Pics from Cairns, part I

To realize how nice our vacation to Cairns was, you need to know a little geography.

We live in Melbourne, in the far south of the country, in the state of Victoria.  Cairns is in the far north, in the north of the state of Queensland.  Here is a map showing Cairns, Melbourne, and the seven states of Australia.  (Only seven states!  You can memorize them all, and their capitals, in almost no time at all just by staring at the map.  States are in blue, capitals are in white.  Oh, and Australian Capital Territory is not exactly a state, kind of like Washington DC, but the country capital, Canberra, is also in white.)

From http://www.australianewzealandtours.com/australia-tours

(Did you memorize all the states and their capitals?  There is going to be a quiz.)

Notice the line down the center marking the Tropic of Capricorn.  Because Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, if you want to get warm, you go north, say to Cairns.

How far north?  Well, Australia is actually about the size of the Continental USA.  Here is another map comparing the two.

The above map gives you a pretty good idea of size, but the climate is upside down.  Remember, because Australia is in the Southern Hemisphere, you go north to warm up.  Notice how far apart Melbourne and Cairns are.  Now imagine flipping the above map upside down, to understand the weather a little better.

In the middle of winter, we hopped on a plane and flew from Melbourne to Cairns.  That's kind of like hopping on a plane in the middle of winter from Toronto, Canada, and flying to Florida, USA, to spend a week on the beach.  Ah nice.  Now you understand.

So the beach in Cairns is not actually its best feature.  It turns out that the beach next to the city is actually a large mud flat.

Not just a mud flat, but a crocodile infested mud flat.

Warning: Crocodile infested waters.

Not a problem.  The city has a beautiful, free public pool they have built on the side of the beach, with its own imported white sand.  That's the place to hang out in the water in town.

Me and Jonathan at the Lagoon: Cairns' public pool on the beach.

 Of course, the best place near Cairns to go swimming is along the Great Barrier Reef, just off the coast.  You can book a spot on one of many tour boats to go out to the reef and snorkel.  Snorkeling equipment included.

Me and Jonathan at the Cairns Harbor.

On Thursday, the 3rd of July, we booked a trip to Green Island, an island out on the reef, followed by a journey further out to Norman Reef for snorkeling.

Here is a photo of Green Island from the jetty where the boat stopped.  Pretty, isn't it?  The water was turquoise blue, and those dark things are coral, part of the coral reef. 

The wind was blowing pretty hard, and it was actually a little chilly.  We decided not to get all cold by going snorkeling during that first stop, but to wander around exploring the island instead so that we could better enjoy the snorkeling on the outer reef. 

It took about 20-40 minutes to walk all the way around the island.  Here are Tim and Jonathan on one of the beaches.  Notice the rain clouds in the background.  Storms at sea make for rougher snorkeling later -- but we won't get to that yet.

One thing you have to be wary of on the Great Barrier Reef are jellyfish.  Stingers.  Lucky for us, stinger danger was relatively low that day.

The island is made up of beaches around the outside, rainforest on the inside.  Here is a picture of one of the tour boats from a position on the island, under the trees.  Those guys in the dark shadows belong to me.

After a little over an hour of walking around Green Island, and exploring the beach, we headed back to take our boat out to Norman Reef, for some snorkeling and other reef experiences.

Because it was a bit stormy and windy, the boat ride was pretty choppy.  Lots of sea sick tourists.  We stopped at a pontoon out in the middle of the ocean.  Upon arrival, we could take our pick of activities: buffet lunch, semi-sub, for underwater viewing, and snorkeling!  We opted for a ride on the semi-sub first.  Here we are in front of it, ready to get on.

From inside, we could see some of the fishes and coral that make up the reef, and even take underwater photos using our basic camera!

Of course, the photos didn't turn out that great.  But still....

So I had been fine with the choppy water up until this point, but now, packed into the tiny sub, rocking around up and down and back and forth, I was starting to feel ill.  It was with great relief that we climbed out.

After a light lunch (still feeling a little queasy), we gathered our snorkeling gear and jumped in.  The tour ship had a professional photographer in scuba gear taking photos to sell to us afterwards at exorbitant prices.  Whatever.  We'll never come back, so we bought them.  Suckers.

Here are Tim and Jonathan.

Tim with a big fish.  This is called a Maori Wrasse.  The tour groups are allowed to feed these big guys, so they hang around to get their photos taken with the snorkelers.  

We learned that wrasses all start out female, but some of them change into males when there is a need.  Too bad for them -- Wikipedia says females live around 50 years, but males only 45.  I wonder how eternal marriage and eternal gender will work for wrasses in heaven?

Here is one with me and Jonathan and the wrasse.  And another friend. 

Here's another one of me and Jonathan from underwater. We paid a lot for that photo, so bog darn it, I'm going to post it!

The waves were pretty high still.  It was much harder to swim away from the boat, toward the reef, than to swim back.  The water was also pretty deep there by the boat -- about 50 feet?  Enough to scuba dive in, if you were certified.  And if you were just a kid, who hadn't had swimming lessons for a year?  Easily enough to drown in, and let your body be carried off to Papua New Guinea....  I was glad Jonathan had a life vest, and I hung onto it tightly.

But Jonathan?  He wasn't afraid at all.  He Loved it!  After swimming to the reef and back a couple of times, he declared it was so cool!  And he was right.  There is nothing as amazing as swimming around a coral reef.  The reef is so full of color!  Colored fish, colored coral, and so much life, in so much color!  Swimming color.  Moving, living, feeding color.  All going down 50 feet in some places.  Truly amazing. 

And Tim?  He liked it too, but he never quite got over the queasiness.  That and his mask leaked, because it turns out that snorkel gear doesn't fit so tightly around a mustache.  So Tim had had enough sooner than Jonathan and I, and he hopped out  and took photos of us from the top.

This is us from the top.  Our view from here was way cooler than Tim's view. 

And here we are getting out of the water. But only temporarily.

After a long time snorkeling, we packed up the boat, and headed back to Cairns.

And that is the end of part I.

(See the pretty rainbow in that picture?  Technically, it was taken in the morning, before we boarded the boat, and the one with the harbor was taken in the evening, after we got off.  But swapping the two worked better for the narrative.  Historical accuracy schmaccuracy.  You know you love it the way I tell it, right?)