Cocos Keeling

Gcwjones
Sun 2 Oct 2016 04:58

Tuesday 27th September 2016     Position 12:5.26S 96:52.58E          Direction Island, Cocos Keeling

Several trips ashore for wifi etc but generally a lazy day enforced by the continuing strong wind.

 

Wednesday 28th September 2016              Direction Island, Cocos Keeling

Jane’s birthday! Spent the afternoon on the beach at Direction Island. I went snorkelling while Paul did some kite surfing. We then snorkelled through the “rip” – fantastic experience. Saw 3x nurse sharks snoozing under a ledge and a large Wahoo or Barracuda. Very hard work because of the tremendous current sluicing through the rip.

 

Thursday 29th September 2016   Direction Island, Cocos Keeling

Braved the crossing to Home Island in the dinghy into the teeth of the wind and got a complete soaking. Had lunch at the supermarket (pie and Jack fruit), did some provisioning and filled 2 jerry cans with diesel.

 

Friday 30th September 2016          Direction Island, Cocos Keeling

Went to West Island for laundry and provisioning. Dinner on Brizo – a lovely evening.

 

Saturday 1st October 2016            Direction Island, Cocos Keeling

Went on “Champagne breakfast and canoe tour” organised trip, although because the tide was out we were not able to do the canoe part, although it looked like it would have been fun – plastic outrigger canoes with small outboards. Dinghy’d over to Home Island 3-up and with 4 jerry cans for diesel once we had re-inflated the tender (puncture getting slowly worse). After filling the jerry cans we took the ferry with the others from WARC across to West Island. Met by Kylie in a minibus for a trip to a nearby art gallery and then on to John Clunies-Ross’s giant clam farm –he sells them around the world for aquaria, where they do a great job of filtering the water (why the water is so clear in the Cocos Islands – sea cucumbers do a similar job of cleaning up the sand). We ended up at the most fabulous beach shack that Kylie leases at the southern end of West Island. It looks out onto several square miles of the bottom end of the lagoon – all white and turquoise water (about knee deep due to the low tide). The breakfast on the beach under the palm trees was excellent (incl. champagne and beers). After breakfast I had a lovely wallow in the lagoon to cool off. We stayed longer than planned, due to a flat tyre on the minibus, which was no hardship at all. Early afternoon we were taken to the “Club” where there was a big bash going on for the AFL aussie rules football cup final.