Photos from 2002 September 29
So, today I decided to take it easy and wander around Townsville. The first place I went was the Reef HQ, an aquarium that has the worlds largest indoor coral reef. Interestingly, they manipulate the water in the huge tank to match whats going on in the ocean nearby. Tides and currents and whatnot. But before I show you pictures of that, here are some cute clown fish.	Another shot of the clown fish.	A gorgeous lion fish.	A venomous sea snake.
This is a >crown-of-thorns< starfish. These eat coral, and have become a bane of the reef, because they only have two natural predators (those thorns are poison to all other creatures), and both of those fish species have been decimated by human fishing. So the crown-of-thorns population has exploded, and they're eating coral like crazy. In fact, recently the park service has started a program of controlled starfish extermination. They can't just collect the creatures, because they cling too strongly to the coral; it would do too much damage to the coral to pull them off. So they inject the starfish with something that makes them dissolve. The reef where I went snorkeling yesterday just finished getting rid of these things a few weeks ago; you could see the scars they left all over the coral.	Here's the bottom side of a crown-of-thorns. It actually extends its stomach outside its body through the center hole there, digests the coral, and then pulls its stomach back in to move on to the next bit of coral. Yuck.	This fellow needs no introduction. ;-) I like the way the light comes through the water in this picture.	Some interesting fish in the same tank. That's a fake shipwreck in the back.
Now, *this* is the sort of thing I was seeing yesterday. The riot of shape and color was just staggering.	Heres a rather unusual looking shark. I have a close-up view of this chap later on.	Again, the amazing diversity of a reef.	Here's a sea horse.
This was a fascinating kind of shark. It's only a foot or so long, and the coloring was really striking.	A nice view of the reef. You can see the frond corals, which I didn't see much of in the part of the reef where I was yesterday.	Now, I almost wish I could say I took this picture in the ocean, although in real life I would want to be nowhere near this many hammerhead sharks. This is a shot I took during an omnimax movie. You can see the seams of the screen radiating out from the top left.	This is a two-foot-long sea cucumber.
A sea turtle and a diver in the tank with the fake shipwreck.	Here's that unusual shark, in a close-up.	I think these were called >convict fish<, if memory serves. I liked the composition of this shot. The fish were nice enough to space themselves out just right.	Here are some giant clams. You can see what I mean about the animal filling the shell. I couldn't quite recover the natural color balance here; the creatures were a much more vivid orangish-brown.
Another giant clam.	This is along the main stretch of beach in town, called >The Strand<; although this is an artificial cliff with an artificial waterfall, I still thought it looked quite nice.	Now, this has got to be the coolest playground ever. This jungle gym had water spewing out of every concievable nook and cranny. The bucket at the top slowly filled up until it tipped over and dumped a huge gush of water over everything. The kids were having a great time, and I was sorely tempted to rush in and join them, despite not having a swimsuit with me.	Here's a shot of Magnetic Island, looking out from the Strand. I decided to go back to Maggie tomorrow and try my luck at snorkeling, this time without renting a bike!
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