our ET week

What a fun week we’ve had with our ex-ET crew. We collected our Cairns friends Leanne and Steve from Dunk Island where we enjoyed a lunch at the Spit Bar together, before sailing out to the outer reefs of Beaver and Taylor.

The Bossa at anchor at Dunk Island

Lots of planning went in to this visit (it certainly helps when there are no definite dates to adhere to). We needed a favourable weather forecast, a provisioning top up and … a Dunk Island water taxi to collect our guests from the mainland, a visit to a prawn trawler for our favourite endeavor prawns and of course a fish to complete the freezer supplies.  All boxes were ticked!

We counted 9 prawn trawlers in the Palm Islands. And then we caught a Spanish Mackerel, perfect, the freezer was full!

We’ve visited Beaver Reef many times but it’s still a favourite, especially our comfy lagoon anchorage. While not as calm as some previous visits with some surging over the reef, it’s still a treat to anchor in four-metres of crystal clear water.

We visited the Beaver cay for sunset drinks.

Then there was the snorkeling … and my second Nudi for the season!  These tiny creatures are so hard to find so it’s exciting when I do.

Taylor Reef is only two miles away and has another sand cay. I found the coral health at Taylor Reef surprisingly good this visit. 

I do love finding an Anemonefish.  There are so many species of Anemonefish, nearly thirty in fact, but only twelve known species here in Australia.

These photos are of a Spine-cheeked Anemonefish (bar one photo). If you touch/select the larger view you’ll see why.

Our ET crew enjoyed it all, the snorkeling, the kayaking, the swimming and the visits to the cays.  There was just one more box to tick … Leanne loves her fishing. While Beaver and Taylor are green zones, which means no fishing, the passage to Mourilyan Harbour was not. 

After a quick refresher tête-à-tête on how to use my trolling rod, Leanne was set. We can’t believe it. She caught a good size Spotty Mac … AND … a monster Cobia. The fishing box was certainly ticked!

This 1.2m Cobia was a monster to drag in and Leanne did it all on her own. A bloody good effort (especially in that dress!). For quite a while we thought it was a shark, but as it got closer we got an ID on it.  A great eating fish it seems.  Unfortunately, after the Spotty was filleted our freezer was bursting, so any fish caught after that was always going to be a ‘catch and release’. 🙁

We visited Innisfail once again and for the same reason as last season. The captain needed some stitches removed and it was timely for our guests to jump off as well.  

We are now at Fitzroy Island where we’ve enjoyed a few relaxing days including watching the AFL Grand Final. Yay! The Brisbane Lions won (we are Queenslanders half the year after all).

We have a calm patch of weather coming up so we will spend some time visiting some of the Cairns outer reefs before stocking up in Port Douglas. We will then be venturing further north than we have ever been … to Lizard Island we hope!  Exciting.