Saturday 25th and Sunday 26th September 2021
After a really big day yesterday on Green Island we had a quiet day at home in the caravan park. Just resting, a little housekeeping and resting ssome more.

Then on Sunday we had another early start as we headed to Fitzroy Island. A 45min ferry ride from Cairns Marina at 9am and then a whole day on the Island departing at 4pm. We were a little luckier today, the sky was blue with only a little cloud. It was windy again but we think Fitzroy Island will be a little bit more protected than Green Island.

On arrival at Fitzroy Island we decided to do the bush walk first. This was a 4km loop train via the summit and lighthouse with an elevation gain of 267m. So a pretty good walk. The first section to the summit was all uphill but along the way you enjoyed some beautiful views of Welcome Bay and the mainland. When we reached the summit you had 360° views which were quite spectacular. Looking out to sea and back to the mainland. The sea was a beautiful blue and quite still today, a little windier out to sea but reasonably calm. We enjoyed a chat with 2 families who live on their yachts and home school their 5 children. It sounds like quite an amazing life. They have been living on their yachts for over a year with another couple to go. The kids age range was between 5 and 14. We then headed to the lighthouse and then back to Welcome Bay. It was a pleasant walk.

We decided to snorkel at Nudey Beach first as this was the windier section and furthest from our return boat. It was very beautiful and we managed to find a section of beautiful coral and many many fish or varying sizes and colour. The clams were very vibrant in colour and so were the fish. We saw butterfly fish, many different varieties of parrotfish, angelfish, trumpetfish, a common reef  octopus which was very shy, white-banded triggerfish, bird wrasse, crown unicornfish, and many more. We lasted about an hour or so before David got too cold. So we then walked back to Welcome Bay where we spent another hour or so snorkelling. This time we got to swim with a sea turtle gain. It was unperturbed by our presence and just went about its business eating, swimming and surfacing for a gulp of air periodically. It was another wonderful time for me, I love swimming beside the turtles and am totally absorbed in the experience. I would have swum with the turtle for about half an hour. We saw many more fish at Welcome Bay as well but the coral seemed a little insipid and dirty. We think this may just be caused by the continual boat traffic. Anyway, we had another enjoyable day snorkelling, with much better weather today.

We headed back to the mainland at about 4pm. A pleasant boat ride with less wind than Friday. It was another long exhausting day.