Fitzroy Island Turtles; Bats in Cairns

Our last morning on the ship started with an early morning, steep climb to the summit of Fitzroy Island—for those who were keen. From the top, we could look out over the channel and islands to the sea in a beautiful clear day. Dani pointed out a type of palm tree that ‘walks,’ as it grows new roots in search of water (inspiration for Tolkien’s Ents?)

The hikers got ‘second brekky’ back on the beach, then we got our snorkel gear on for our last time on the reef. There were beautiful jellyfish, which we steered clear of, even though we were told they were not the stinging kind. Darryl saw a small reef shark, and we both hovered over a single green sea turtle a couple of times, and watched them drift to the surface for a breath of air. They looked just like Crush in ‘Finding Nemo.’

After awhile, we were called in from the water to visit the turtle rehabilitation center on the island. One of the founders, Jenny, talked to us about their work, and about the threats to turtles (single-use plastics, and hunting, primarily).

Back in Cairns, we said our farewells to the amazing crew of Coral Expeditions, checked in to to our accommodations and headed over to see the flying fox bats we’d been told about. The bats gather in huge numbers in trees on the library grounds. A sign said their wingspan can be up to 1.5 meters, and they looked 3-4 times larger than the bats we’re used to seeing. The close-up photo on the sign looked just like Erin & Nick’s Rico pup! We tried to wait until the bats flew off in mass at dusk, as we’d been told they would, but after an hour, we were hungry for dinner. We still saw a good showing of bats flying around in the dark.Read more