Fitzroy Island

Before we go to Fitzroy, I have to include this photo of an Osprey whose eyes were larger than its belly when it caught this fish at Normanby Island.  Ian took this photo after wandering off by himself when he got sick of waiting around for me while I was taking photos in rock pools.

Ospreys have very powerful and sharp talons.  They have been known to drown after locking into a fish that is too large to carry.

On route to Fitzroy Is, we stopped at High Is, the northernmost of the Frankland Group.  Our anchorage bible 'Going Troppo', tells us that the diving is spectacular around here.  We were curious to look as we thought the other islands were hard to beat.

It is a case of the quick and the dead as far as moorings go, and we found that the only mooring was taken.  We found a good spot a reasonable depth and dropped our anchor.  As usual, we spend a few anxious minutes watching for clues that our anchor is dragging.  Clues such as a grinding noise as the anchor drags over the bottom, or the island whizzing past and disappearing into the distance.

We didn't have to wait too long before we noticed that the island was receding, so we upped that anchor and continued on to Fitzroy.

We had better luck at Fitzroy, not with a mooring, but at least our anchor held.  

As it is only 30km from Cairns, it is a popular day trip for both tourists who can access the island by ferry, and with local boat owners.

It is one of the larger islands in the area, covering 339 hectares.  Tourists are able to stay on the island which has a resort and a small camping ground.  

Also on the island is a turtle rehabilitation centre and a lighthouse, numerous walking tracks and coral reef surrounds.

Time to put on the snorkelling gear, we are getting addicted.  This turtle seemed quite unafraid of me taking his photo.  Maybe he is one of the rescued turtles.

This movie-let goes for 2.45 min and uses 8mb

As you can see from the movie, I had lots of fun with my camera.  I felt bad that Ian didn't have an underwater camera.  I needn't have felt bad though.  While I was down there, Ian popped up next to me. . . . .  with a camera? ? ?

He found it amongst the coral.  Someone must have lost it while boating or swimming.  It was a good find but we had to do the right thing and try to return it to its owner. We called the resort to let them know that we (Ian) had found a camera.  We had no response from the owner.  I doubt that anyone would report a lost camera if it was lost in the ocean.  

Ian has an underwater camera too now!







It was almost full moon that night, so we decided to follow the walking track to the old lighthouse.  
It was good exercise walking up the steep track, but we had to come back the following day to see it properly.  

Like most lighthouses, it has now been replaced by a solar powered beacon which is located on Little Fitzroy Is, a short distance from the main island.

I'm being obliging on this trip by adding a few photos of myself that Ian has taken.  The above one is the approach to the lighthouse, the one on the right is standing off a short distance to the lighthouse.  You can see the ocean in the distance.  The view over the Great Barrier Reef is fantastic.  What a life for a lighthouse keeper.  I suppose that could be said for any lighthouse keeper.

After exploring the lighthouse area, we continue up the track to the summit of Fitzroy Is which is 269m high.  You can see over the resort area, in the above photo, to where the boats are anchored.  Whew, ours is still there!  In the distance is Cape Grafton, part of the mainland coast.

We followed the path down the other side of the hill, feeling sorry for the people we passed going up.  We were experienced and had left at first light while the day was still cool.  They hadn't.

We kept a lookout for Major Skinks, which we had seen the day before on one of those rare occasions that we didn't have our cameras with us.  They had been numerous so we weren't too perturbed - till today when we couldn't find any.

Taken by Ian

But we did find quite a few of these colourful little Rainbow Skinks.







It was time to head back to Port Douglas on a brisk south-easterly.  We made good time.  We must have impressed this Black Noddy who swooped in and decided this would be a good place to land and have a bit of shut-eye.  

He features at the end of my     movie-let have a sleep and rocking to and fro on the waves.  He let Ian pick him up to relocate him to a better spot on the boat, but was quite happy to sit there on Ian's hand instead.




We're back in Cairns now, getting ready to sail again this week.  

We would like to sail south for now, and explore the east coast, but it's up to the weather man which direction we'll head off to first.

Frankland Islands

I had finished my last trip of the year with Oztours and it was time to head off on Winkali.

We would go north to Hope Island and maybe Lizard Island for a couple of weeks.

The wind then turned to northerly, so we sailed south instead.  

When we first bought Winkali and sailed her from Yamba to Cairns, we were on a tight time schedule as I had to be back at work in 4 weeks, so we sailed past many islands and fine anchorages which we added to our "must come back here" files.

One of these spots was almost on our doorstep.  The Frankland Island Group is about 45k south of Cairns.  The group consists of High, Normanby, Mabel, Round and Russell Islands.

A light northerly wind was just the ticket to this destination.

It took a day and a half to get there from Port Douglas with the first night anchored at Fitzroy Island.

There were moorings at several of the islands and the our island of choice was Russell Island, the most southerly of the group.  Russell Is had a walk we wanted to do which led to a lighthouse.

Alas, the two moorings at Russell were taken and anchorage wasn't good as the water was too deep. 




So we went back to Normanby, which is the closest island in the photo. The little islands are Mabel and Round with Russell being the larger island furthest away.

We secured the mooring at Normanby and as you can see, it was terrible, but someone has to do it :)









We wasted no time to launch the dinghy and head over to the island.  Unfortunately, we had to share the island as there is a tour boat which does day tours leaving from the Russell River south of Cairns.  People were enjoying themselves all over the place, snorkelling, sunbaking, exploring rock pools.  We decided that in the future, to recommend the Frankland Island tour to visitors who wanted a great reef experience.

I took this photo of the eastern side of Normanby with Ian in the background.  I didn't push my luck in getting him to pose in one of those beautiful bleached fallen trees this time.  

There were quite a few of these large (approx 6cm long) grass-hoppers on the island.  We tried to get action photos of them flying and crash landing in their clumsy way, but they were too erratic for us and we had to settle for a still pose.




Then it was time to get wet.  Donning snorkels and flippers, we had a look at the world beneath our boat.  This has opened up another steep learning curve as we try to learn the names of the various creatures that are new to us.

The coral on the left is known as Mushroom Coral as it looks like a mushroom upside down.  Many corals are named after common shapes that they resemble such as Brain Coral, Fan Coral etc.
































The next two photos are of a little creature known as the Christmas Tree Worm.  It attaches to a large piece of coral and spirals its feathery self out to a miniature Christmas tree shape.  They come in numerous different colours. If you touch them or cast a shadow over them, they quickly retract into themselves, much like a snail antenna, and come back out again when they think it's safe.

I'm starting to get the hang of underwater photography and can sometimes get my subject in the photo.  The water is crystal clear and there is lots of fish and corals to see. I feel sorry for Ian who doesn't have an underwater camera and offer to lend him mine, but he declines.  

We spend quite some time snorkelling till we finally get cold and need to come out.  Yes, you do finally get cold, even in tropical waters.  

We head back to the boat for some cheese and pate, washed down with a glass of wine to fight off the hypothermia. .

Then it's time for a nap as we intend to go to the island after dark and do a bit of spotlighting.  Alas, two hours later, the calm turns into a 20kn wind and the spotlighting gets cancelled.

The following morning, we keep our eye out for the departure of the two yachts moored at Russell Is.  Soon they had their sails billowing and we were smiling.  

We wasted no time and sailed the short distance to our new address.

It was still early when we got to Russell Island and the dew still bathed the flowers.  This flower is called Goatsfoot Morning Glory.  It is common in all tropical areas of the world and grows along the beach and dunes.  It gets its name from the leaves, which, if pressed flat, have the shape of a goat's footprint.  These hardy plants of the seaside, help to prevent erosion and they look nice too!

Most of the offshore islands are clad in rainforest.  Seeds are brought from the mainland rainforest by bats and birds.










We explore the beach area first. The Giant Clam was in the rock pool on the left. 

There were lots of little bright blue fish darting about amongst coral which kept me amused for ages as I tried to capture them with my waterproof camera.  Ian got sick of me having so much fun so he took this unflattering photo of me.





After some time, we dragged ourselves away from the rock pool to find the track which led up to the lighthouse.  The track wasn't easy to find in the dense rainforest which you can see 3 photos back.  Just as we were beginning to doubt that there was a track at all, we found a little monument made from coral and shells which we decided must have some meaning.  It did.  

We found the start of the track by following the mangroves about 50 meters from the coral/shell mound.  The place had that wonderful aura you get sometimes that makes you like a place for no reason that you can put a finger on.

The track led up a moderately steep incline through the rainforest.  







Many of the plants and animals that you would normally see on the mainland were on the island, including this huge cane toad. 

I couldn't work out how these would get on the island.  Ian suggested that they were probably brought inadvertently with supplies when there was a manned lighthouse on the island.  The lighthouse was built in 1929 but was replaced by a solar beacon in 1989 and all that remains of the original lighthouse is some concrete footings and a crumbling concrete track leading to the top of the hill.

The track is a wonderful habitat for spider web building.

We had to be careful not to destroy the beautiful webs that these Golden Orb Web Spiders weave across the track.  The webs are golden in colour and very strong.  Strong enough to catch a small bird even.

Ian got a GPS fix when we got to the top and found that we had climbed to an altitude of 78m.  Hmm, I thought it was much higher than that!

After all that climbing, it was time to get back to the boat for some food and some oxygen.  Tomorrow we would sail back up to Fitzroy Island which will be in the next blog.

See you there.