| Lizard Island |
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| What can we say. Been doing it tough, so decided to have a holiday! Couldn't wait to get into the beautiful clear water and explore the coral which was within swimming distance of Destiny. Heaps of pretty fish and enormous purple clams. |
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| Climbed to Cook Look where it's said the good captain spied a safe passage through the reef only to turn Endeavour back a little later for the comparative safety of the flat water inside the reef. We didn't envy him the climb as he must have done it in full uniform and agreed on the trek that if we could invite anyone in history as a dinner guest, Captain Cook would be top of our list, he's our hero! [Duck also wanted Michelle Pffifer] Here the other intrepid navigating legend checks Destiny's departure route! |
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| It was a very social week at Lizard with several yachts arriving, and happy hour on the beach most evenings when we'd organize the next days excursions. The most notable was a coastal scramble to the Research Station on the other side of the island, where we saw microcosms of the reef environment in tanks. Fascinating. We then swam out to the reef in the lagoon, and let the current drift us over it. Here Jude's looking down from Cooks Look on Destiny [far right] Fontana, Shine, Wraith, Diva, Chatti, Tradewind, Clar Azure, Iola, Anda, Odyssey and Reunion. |
| Kept our distance from the exclusive resort who charge $1000 a day for what we were getting free! Often bumped into guests in quiet lagoons where they'd putted around in the resort tinnies with a fringe on top. " Pleeze, you help? the motor she go fut!" Didn't meet any Aussies! Saw plenty of the local lizards varying in length from 6 inches to 6 ft. They glanced at us and went their merry way! The trade winds had now set in, so after a week of loafing around in paradise, we had a last swim with the friendly fish, and by the light of a Captain Cook Cruise Boat which had arrived from Cairns, slipped quietly out of the anchorage for the run to the top via Flinders Island [ where we caught a Tuna] Morris Island [ famous for it's divers grave and washed up thongs] Here we took our Tuna over to Ian and Lyn on Shine who'd caught a mackerel, and cooked up a storm, washed down with many tins and a couple of bottles of red! Shine was patrolled by a big shark for a while, which gave us enough excuse to open another bottle putting off the 50 metre dash to Destiny in the flimsy-looking dinghy Mallard! Portland Roads, [a rolly anchorage with two phone booths and noisey parrots] Margaret Bay [where we bought a huge feed of prawns at a bargain basement price from a much tatooed, body pierced trawler skipper who's now a friend for life] and The Escape River [ with a Pearl Farm which looked like the set of a WW2 movie] and another large mackerel for the freezer. |