Great Barrier Reef

Our first full day in far north Queensland (Jan 4) included a trip to a portion of the Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Port Douglas. We traveled about an hour from the marina to a small island call Low Isle. Along the way we enjoyed some remarkable vistas.



We arrived alongside a small sandy island, a bit like one of those "desert islands" in all the jokes. This little spot above the water line (although I bet a cyclone is scary) will take perhaps half and hour to walk around and yet, there is a house in the trees where the lighthouse tender apparently lives. Would you really want a life on such an isolated place always crawling with tourists?

On this island we found lots of Sooty Terns. They are habituated to humans and allowed us to get quite close.

The air was filled with the constant chatter of this birds.

From the shore of the island we could get a splendid view of the Coral Sea and the mountainous countryside to the north of us on the mainland.

Although this is not our boat, it is similar to the one we rode out on.

As mentioned in a previous post, this is stinger season. While most people on our boat did go snorkeling, we did not. To do this required using the boats equipment and wearing a singer suit. This is thin nylon full-body suit worn by who knows how many people and only rinsed in the ocean between wearings. I don't know about you, but I don't find this appealing.

Instead, we took the glass bottom boat tour. I only tried a couple shots. the lighting is terrible. Between the reflection of those on the other side of the boat and the shadow of the boat, it was impossible to get a decent photo of the reef. But at least you can see that it is very close to the surface.

You will notice that there are no brightly colored corals here. This is because the type of coral in the location is not brightly colored and because this shallow water gets very warm in the summer and bleaching also happens. This is the source of all the gray around the living coral. Corals can survive in water up to upper 20's C. Last summer it was 32C here.

So, I leave you on a cheerier note. Here is a Sooty Tern on Low Isle doing what this birds have always done for eons.