Sunday 30^th April 2017

Blue Water marina

Cairns – back again!

We left Port Douglas mid morning, after farewelling James and Bronwen, off to explore the Daintree.

Hmmmm...

They sent us a photo of the Low Isles from above. 

Yesterday we went for a beautiful walk around beautiful Port Douglas.  We saw lots of glorious Ulysses butterflies (iridescent blue) but…they flutter too fast to allow any photography.  So I took a scenic photo of an abandoned shopping trolley instead.

And a touristy photo of the beach from the lookout

Plus one of James and Bron posing scenically at the lookout…

On the way back through the shopping area Bron and I bought presents for Pete and James.

A crabby glass for James, who is sometimes (NOT often!) crabby.

And…a very appropriate mug for Pete, who has taken agin swearing in his presence…possibly he doesn’t realise that he is quite a prolific swearer himself…

He does not love this mug…

29th April 2017 - Port Douglas

Saturday 29^th April 2017

16 degrees 29 434S

145 degrees 27.536E

Port Douglas marina

So here we sit, in the midst of vast superyachts and charter vessels.  2XS looks very small and slightly shabby after her battering by Cyclone Debbie.

We left the Low Isles at midday and Captain Pete decided that we should anchor up the river.  He and James spent a few merry hours, with assistance from Bronwen and me.  We dropped the anchor at a certain depth, a certain angle.  And then they went in to the shore in the stout little dinghy to attach a mooring line to…the mangroves. This was all very tricky and wobbly.

And not particular confidence-inspiring…A few local men went past in small boats.  Pete did a thumbs up to one of them and received a very definite double thumbs down.  Ah, local knowledge – what relevance does that have??  Another man came up and said that 2XS would almost certainly swing around at the change of tide and bang into the muddy river edge.  Hmmm…James and Bron said they would pay for us to stay in the marina; neither of them, strangely, wanted to bump into the muddy mangroves in the middle of the night.

A close-up of MangrovePete!

So here we sit, comfortably attached to the marina pontoons, with electricity plugged in and beautiful hot showers not too far away.

james and Bron in the beautiful avenue of trees at Paranella Park

Today we can pootle around beautiful Port Douglas; once again, all is well on 2XS.

28th April - Cairns to Low Isles

Friday 28^th April 2017

16 degrees 22.911S

145 degrees 33.768E

Low Isles (Qld)

When we arrived at the Low Isles around 4pm yesterday we had a welcoming committee.  At least six reef sharks, circling busily. 

And some other nice big fish.

 James and Bron took the tender in to the main island for a recce

and this morning he and I went in for a bit of a snorkel along the shore.  It was too rough to go straight off the boat, which is my preferred option.  James found a turtle and a few big fish but I was very disappointed – lots and LOTS of dead coral, a few patches of yellow, some white.  One giant clam and a cloud of bait fish. 

Before we left Cairns Bron and I went for a walk round the Blue Water suburb where we found, to our great delight, a squashed cane toad. 

We are going to Port Douglas today to drop them off.  (James and Bron, not random road kill…)  It is much too windy out here to spend more time than necessary tossing about.

Pete celebrating his birthday exactly a year ago at Ocean View marina (Philippines.)
He, Terry and Dave clocked up 220 years that day...