so friendly and fun!
Then it was time to get ready for our night snorkeling trip. We were all super excited! We took a van out to Port Fairy with the owner of the dive shop in town and got ready to go.
Cuties!
So Excited!
Lianna...
Evan photo bombing, of course
All ready to go!
I was a little nervous at first when we got it because without our torch it was pitch black. After a few minutes and seeing some cool things, I totally forgot about nerves. I tried taking still pictures at first but there was a lot of sediment in the water so I resorted to videos. Here are some of the best!
Cool Sea Anemone. It pulled its tentacles in when the light was shown on it.
(Some of the videos are too big to upload here so I will post a link)
Here is a video of a Maori Octopus! It was 3-4 feet big. Sorry for the bumpiness in the beginning of the video, but it was coming right at me so I wanted to get out of its way.
Here is a video of what the bottom looked like as we were swimming around...
Just after I took this video I turned my camera off because we were climbing over a lot of rocks and I saw an Eastern Conger Eel. It was almost 3 feet long and swam right between Evan and I. It was incredible!
There was strong current that came up and I was having a hard time swimming because I was floating so much in my wetsuit. We decided to head in closer to shore and we saw...
We also saw a bigger fish...
We eventually caught up with Lianna and Holly again and they told us they saw a Blue-Ringed Octopus on the other side of the little bay. So we headed over in search of the deadly octopus. Along the way we saw some other pretty cool animals!
Sea Anemone
A snail leaving a trail
Some videos of Dumpling Squid.
We thought they were Cuttlefish at first because of how they changed color and their body shape. The dive master told us that they were Dumpling Squid. They are much smaller than cuttlefish.
Then Evan found our first Blue-Ringed Octopus!
All I heard was "Katie, Katie, KATIE!" I swam over and couldn't believe it as first. There was little bit of a current so I had a hard time watching it for a while. We were really excited though! It was a little scary because that pretty little blue octopus could kill me. But we let him be after ruining his night and kept swimming. Then I got attacked by a...
a surf crab...
Evan and I started to head back in towards shore because we were one of the last groups in the water. Then I stumbled upon...
I was so excited. I screamed through my snorkel and "EVAN EVAN EVAN EVAN!"
I was excited to find another one and I got some awesome photos too!
It was a GREAT night! I can't believe what an AMAZING experience it was! It took me forever to start to calm down once we got home. I cannot wait to see what is in store for later trips!
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