Christmas Island
Anastasia
Phil May and Andrea Twigg
Sat 22 Sep 2012 01:06
10:25.6S 105:40.2E
We are now at Christmas Island, where we have been
taking a 48 hour break on our way to Cocos Keeling. We had good wind
and current on our last day of sailing which meant that we covered 257
miles in the final 24 hours. This is not as impressive as it seems because
of the 1 to 2 knot current helping us along, but still a new record for
Anastasia as far as distance covered over the ground.
We arrived at 8am local time which meant that after
we had cleared customs there was plenty of time to walk around town, check out
the supermarkets for provisioning and do some snorkelling in the bay.
Christmas Island has world class diving and snorkeling and one of the good
snorkel sites is the bay where we are anchored (Flying Fish
Cove).
Today we went on a tour of the island. It is
not quite the right time of year to see the red crabs doing their famous
migration, but we did see plenty of these endemic crabs, as well as the blue
crabs (newly classified as endemic) plus some large robber (coconut) crabs,
which are also protected here and so not as timid as in on the Pacific
islands. We also saw some endemic birds,
the beautiful Golden Bosunbird, with its golden wings and long tail
streamer, plus the huge Abbotts booby soaring over the cliffs.
The kids opted to walk 4km around the coast to
visit a grotto where you can climb down into the water for a swim, and which is
reputedly the hideout of a dragon. They didn't see the
dragon.
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