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.