Day 2 saw us arrive on Green Island, about a 45 minute boat ride from Cairns harbour. We stopped in front of a sign and gave a short talk on aspects of the management of the Great Barrier Reef. This is my colleague, Taka, from Tokyo Metropolitan University talking to some of the group and I followed up after he'd finished. I'm glad I give an annual guest lecture on marine tourism to SCU's environmental science students...that knowledge came in handy.
I couldn't get over how unafraid the buff banded rails were on Green Island....here's a little mob enjoying the sun at the swimming pool on the island.
After a couple of hours on the island we then headed to one of the outer reefs, Norman Reef, almost an hour to the north of Green Island. We were headed straight for a storm but it was moving towards us so by the time we got to the reef it was sunny. The tour company has a pontoon based here and so we moored to the pontoon and used this as our base for lunch and obviously snorkelling. Pretty incredible experience - masses of fish, some of which you can see in the photo above, lots of colourful coral (and quite a bit of dead coral as well). We were advised to snorkel in lycra suits as a person had been stung a few days ago by an Irikandji stinger and had to be hospitalised.
Heading back to Cairns, we passed a number of islands and small coral cays.
There's something about cruising around the Coral Sea that makes me happy.
Day 2 saw us arrive on Green Island, about a 45 minute boat ride from Cairns harbour. We stopped in front of a sign and gave a short talk on aspects of the management of the Great Barrier Reef. This is my colleague, Taka, from Tokyo Metropolitan University talking to some of the group and I followed up after he'd finished. I'm glad I give an annual guest lecture on marine tourism to SCU's environmental science students...that knowledge came in handy.
I couldn't get over how unafraid the buff banded rails were on Green Island....here's a little mob enjoying the sun at the swimming pool on the island.
After a couple of hours on the island we then headed to one of the outer reefs, Norman Reef, almost an hour to the north of Green Island. We were headed straight for a storm but it was moving towards us so by the time we got to the reef it was sunny. The tour company has a pontoon based here and so we moored to the pontoon and used this as our base for lunch and obviously snorkelling. Pretty incredible experience - masses of fish, some of which you can see in the photo above, lots of colourful coral (and quite a bit of dead coral as well). We were advised to snorkel in lycra suits as a person had been stung a few days ago by an Irikandji stinger and had to be hospitalised.
Heading back to Cairns, we passed a number of islands and small coral cays.
There's something about cruising around the Coral Sea that makes me happy.
2 comments:
love that photo of you on the boat, Kevin!
thanks, E!
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