Tully experiences

Apart from the work Christel did with the children’s schoolwork and my efforts in the hospital we had a number of great experiences. Further to Christel’s latest blog update. Worth mentioning by me are our 2 boating trips exploring the “family islands” and 2 dive trips I did with our local GP in town.

 On our first boating trip we had a general wander around the islands. The Islands of the family group are true castaway deserted islands with little bays of clean sand, blue water and hills rising up from them.  Moring in these bays and exploring the beaches was a gorgeous experience. To be able to dive off the back of the boat, swim the warm salt water to the beach and to walk the shoreline is an experience dreams are made off.  

We do a spot of fishing between the islands and manage to catch a delicious spotted mackerel.  The bay we caught him in was soon named “mackerel bay”.  

Because of recent strong winds the water is not clear enough to go snorkeling on the fringing reefs but clear enough for our kids to do target practice on air filled balloons with spear guns.  It turns out slightly trickier then they thought.  Between the pod of whales, the fish, the spearing and overall experience of the islands we had a great day.

On our second trip out we follow a very similar route out around the islands.

The water is a bit clearer and we have a go at snorkeling and spearfishing, first for balloons and later for fish. There are lots of large fish about and I manage to shoot a few. I could have taken more, however I don’t know what they are and if they can be eaten at all let alone taste well.  The lady’s at reception of the hospital between them tell me that they are most likely “mother in law” fish.  Turns out they taste very nice. I cooked them up on the barbeque with a sprinkling of Chicken spice rub. Nice firm flesh. Even Laura thinks it is doable.

We collect some nice shells from the beaches and Laura makes a very nice art work with them.  

All children have a go at steering the boat again, which they love almost as much as me.

I get invited to come diving twice. On our first trip we are 4 divers and will try to find a shipwreck and a sunken crane. David, the local GP, is a very active diver who goes out most weekends, weather permitting. He has a regular dive buddy Jye who is also training him for deep deep diving. (75meters +).  I buddy up with a dive instructor from Cairns. 

All being experienced divers the atmosphere is very relaxed and that makes for excellent diving. David was given coordinates of a sunken fishing vessel and although we search for the ship on the sounder for some time we do not see it. Plan B is to drop the anchor and do a circular search with a 100meter rope around the anchor. It takes 20 minutes to find it but find it we do. The visibility is good and it is accelerating to see the wrack materialize before us. The wrack is home to a very large Queensland Groper (2+ meter).  Due to its depth (35 meters) there is no spear fishing on the wrack and we see lots of large fish like Cod and Coral Trout.  

The second dive of the day is on a crane that dropped over the railing of a barge in rough weather. The sounder picks this up quickly and we drop straight onto it. The crane lies is 25 meters of water. Shallow enough for experienced spear fishermen to dive on. There is less large fish here but we do find a beautiful cray fish.

I made a gopro movie of the dive for anyone who cares to look at 5 minutes of blue fishy screen.

Our second day diving is 2 weeks later. Another beautiful day. We first spot a pod of whales and then make it to a small sand cay on the edge of the outer reef. We are awaiting skydivers who are planned to land here sometime today. After a good 1 hour wait we decide to move to our first dive site; a rock wall going down to 40+ meters. David first does some exercises with Jye for his deep diving certificate. I spend that time snorkeling the amazing reef shallows. 

Then we take to the deeper water. The chances are that we see some really big pelagic fish like Marlin (which Jye and David saw some weeks ago).  Alas no big fish here. The dive is very nice again as diving always is.  

We make our way back to the sand cay and watch about 20 people falling from the sky and land on this small stretch of sand. Do they feel as free up there as I do in the sea below? 

The second dive is on one of the most famous wracks on the coast here, the Lady Bowen. It is sea snake city down here. Every few minutes a snake surfaces to get a breath of air before swimming back down to the wreck 30 meters below. Some of the most poisonous snakes in the world share this wreck with us. As poisonous as they are they are also the most docile you will ever meet. No need to be afraid.  The wrack has a beautiful swim through full of fish and lots of things grow onto its surface.  I try a spot of fishing once back onto the boat but have no luck hooking into any of the fish that where so prolific down below.