Queensland Day 5

Yesterday we said farewell to Neil and Helen, at the end of what I hope was a great 3 week advernture for them: taking some in some of the great sights in Victoria (with mixed weather), a scorching Sydney, and the Barrier Reef. It was really good of them to come so far to see us.

We spent the rest of the day relaxing and booking a day trip to one of the inner reef Isles for Day 5.

We chose Green Island, which was about an hour from Cairns, and consisted I guess of what was a small Atoll. The booking clerk promised Sea Turtles, Manta Ray, even sightings of Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa, all of which I took with a pinch of salt.

I was pleasantly surprised on arriving, as the Island was a bit of a tropical paradise: I was expecting Ricardo Montablan and that midget to welcome us, and we quickly booked some snorkelling gear, some sunbeds and obligatory grass umbrella and stared out over prisitine white sand to an aquamarine sea under a cobalt blue sky.

The snorkelling was suprisingly good off the beach, and although not quite as good as the Outer Reef. Swimming out just a little took you to some reasonable coral and fish.

After lunch we took the 10 minute boardwalk through the Island to the other side, admiring the rainforest as we went. The shock as we arrived at the other side was that there was basically no-one here. Your very own private beach paradise - it beggars belief. To cap it all we did actually see a couple of turtles in the water, occassionally raising their heads.

Finally hauling ourselves back to our sun beds the day only got better as an hour later Sharon came stumbling out the water like a scene from Jaws, shouting the same word again and again at the top of her voice. Tens of people turned to look, or lazily lifted heads from sun beds as Sharon shouted "Turtle!, Turtle!, I've been with Turtles".

As much to get away from the embarrasment, Sharon took her turn with the girls and off I went. Surely not, the chance of finding them, but 5 minutes later, there was one on the sea bed. He (?) moved as I approached and we calmly swam around each other for 5 minutes until I darted in for a fleeting touch of his carapace before he got fed up and wandered off.

As we sailed home that night, I was really trying to assimilate some of these incredible experiences.