In Yeppoon, we stayed at a
bed-and-breakfast owned by an Aussie (Lois) and a Kiwi (Richard). At breakfast we
talked about living in Australia, politics (mostly Donald Trump) and travel. One
of our maps showed a colony of flying foxes near Yeppoon. Richard said that they
roost in trees along Figtree Creek and we went to look for them late in the
afternoon. The tide was ebbing and boats along the tidal creek were resting on
their keels in the mud. An old guy in faded shorts and worn tee shirt
introduced himself as Dave; he was tall and slim, and as weathered as his
clothes. He said he’s lived in a steel-hulled boat tied to a jetty for two decades,
one of the 40 or so boats I could see. The Jetty Club was sponsoring a
photo contest with a $500 first prize and he said I could take pictures from his
jetty.
 |
| Boats in Figtree Creek at low tide |
There were other old guys living on
old boats sitting in the mud up and down Figtree Creek. Their jetties displayed potted
plants, tables, chairs and other signs of long-term occupation. Figtree Creek was a trickle of water at low tide; I could have walked across it if not for all the
mud.
 |
| Boats in Figtree Creek at low tide |
 |
| Meeting announcement in Figtree Creek |
The colony of black flying foxes was roosting in the mangroves farther up Figtree Creek. More than 100 bats were hanging by
their feet (some by one toe) with their black wings wrapped around their
bodies. They were restive as sunset approached, grooming, climbing around the
branches and flying from one tree to another. Their face and shoulders are
reddish-brown and resemble a small fox. The black flying fox, one of the
world’s largest bats, has a wingspan of 1 m (3 ft) and weighs 0.7 kg (1.5 lb). During
the day, they live (sleep) in colonies or roosts; at night, they fly up to 50
km (30 mi) to feed on the nectar and pollen of eucalyptus trees, and fruit
of non-native trees in urban areas (link).
 |
| Black flying foxes roosting at Figtree Creek |
Australia’s original animals were
marsupials; bats are placental mammals, but they arrived by themselves and are
considered native to the continent. There are about 80 species of bats in
Australia and they’re divided into megabats and microbats. Megabats, like
flying foxes, do not possess echolocation like the insect-eating microbats; they
navigate by their eyes, which are large, while the eyes of microbat are small. Flying
foxes live in colonies of hundreds to thousands and are important pollinators
of native trees (link).
There are four species of flying foxes on mainland Australia and populations of
at least two of them are in decline from loss of habitat, heat
events, man-made hazards like power lines, legal and illegal shooting, and
netting of backyard fruit trees (link).
 |
| Black flying foxes |
 |
| Black flying foxes |
We chose Yeppoon because it was close
to the beach and reasonably close to the Dreamtime Cultural Center (link) in Rockhampton. The center interprets two
Aboriginal cultures: the Darambal people of the central Queensland
Sandstone Belt (link), and the people of the Torres Strait Islands that lie between northern Australia and Papua New Guinea. The museum
recreates the traditional Darambal rock art and culture in a man-made cave inside the center. Wayne, a member of the Darambal culture, was the interpreter for our small group comprised Germans, Austrians, Australians and Americans. He's worked at the Dreamtime Cultural Center for 25
years. Wayne said that Aboriginal peoples crossed a land bridge from Asia to
northwestern Australia 40,000-50,000 years ago and spread throughout the
continent. They reached the Sandstone Belt about 16,000 years ago. He said that
the closest relatives of the Aborigines (based on language similarities) are in
southern India.
 |
| Mural in the Dreamtime Cultural Center (notice the faces in the flowers) |
Genetic studies suggest “…that
modern Aboriginal peoples are the direct descendants of migrants who left
Africa up to 75,000 years ago…,” migrated into South Asia and then Australia,
making them “…one of the oldest living populations in the world and possibly
the oldest outside of Africa, confirming they may also have the oldest
continuous culture on the planet...More than 400 distinct Australian
Aboriginal peoples have been identified across the continent, distinguished by
unique names designating their ancestral languages, dialects, or distinctive
speech patterns” (link).
 |
| Photos of Aboriginal life at cattle stations in the late 1800s to early 1900s |
Wayne led us to a smaller, more
intimate man-made cave to demonstrate the digeridoo, a hollow section of
the trunk of a ghost gum tree (eucalyptus) about 1.5 m (5 ft) long. There is no
mouthpiece or reed in the digeridoo; sounds are made by blowing air through
pursed lips and vocalizations from the voice box. The music was amazing; we were charmed. He began playing at six years old and eight years later played at
a corroboree, “…an event where Australian Aborigines interact with the
Dreamtime through dance, music and costume.” Corroborees“…are open performances in
which everyone may participate taking into consideration that the songs and
dances are highly structured requiring a great deal of knowledge and skill to
perform” (link).
Wayne said it was his initiation into
manhood.
 |
| Wayne playing the digeridoo |
I had read that Dreamtime
encompassed the past, the present and the future. I asked Wayne, what that
meant in everyday life. He pointed to a mountain in the distance: “that
mountain was here in the past, it’s here now and it will be here in the
future.” He said that the Darambal do not venerate their ancestors as individuals,
but rather as part of a living culture. I asked him if Dreamtime was tied to a
particular place, and he likened it to the Fitzroy River, which flows through
Rockhampton and has historically wandered over a large floodplain – it’s
important to the culture no matter where it is. [Dreamtime is the pantheistic religious-cultural system of indigenous Australian mythology written about by
anthropologists. The Dreaming is the time when ancestral figures lived in the
land. While they often had supernatural powers, they did not control the
material world. They were revered, but not worshiped. Dreamtime and Dreaming
entered popular culture in novels, songs and movies in the 1980s, and are now commonly used by indigenous Australians (link).]
 |
| Wayne showing Rande how to throw a boomerang |
Wayne took us to an open field
where we sat behind a large net hanging from a frame several meters high while
he demonstrated how to throw a boomerang (and catch it when it returned). The
Darambal used different styles of boomerangs for hunting (birds and small mammals),
fighting, rituals and sport. His boomerangs were light and made of plywood
about 5-6 mm (1/4 in) thick, the best kind he said for throwing. Everyone threw several boomerangs with coaching from Wayne. The technique involved stepping into
the throw and releasing it with a flick of the wrist somewhere between sidearm
and overhand. If the release was too low, the boomerang dived into the dirt; too high and it sailed upwards, stalled and fell to earth; just
right and it carved an arc parallel to the ground.
 |
| Janet explaining Torres Strait culture |
Wayne introduced us to Janet, a
Torres Strait Islander. In a large hut thatched with palm fronds, she talked
about the five cultural groups distributed over 300 islands and islets in the Torres Strait. She was born on one of the western islands. Historically their culture relied on
the sea – they fished with spears and bamboo nets, and hunted turtles and
dugongs (manatees). Children learned to handle small boats and navigate by winds
and currents. The coconut palm is their tree of life; they use every part of it
for shelter, clothing, tools and food. They were taught to grow coconut palms
as children and plant about 500 trees during their lifetime. There are about 10,000 people living in the Torres Strait (about one-third on
Thursday Island, the administrative center) and 180,000 on mainland Australia.
She looks forward to her trips home to escape the noise of modern life and
return to the quiet of the sea and forest.
 |
| Decorated sea turtle carapace and fishing spears from Torres Strait |
The displays at the center could
be spruced up a bit and the grounds, while beautiful, need more
interpretation. But the knowledge and enthusiasm of the interpreters, and their
willingness to share their deep cultural heritage with visitors, make the
Dreamtime Cultural Center a rewarding experience. Wayne and Janet talked about
the treatment of Aboriginal Australians by European settlers, which mirrored the
treatment and experience of Native Americans in the U.S. – spread of
diseases post-contact, appropriation of their ancestral lands, children removed from their families and placed in state schools, enslavement, forced reliance on a Western economy, high unemployment and rates of alcoholism and drug abuse, the struggles to maintain their culture and language and to regain their
traditional lands, and so on.
 |
| Lake Mary |
We had heard that Lake Mary, in
the hills about 20 km (12 mi) west of Yeppoon was a good place for bird watching. Our Garmin got us near the lake, but we couldn’t see it. This is
ranching country and the only person we saw was a postwoman in a jeep, so we flagged her down. She told us how to get to the lake. The Garmin doesn’t work well on dirt roads in the bush. We saw a few cattle and lots of cow pies around the lake. A man was repairing a barbed wire
fence in shorts, mid-calf boots, short-sleeved shirt and what passes for a cowboy
hat (flat top and flat brim, although older hats can be misshapen and floppy). He waved as we drove by.
 |
| A yellow-billed spoonbill chasing a royal spoonbill |
 |
| White ibises |
In and around Lake Mary, we saw several pairs of black swans
with their cygnets; lotusbirds with huge feet (for walking on floating vegetation); purple swamphens; white-faced and grey herons; pied (black-and-white) geese; a pair of swamp harriers; a sparrow-sized, azure kingfisher; white, glossy and straw-necked ibises; yellow-billed and royal spoonbills; bustards; laughing kookaburras; glossy-black shinning flycatcher and more. A truck stopped beside us as we walked along Hedlow Creek. We had seen the driver photographing birds with a big lens on a tripod on the shore of Lake Mary. He asked about our trip and I told him about diving at Heron Island. He said that before he retired, he owned dive shops in Gladstone and Cairns. He told us where to see the grey heron and how to find our way back to the main highway.
 |
| Hedlow Creek |
We spent two days hiking in Byfield State
Forest and the adjacent Byfield National Park (link). The state forest preserves a
small piece of rainforest (Water Park Creek), which is dominated by towering turpentine
trees (eucalyptus) and Alexandra palms. We saw ancient cycads and the endemic Byfield
fern, which is a cycad that looks like a fern. This isolated patch of wet
forest receives an average of 750 mm (2.5 ft) of rain a year; the nearest
rainforest is a three-hour flight for fruit eating birds. The surrounding state
forest is an exotic pine tree plantation, much of which was blown down during
Cyclone Marcia in 2015, a Category 5 storm that came ashore just north of the park (link). The area around Water Park Creek has been clear cut to remove the blown-down trees. Contrasts like these continually remind us how much has been lost (and continues to be lost) to make way for tree plantations, sugar cane fields and livestock pastures, compared to the slivers of native forests and wetlands that remain.
 |
| Alexandra palms in Water Park Creek |
 |
| Endemic Byfield fern in Water Park Creek |
I drove our rental car through the state forest on a dirt logging road to Byfield National
Park; we parked where the road turns to sand and high clearance and four-wheel drive are necessary. We hiked into the eucalyptus forest marveling at the unusual vegetation. We could see sand dunes the size of small hills. We returned the way we went in. An older man in a
Toyota Land Cruiser truck stopped to talk at a stream crossing. He was retired and lives in Stockyard
Point, a small community near the beach at the end of the road. He was heading out to buy
groceries and pick up his mail. The forest was quiet except for birds. We saw several sets of tracks, but no wildlife.
 |
| Rande at a stream crossing in Byfield National Park |
 |
| Grasstrees in Byfield National Park |
We visited the Rockhampton Botanic
Garden; it’s more than a century old so it has some very large trees, including
a towering American cypress. Feeding the birds at Murray Pond is popular with
families and grandparents. The birds, including white and straw-necked ibises, swamphens, black ducks and
white pelicans, and river turtles are habituated to being fed and move towards
the shore when people show up. The ibis squabbled with each other over the
bread; two birds with blood on the feathers were probably wounded in the fray. Swamp
hens would grab a piece of bread and run away from the group to consume it in
peace. The pelicans beat most of the turtles to bread thrown on the water; they
paddled over the turtles or stretched their long bills over them to picked morsels
off the water. Turtles watching from 10 m (33 ft) away swam up to the shore to
compete for handouts.
 |
| Feeding the birds (white pelicans, ibises, swamphen) and river turtles |
 |
| Feeding the birds (white pelicans, ibises, black ducks) and river turtles |
Agnes Street in Rockhampton is
known for its restored Queenslander homes, a type of architecture indigenous to
Queensland and New South Wales. Developed in the 1840s for the warm, humid
climate, they’re typically one or two story detached houses with wide verandas
raised above the ground to improve cooling (link)
.
“With its distinctive timber and corrugated iron appearance, [the Queenslander
home] breaks the monotony of the bland, master-planned display villages on the
peripheries of our cities” (link).
We enjoyed the drive along Agnes Street on our way to Victoria Park.
 |
| Restored Queenslander home on Agnes Street |
 |
| Restored Queenslander home on Agnes Street |
Victoria Park stretches out along
the Fitzroy River. Downstream from the park, an old steel bridge sits on rocks
that block the river to upstream travel by large boats. Rockhampton was named
for these rocks plus Hampton, a village in England (link).
The Fitzroy was brown with sediment from erosion following recent heavy rains. According
to a TV news story, a government task force looking at the health of the Great
Barrier Reef identified the Fitzroy River as one of the largest contributors of
sediment to the Coral Sea, 45 km (28 mi) downstream from Rockhampton. Sediments
smother corals and other shallow-water habitats. The task force estimated that
it would cost $6 billion AUS to reduce erosion from lands in the Fitzroy River
Basin that continue to be cleared for agriculture and grazing (I wrote about
the health of the Great Barrier Reef here).
 |
| Railroad bridge (foreground) and Neville Hewitt Bridge on rocks blocking river traffic |
From Yeppoon we drove 560 km (350
mi) north to Airlie Beach, our longest one-day drive since we arrived in
Australia. My driving has improved, or at least my confidence in my driving. I’m
more comfortable at 100 km/hr (62 mi/hr; the maximum speed) on narrow,
rural roads and more better able to navigate roundabouts and weird
intersections (although the bus lane with its own traffic signal in Rockhampton
threw me at first). We arrived in Airlie, found our rental apartment, unpacked
the car and walked into town. Bars, restaurants, hotels, travel agents and
tourist trinket shops dominate the main street; it reminded us of Cabo San
Lucas. All the travel agencies advertise the same trips on boards along the
sidewalks and have the same brightly-colored brochures in wall racks – day
trips to snorkel the Whitsunday Islands and Great Barrier Reef, thrill rides on
jet boats, overnight trips on sailboats and scenic helicopter flights to remote
beaches. The people in the ads are young and beautiful and laughing. They’re
snorkeling in clear water in bathing suits under sunny skies. Couples walk hand-in-hand
or play in the surf on white sand beaches.
 |
| Airlie Beach main street |
 |
| Bar on the main street of Airlie Beach |
The next morning I visited a store
with Fishing and Diving stenciled in equally large letters above the door. Ninety-five
percent of the equipment in the store was for fishing, five percent was for
diving. When I asked about dive trips, the owner directed me to Aqua Dive at
the north end of Abel Point Marina. Aqua Dive’s main business is renting wet
suits and stinger suits to day trippers and scuba gear to divers. [Stinger
suits are hooded, full-body, lycra/neoprene suits that protect snorkelers from jellyfish,
also known as stingers.]
 |
| Saltwater swimming pool; no stingers, no sharks, no saltwater crocodiles |
 |
| Marine stingers warning sign |
I was looking for a multi-day diving trip and he recommended
two boats for one-day trips and one for over-night trips; he gave me the same
brochures I saw in town. He mentioned two boats to avoid; his young assistant,
who was repairing equipment, said the boats were known for drunken parties at
night and divers with hangovers the next morning. Two decades ago there were 11
dive shops in Airlie Beach; today there are two. The owner blamed the decline on
a public less interested in diving and the cost of implementing government
safety regulations. He said that several former shop owners from Airlie moved
their operations to Thailand where there are fewer regulations.
 |
| Abel Point Marina |
 |
| Travel ads along the sidewalk in Airlie Beach |
We returned to the travel agency
we had visited the previous evening. Then, the woman behind the desk was
helping two young German women book a trip aboard a sailboat. We eavesdropped
on their conversation while we browsed the brochures in the wall racks. The
agent seemed knowledgeable and helpful, so when we returned the next day, I
asked her about dive trips. Her name was Diane and she had pink hair. I told
her that I wanted an overnight trip to the Great Barrier Reef. Only one of the
day boats and two of the overnight boats go to the reef, which is 65 km (40 mi)
from Airlie. I booked a three-day trip for the two of us on the Kiana, a wooden sailboat that carries fourteen people and three crew.
 |
| Diane helping tourists book adventure travel |
 |
| Travel brochures in a travel agency |
We didn’t have WiFi in our
apartment (many rentals don’t have Internet access ), so we tried several cafes in
town; only one advertised free WiFi, but it was closed. We returned to the travel
agency where we booked our trip. Diane was out, but Tina, the owner, gave us the
login information and we spent a couple hours working on the next part of our
trip. I remarked on the abundance of travel agencies in Airlie. Tina said that most
of them were owned by charter boat companies and tourist businesses; they sell “memberships”
to businesses that put brochures in their shops. The more the businesses pay
for a membership, the more they get recommended. Tina’s shop is one of the last
independent travel agencies in Airlie; she earns commissions on the trips she
sells. Many towns have government-subsidized information centers (i-Centers) run
by volunteers. Because it’s staffed by people from the local community, i-Centers
are helpful for finding accommodations and restaurants, getting maps and
directions to obscure landmarks, and recommending places to see wildlife. There
is no government-subsidized i-Center in Airlie Beach.
 |
| Sightseeing helicopters at Abel Point Marina |
 |
| Sunken boat |
That morning, while taking
pictures of a hull of a boat sunk outside the jetty surrounding the marina, an Aussie
asked me if I knew the story behind it; I didn’t. He had just arrived at the
marina after sailing an 18-m (60-ft) boat 2,000 nm (2,300 mi) from Melbourne so
the owner could sail in the upcoming regatta. The trip took 16 days during
which he saw hundreds humpback whales. He’s been coming to Airlie for 15 years.
He said that before Abel Point Marina was built, the “ferals” (liveaboards too
poor or too cheap to rent moorings) anchored off the point and came ashore to
get water from a spring that’s now covered by the condo behind us. Back at the
travel agency, I asked Tina about the contrast between main street, which
caters to backpackers and millennials, and the yachting set, multi-millionaires
who keep their boats in the marina. Tina said the rich rarely come into town
and don’t spend much money in Airlie. They fly up to take their boats out and then
fly back home.
 |
| Kiana at anchor off Whitsunday Island |
We boarded the Kiana, a 16-m (54-ft), 40-ton, wooden ketch (link) at Abel Point Marina at 8:00 AM. It was cool and windy and the weather forecast
was for more of the same. Brent, the captain, a 40-something ex-commercial
diver and skipper of the boat for 15 years, motored out of the harbor and
pointed the boat east toward Whitsunday Island about 28 km (17 mi) from Airlie
Beach. The Whitsundays, a collection of continental islands centered on Whitsunday
Island, takes its name from Whitsunday Passage, which was named by Captain Cook
in 1770. Cook thought it was Sunday, the feast of Whitsun (Pentecost) in
Christian tradition that occurs seven weeks after Easter. The International
Dateline did not exist at the time; it was actually Monday (link). We crossed Whitsunday Passage with 1-m white-capped swells, winds to 20
knots out of the south, and low clouds and rain. Not a propitious start for a three-day
diving and snorkeling cruise. According to the marine weather report,
conditions offshore were 2-3-m (6-9-ft) swells and winds to 30 knots. Brent said the
seas were too rough to cross to the Great Barrier Reef. After rocking and
rolling for two hours in lesser seas and winds, the passengers, four or five of
whom were already seasick, would have, if asked, voted against a three-hour
crossing to the Great Barrier Reef 40 km (24 mi) from the Whitsundays.
 |
| Motoring through Hook Passage |
 |
| Sailboat in Hook Passage |
The Whitsundays are one of the most popular yachting
destinations in the Southern Hemisphere; annual visitation was estimated at
700,000 in 2008-2009 (link). The number of islands ranges from 74 to 90 depending on who’s counting them.
The rocky islands were once part of a mountain range in central Queensland
thrust up by volcanic and tectonic activity over tens of millions of years. As
sea level rose and fell, the mountain range was separated and rejoined to the
mainland several times,
hence the appellation continental islands. The Whitsundays are part of the
Great Barrier Reef Heritage Area and comprise six national parks, including
Whitsunday Islands National Park (link).
 |
| Dinner aboard the Kiana |
The seas calmed when we entered Hook
Passage between Whitsunday and Hook islands. We rounded the northern tip of
Whitsunday Island and turned south motoring into the wind and seas to
Whitehaven Beach, one of the most photographed places in Australia, and one of
the most beautiful beaches in the world. We anchored in a cove on the north
side of a headland. Brent took us to shore in an inflatable dingy. The tide
was too low to cross an oyster reef in an inflatable boat to land at the beach,
so he dropped us off at a rocky point. The rocks were covered with algae and oysters.
Rande slipped and brushed against an oyster shell; it made a shallow, three-inch
cut down her calf that looked like it have been made with a sharp knife. We had
to cross 100 m of rocks to reach the trailhead to Tower Point, the overlook for
Whitehaven Beach.
 |
| Whitehaven Beach from Tower Hill |
 |
| Taking photos at Tower Hill |
Low, gray rain clouds sailed past on the wind while everyone took
the classic photo of Whitehaven Beach from the overlook. Our group included 12
millennials (five couples and two singles); they exchanged I-phones and
tablets until everyone had selfies to post on their Facebook pages.
We hiked down to the beach in the wind and rain. The white silica sand was not
derived from local rocks, but was carried north by currents along the
Queensland coast millions of years ago forming dunes among the rocks of the
island. Over time, as sea levels rose and fell, impurities were leached from
the sand leaving the white silica beach we see today (link). Chris, our guide and dive master on the trip, said that 10 tons of sand from Whitehaven Beach was used to fabricate mirrors for the Hubble space telescope.
 |
| Early morning near Blue Pearl Bay |
Several people went swimming in stinger suits. It wasn’t
jellyfish season (November-April), but Brent told us to wear them when we went
swimming or snorkeling. Rande and I hiked along the channels behind the
beach. Cowtail stingrays moved into deeper water as we approached. A
fierce rain squall hit the beach and everyone ran for shelter of the she-oaks. By
the time we returned to catch the dingy back to the Kiana, the swimmers were shivering in the first stage of
hypothermia. The whole day had the feeling of a forced march – a predetermined schedule
for arrivals and departures, get to the scenic spots regardless of weather, take
the selfies and head back to the boat.
 |
| Cowtail rays in the channels behind Whitehaven Beach |
The Kiana motored back around Whitsunday Island through Island Passage
to Nara Inlet on Hook Island where we spent the night on the anchor with a
dozen other sailboats. We arrived in the dark and had dinner at 7:00 PM (lamb,
sweet potatoes, pumpkin and carrots steamed in a propane-fired, modified beer
keg for three hours). Within an hour, everyone was in bed. With 14
passengers and three crew (captain, dive master,
cook/deckhand), every space on Kiana,
except for the back deck, had bunks or seating that converted into beds. We
slept in the main salon below deck where the sofa and table converted into a
double bed (the largest bed on the boat). We shared the salon with Arianna, the cook and deckhand. Brent and
Chris, the dive master, slept in the open wheelhouse. The rest of the
passengers slept in bunks fore and aft. There were two marine toilets with showers, one forward and one aft, and everyone had to pass the sleeping bunks
to reach them. The first night was calm with occasional wind gusts that rocked
the boat. The bilge pump came on at intervals and the noise and
vibration made it difficult for some people to sleep. We woke to gray clouds and rain, had a meager
breakfast (cereal and toast and jam, powdered coffee and tea), pulled anchor for a two-hour run to Luncheon Bay off northern Hook
Island for the first dive of the day.
 |
| Coral reef complexity (hard and soft corals, giant anemones, fishes) |
 |
| Beaked coralfish (Chaetodontidae) |
Jake, a young, wiry construction
worker from Melbourne, and I were the only certified divers on the trip. He had
booked his trip a month before and flew to Airlie to dive the Great Barrier
Reef. Our first dive with Chris was along a 12-m (40-ft) rock wall. The
visibility was poor, but the hard and soft corals were lush and healthy. After
we returned to the Kiana,
Chris took eight novices in two sets of four on a “discover diving adventure.” Before
they got in the water, he gave them a lecture and demonstration in English
(with handouts in Chinese and German). It covered the “skills” they needed to learn and demonstrate underwater: inflate and deflate their buoyancy
compensation device; flood and clear their mask; and retrieve their regulator
if it fell out of their mouth. They didn’t go deeper than 6-7 m (20-23 ft). He
brought the first group back to the Kiana
after 20 minutes and took the second group out. The visibility was so poor that
Chris had them hold hands four across as they swam underwater.
 |
| Sea fan (gorgonian) |
 |
| Schlegel's (or yellowbar) parrotfish (Scaridae) |
Jake and I made our second dive with
Chris at a big bommie off Pinnacle Point. Brent ferried us out in the skiff
and dropped us off on top of the bommie, about 7 m (23 ft) below the surface.
We were met immediately by schools of large yellowspotted trevallies and blue and yellow
fusiliers. We swam around the bommie and along the wall parallel to the beach. A school of medium-sized barracuda swam past us. On our other
dives, Chris let me wander around taking pictures; at Pinnacle Point, Jake and
I followed him because the current was strong and he knew where to get out of it. Brent came to get us in the skiff and towed us back to the Kiana on a long polypropylene
line with hand loops covered with black plastic hose – I felt like a fishing lure being
trolled through the water.
 |
| Turrum (or yellowspotted trevally) (Carangidae) |
Chris took the young Taiwanese woman on another dive,
the only novice to go out a second time. Back on the boat, she
exclaimed to everyone “I saw Nemo, I saw Nemo!” Chris said she waved goodbye
to the fishes as they swam back to the boat.Tall, early 30s with a quick smile and heaps of patience, Chris was a good dive master. He had been a commercial diver (underwater construction in Sydney Harbor) and dive master aboard other charter boats. I was surprised (amazed really) that he taught novices how to dive in half an hour and took them underwater for 20 minutes.
 |
| Delicate sea whips (corals) |
We left Hook Island at 4:00 PM
for Blue Pearl Bay on Hayman Island; we tied off to a mooring buoy and spent
the night with a half-dozen other boats, mostly catamarans. Brent said that
cats are popular because the inside living space is continuous with the back
deck, unlike the single-hulled Kiana
where most of the living space is below deck. He said that cats are not as stable in bigger
seas as single-hulled boats. Dinner was pasta and salad. The night was calm. One
woman asked Brent if there was any flexibility with the meals. Brent said
that there were no grocery stores to run out to when you needed something, so
you bring everything, which requires planning. The Kiana serves the same meals breakfast, lunch and dinner on every
trip; every meal is planned. It’s easier on the cook (no need to learn
something new each trip). Ariana told Rande that she follows a checklist of the
types and amounts of spices for each meal.
 |
| Coral bommie |
 |
| Sea anemones |
On our third and last dive the
following morning, Chris, Jake and I dove the large bommies in Blue Pearl Bay. Brent
said they grow a few centimeters each year, so they’re several thousand years
old. The bommies are not spectacular like some of the brightly-colored corals
with complex growth forms, but their size (4-5 m, 13-16 ft, tall) is impressive;
they look like steep-sided mountains covered with hard and soft corals, and they're swarming
with fishes and invertebrates. The visibility was poor visibility and it became progressively darker below 10 m (33 ft). It would have been a great dive with decent
visibility. The many large bommies created a bit of a maze and I lost
Chris and Jake twice when I fell behind taking pictures. Back on the boat, I asked Chris about visibility in the Whitsundays. He said
that in the three years he had been diving the islands several times a
week, he’s only had 10-12 days with visibility over 5 m (16 ft), and only a
couple times could they see the bottom when they anchored.
 |
| Soft corals |
The brochure for Kiana advertises “…the Reef, the Islands
& Whitehaven Beach” with people in swimmers (bathing suits) lying on the
deck in the sunshine, and a woman in a yellow swimmer (no stinger suit or
wetsuit) snorkeling the Great Barrier Reef. The brochure does say in small
print at the bottom of a page referenced with an asterisk in the text: “*Your
safety and comfort is our prime concern. In adverse conditions, with winds
greater than 20kn and waves higher than 1.8m, the choice of a more protected
destination will be at the discretion of the skipper.” Most of the one-day and multi-day
trips from Airlie go to the Whitsunday Islands, the more protected destination. Whitsunday Islands National Park is beautiful,
but it's not the Great Barrier Reef that most divers and snorkelers come to see, which may
be why knowledgeable divers choose Townsville, Cairns or Port Douglas, or offshore coral cays like Heron Island, as diving destinations, and may be why the
scuba business has withered in Airlie Beach (It’s thriving in Cairns.)
 |
| Blue Pearl Bay |
 |
| Brent and our mooring in Blue Pearl Bay (two-hour parking limit on the buoy) |
Brent pulled out of Blue Pearl
Bay after lunch, turned west and raised the mainsail and first headsail; we
were sailing back to Airlie Beach. He said our hull speed was 7-7.2 knots
under sail; motoring to the point where he set the sails, the boat made 5.6 knots.
The seas were 0.5 m with a few 1-m swells and the wind was blowing 20 knots
from the south. Brent heeled the Kiana
over to where people sitting on the leeward rail got their feet wet. Several people
scrambled up to the pulpit at the bow for selfies; they had an exciting, if
wet, ride. The young women screamed every time they were sprayed. “When the
women scream, I know I’m doing something right” Brent said. Everyone had to hang on going back.
 |
| Sailing back to Airlie Beach |
 |
| Sailing back to Airlie Beach |
 |
| Everyone was holding onto something on the way back to Airlie Beach |
It was regatta week in Airlie
Beach and we passed through the fleet of sail boats completing their race. Near
the entrance of the harbor, a large, black-hulled motor yacht passed us at high
speed. Brent had to slow the Kiana and
turn into the wake to keep the boat from rolling side-to-side. He was pissed
and asked me to get the name of the boat from my pictures. I pulled up a photo,
but the name was obscured by a dingy on the swim step. There was enough
information from the superstructure, however, for him to identify the boat. He
was going to have a talk with the skipper later. At the dock, we were met by
the owner, who lined up with the crew to shake our hands as we left the boat (this
is the custom on all of the dive/snorkel boats I went on in Queensland). Brent
wished us a safe trip and better weather. He said we were not fair-weather
sailors (a compliment I think). We walked back to our apartment with our gear,
glad to be out of the confines of the boat and on our own schedule.
 |
| Airlie Beach from Whitsunday Passage |
 |
| Yacht passing the Kiana near Able Point Marina |
The trip began with disappointment
– we weren’t going to the Great Barrier Reef –
but it ended up okay because the dives were interesting. Our group was diverse: four from France, two from Austria, two from China (on
their honeymoon), one from Taiwan, one from Australia, four Americans (a couple
from Georgia and Tennessee and us). Everyone was married or paired up, except the young woman from
Taiwan and the guy from Australia. The trip was geared to millennials (and documenting
their adventure) rather than ancianos like us. Back on land, Rande said she would never go on
an over-night “sail/dive adventure” again.
 |
| Pedestrian crossing in Airlie Beach; note sign in the refuge island in the median |
One thing tourists quickly come to understand in Australia is that vehicles have the right of way over pedestrians, except at a stoplight with a green pedestrian crossing light and at crosswalks that are signed for pedestrian right of way. Aussies rarely stop to allow pedestrians to cross in front of them, including in parking lots. On busy highways where it's difficult to cross all lanes at once, there are small fenced areas in the median known as "refuge islands" where pedestrians can wait until traffic clears and then cross the rest of the way. Airlie was the only place where we saw signs warning pedestrians that vehicles have the right of way at
crosswalks, probably because there are so many tourists from countries where drivers
either are required to yield, or are accustomed to yielding, to pedestrians.
 |
| Cedar Creek in Conway National Park |
 |
| Grasstrees in Conway National Park |
 |
| Oyster reef details |
 |
| Crocodile warning sign at Wilson Beach |
One rain squall after another passed
through Airlie every day after we returned from the Whitsundays. The low
clouds, fog and rain, cool temperatures and deep-green forested hills reminded
me of the San Juan Islands in northern Puget Sound. One morning we experienced
an earthquake; someone said it was 4.5 on the Richter scale. We had 15-20 seconds of shaking,
followed by three aftershocks within an hour. We left our three-story, concrete
apartment complex and stood on the lawn with other residents. One woman who had
lived in Airlie for 30 years said this was the third earthquake she’d
experienced. Our rental car was parked in the basement and I wondered how much we’d
owe if the apartment collapsed on top of it.
 |
| Sulphur-crested cockatoos on the railing of our balcony in Airlie Beach |
My first impression that Airlie
Beach was more like Cabo San Lucas than Rainbow Beach or Bargara (link) was continually reinforced during our two-week stay. It’s advertised as the
Gateway to the Great Barrier Reef, which it may have been 10-20 years ago; today
it caters to young travelers who want adventures, rowdy parties and selfies to
post on Facebook. The Lonely Planet guide says that you either love or hate
Airlie Beach; we were closer to the latter than the former, and glad to be
moving on.
 |
| Red-tailed black cockatoos feeding at Emu Park near Yeppoon |
We also travel for experiences, which are
sometimes adventurous, and I record them on this blog. The experiences that we value most can be relatively low cost (bird-watching
and photography at Lake Mary), or expensive (diving at Heron Island), and they
usually include learning (Dreamtime Cultural Center). People
travel for many reasons and, unless their reasons are exploitative, I don’t
discount them. Travel is enlightening and can be transformative (link). The trips sold to
tourists in Airlie Beach are just not our style; we prefer the unguided and unregimented, leaving us open to chance encounters (Figtree Creek), but some experiences cannot be had without a guide (diving the
Great Barrier Reef). The challenge is to weed through the glossy
advertisements, sales hype and glowing online reviews to find the trips that are right for you.
Sugar Plum Catering - Catering Western Sydney
ReplyDeleteCatering Penrith
Catering Blue Mountains
Platters Penrith Sydney
Sugar Plum Catering
Catering Western Sydney
Catering Penrith
Catering Blue Mountains