Kenzie Cooke

I’m crossing the Pacific to San Francisco on my way back home, and I can’t believe it’s been a month. While I do miss my dog, it is bittersweet to be leaving Australia, and I’m surprised at what an impression this trip has left on me. It is impossible to sum it all up sufficiently in one last blog post, but I can say I am incredibly grateful for this experience, the Country I’ve been shown, the people I’ve met, and all I have learned.

The Great Barrier Reef is incredible, and it’s wild to think we only saw a small part of it! The diversity of coral is breathtaking (Acropora are considered weeds here! If only…), although even these reefs are not what they once were even five years ago. You can see remnants of the devastation left from storms and the last global bleaching event. My favorite reef we snorkeled was the entrance balmy on the southwest side of the island. It lies about half a kilometer offshore, standing alone in deeper waters, a circular patch reef with steep edges that slope down to about 10 m. The depth gradient is breathtaking, and massive thickets of Acropora and Porites gardens cascade down to the deeper water. When I first jumped into the deep blue where I couldn’t see the bottom nor the reef, I saw my first shark. A blacktip reef shark. I was only a little nervous, but still beelined for the reef, though I’m not sure why that felt a safer position to be in. Something about being in open water makes you feel vulnerable. I would see many more sharks and other creatures on Liz; hundreds of species of hard and soft coral, more fish than I’ve ever seen, a large cuttlefish, sea turtles, stingrays, groupers, a very large lone remora (I shudder to think how big its host must have been ), goannas, huntsman spiders, all manner of insects, bats, and more.

Funny enough, my research project actually had more to do with a tidal mangrove creek than the reefs. Ana Roden and I decided to look at the connectivity between nearshore ecosystems through a biogeochemical lens. A ~60,000 m² mangrove catchment feeds out over a bay containing the Clam Gardens Reef. It was a unique site where the two ecosystems were directly connected, and we were curious how drainage from the mangrove creek might be influencing the reef. We were looking for a total alkalinity or dissolved inorganic carbon signal as you move from the creek out over the reef at low tide, expecting to see elevated alkalinity due to sulfate reduction in the mangroves (see our PowerPoint to learn more!).

One of my major takeaways from this course is a deep respect for the complexity of fieldwork and everything that goes into doing good science, as well as the importance of flexibility, contingency planning, and resourcefulness. Watching my own and some of my peers' plans go awry or having to update the sampling design in situ were powerful lessons. Diligent note-taking, a solid labeling regimen, and a detailed plan of how we will carry out the tasks beforehand go a long way toward preventing future headaches. Of course, there are always things you can’t foresee or plan for and that is also part of science.
All in all, I am incredibly impressed by everyone in the cohort and what cool science we were able to do in such a short amount of time. It was a dream to wake up early every morning, don a wetsuit, and get right out onto the water, zipping around the island and helping each other collect data. Thank you to our fearless boat captains: Emma, Brandon, Samuel, Amanda, and Tyler!

And finally, shout out to literally everyone in the cohort for making this such an amazing experience. This was my first time really interacting with people I would call my academic peers. I was nearly 10-12 years older than everyone during undergrad and never felt that camaraderie. Even thus far in grad school I haven’t interacted much with other students yet. It was invaluable to be surrounded by peers who were present and engaged, wicked smart, and just as nerdy and excited as I was. The fact that we had such limited internet access likely made the experience that much more potent. Without our phones, we spent each night together— cooking dinner (sometimes dancing in the kitchen), playing spoons or poker (Texas hold ’em with a 10-rock buy-in was our favorite —rocks mined yourself, of course), or just chatting with other researchers by the beach at sunset.

Working with Ana was another highlight for me. Designing, planning, and executing our project was just plain fun. Working directly with someone interested in similar topics and on a similar level of understanding was invaluable. We were able to work through complex concepts and code (now I understand Deffeyes plots!) and could ask each other silly questions and not be worried about wasting an advisor or postdoc’s time. It also didn’t hurt that we had an expert on our chosen subject also trapped on the island, though we tried not to monopolize his time (thanks, Dr. Cyronak!). This whole experience showed me just how fun science can be. Ana and I were certainly on a roller coaster– planning, getting super excited about one idea… analyzing some data and realizing we were totally wrong… going back to the drawing board and coming up with another idea to get super excited about, encourage each other… then realizing, “Uh-oh—wrong again!” But that’s science and in the end I think we had a really cool project that led to some interesting results, although we may have come out of this with more questions than when we started.

Overall, I learned: I love fieldwork. Science is fun. Camaraderie is awesome. The Great Barrier Reef is a special, special place. And I am definitely in the right career. It sincerely was a great pleasure to share this experience with all in the cohort. You are all inspiring to me and I look forward to being colleagues, following your careers, and seeing each other at conferences for years to come. Maybe we’ll even collaborate again someday! Also a huge thank you to Tyler and Jenny and all the other instructors for offering guidance, sharing knowledge, and facilitating such a great program. And lastly, I want to pay my respects and acknowledge the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, the Traditional Owners of the Great Barrier Reef region, and specifically the Dingaal Aboriginal people who have considered Lizard Island (Jiigurru) a sacred place for tens of thousands of years. Yours truly is a marvelous Country.