When I was in high school I boarded a plan to Australia with my family. I will be honest, the plane ride over to New Zealand and then connecting to Australia was exhausting. A solid 12 hours on a plane will make you get a little stir crazy. I didn’t have an episode and neither did anyone else on the plane. Last thing you would want is a Conrad Hughes Hilton III incident. Although, it would probably made the flight a little more interesting.

I remember sitting next to my brother and watching 4+ movies which was awesome at first but then you start to feel like a blob of laziness and get caught in this awkward limbo stage of wanting to get up and move around or falling asleep. But of course the blankets are awkwardly too small and the pillows being flat and lumpy after the first hour of being in the air. So in short, it was damn near impossible to fall asleep on the plane.

But once we landed in Sydney, it was all uphill. We rented a Winnebago and traveled up the coast to the Great Barrier Reef. There were some awesome places that we stopped like Bayern Bay and Nimbin. Caught some waves in Bayern Bay and watched hippies smoke pot in Nimbin. Also had arguably one of the best Phad Thai’s ever at this hole in the wall Thai restaurant.

Our ending destination was the Great Barrier Reef. This was definitely one of the coolest parts of the trip. The only terrible thing about the Great Barrier Reef was the boat ride. I have never thrown-up that much over a time-span of an hour. 40 people were crammed on this large vessel and I swear 30 of those people were hanging off the back of the boat in the first 20 minutes of the boat ride. By the end of the boat ride the captain was hovering over me pouring ice cold water and laughing hysterically while I was dry-heaving.

When we made it to the Great Barrier Reef, my stomach started to come back to its normal self and I grabbed the snorkel gear. The Great Barrier Reef was beautiful. The colorful fish would gracefully swim through the coral and frantically swim in the opposite direction of me when I would get near them. Luckily there was no jelly fish present and I didn’t have to frantically get them it out of my swim trunks like in Honduras. That is another story for another time.

ScienceDaily wrote a cool article on the Great Barrier Reef and how they are going to fix the damage that has been done. This article obviously caught my eye because of my connection and past experiences with the Great Barrier Reef.

“Leading coral reef scientists say Australia could restore the Great Barrier Reef to its former glory through better policies that focus on science, protection and conservation.”

The Great Barrier Reef is home to millions of different specimens. If we are able to have policies but in place on fishing, pollution, dredging, and coastal development, this would allow for over 60,000 jobs. These jobs would be centered around enforcing these policies.

Being a coral reef scientist would be a pretty sweet gig tbh. Hanging out in some of the most beautiful places in the world, scuba diving with the fish and sporting a nice bronzed tan 24/7. If I wasn’t graduating this quarter, I would consider switching majors. OH WELL.