Family adventure Down Under: Living on an island

A question that I have found myself drawn to the last couple of years is how to create a world where there is room for both humans and nature. Living on an island automatically forces you to be more sustainable. Sustainability is not the focus of the research station, it is research, so some activities are by their nature unsustainable but some good practices are put into practice. In this post I'll give a brief description of life on this island.

The basics

Air, water and food. The basics. The air on the island is clean and speckled with stars at night so that's OK. Water can be troublesome on an island. There is plenty of salt water around, but fresh water can be scarce. Luckily this island has it's on freshwater aquifer (grondwater in Dutch). Water is pumped up and stored in large tanks uphill. This gives us the water pressure needed. We need to be careful when working with salt water at the station. If we spill too much it might pollute our freshwater supply, I was told.

Food definitely not a local supply. Every two weeks we have to order food online an this food is delivered by the supermarket to a barge, which takes two days to reach the Island. So by the time the food reaches our stomachs it has travelled quite a distance, with the carbon footprint that comes with it. The island is a national reserve so we are not allowed to catch fish close to the island and the station is not allowed to grow their own food, seriously limiting food self sufficiency.

Waste

Shipping waste off the island is expensive and the garbage is therefore separated. All non-meat food waste is composted, burnable materials are burned, recyclables as glass and some plastics are recycled and the remainder will be shipped out and ends up in a landfill. Since it is not allowed to grow food the compost gets buried. Human waste is collected in composting toilets and gets buried too. I know burying usable compost isn't optimal, but at least it feels good not to flush 10 litres of drinking water out every time you “go”.

Energy

Potentially you could use to bio-gas from the compost to cook food on to make some use of it at least. Right now we have gas bottles that fuel our stove. Heating water is not really an issue here since we are in the tropics. Each house is equipped with a solar hot water system and you can easily take a nice warm shower after you get out of the water. The ocean is about 24°C and even in a wetsuit it gets cold when you spend enough time in the water and a warm shower is really nice then.

A large proportion of the electricity is generated with solar power. There is a large photo voltaic solar system plus battery bank and the station runs on solar power during the day and a large part of the night. When the batteries run out a diesel powered generator takes over. The major energy consumers here are the sea water pumps. The aquaria on land are continuously supplied with clean running seawater. Pumping water is one of the most energy demanding things you can do, so a large proportion of the solar energy goes to keeping the seawater storage tanks topped up. The seawater tanks are placed about three meters above the ground so seawater can be gravity fed to the experiments.

Internet

Since I can post messages on our weblog you know I have internet on the island. However, internet is also limited. You either have mobile internet through your phone or you use the research stations' wifi. For both you need to pay and you'll only have access to internet at the station, 50 metres out it is gone again. For the wifi you buy 500 Mb access vouchers. I make sure that the pictures I post and send by email have been reduced in size, and I don't send movies. Furthermore, I have also closed down the automatic file synchronisation I had through dropbox since this would eat my 500 Mb rapidly.

Tides

The difference in water hight can be quite high, sometimes 2.5 meters between high and low tide, especially around full moon (spring tide). You have to plan your trips around the tide because you might not be able to get back to the moorings otherwhise.

Logistics

Before you can do any research at Lizard Island Research Station (LIRS) you have to have a permit from the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority (GBRMPA). This takes a looong time, so you have to plan ahead. On the plane to the Island you can only take a maximum of 30 kg baggage, if you want to take more you need to ship it to the station beforehand. You can place orders at special companies in Cairns and they'll ship it to you, for an appropriate price... When you arrive at the island you have to sign a small pile of paperwork, which gets significantly higher if you go scuba diving. However, after a short (re)introduction to the maritime VHF radio, a check of your boating licence and boating test by the station you are free to go exploring!