Lizard Island

Blue Magic
Mark & Chris Dewey
Thu 23 Sep 2010 21:32

 

 

Position 13:45.046S 143:39.99E

 

We did an overnight sail to the beautiful Lizard Island and arrived in time to meet ‘Larooba’ and ‘Sol Maria’ to have a look around the prestigious marine research centre on the island and then snorkel from the beach to the nearby reef.

At 4.30pm we were also joined by Jackamy and Angel for drinks on the beach and some birthday cake as it was Juliett’s 4th birthday.

 

A lovely day and an early night to catch up from our night passage.

 

Next day it was all go as we decided to take the trip to the outer reef and dive the ‘Cod Hole’.

We all piled on board ‘Miss Tippy’ for the couple of hour trip and picked up one of the only two visitors buoys which were scarily close to the main reef.

 

The children went snorkelling with Gavin from Sol Maria and the rest of us put on our scuba gear and descended down the mooring line to the bottom with Brian in charge of us all as he is a very experienced diver (and he has the biggest knife).

 

We were in for a treat, two or three huge potato cod came to visit us, they were nearly as big as us !

They were very inquisitive swimming to each of us in turn and they loved to be tickled !

Sheila took lots of fabulous photos and we will upload these when we have internet connection.

 

The day was rounded off when Freddie put out the fishing line and within minutes had landed a huge Spanish mackerel.

Sheila did an expert job of killing and filleting the fish and once back at Lizard island she marinaded it and produced dinner for us all.

 We finished the evening with dancing on the aft deck before eventually taking to our dingies in the early hours of the morning.

 

Next morning it was an early start again as we wanted to climb to Cook’s lookout at the top of the Island’s peak where Captain cook climbed to get a view of the main reef and to find his passage out.

It was a difficult climb of 2.5kms and 380 metre ascent but it was well worth it for the spectacular views from the top.

 

After breakfast we took up the anchor and left for another overnight passage to Morris Island ETA a few hours time 11.00am.