Lady Elliot Island

Sunday, 18 May 2014

This is to be the highlight of our trip! One week on a teeny little island at the southernmost end of the Great Barrier Reef: no television, no internet, no telephones. And no cooking or cleaning either since meals are included. LEI is protected by the GBR Marine Park, and so everything is done to minimize environmental impact. The resort is very much a "no frills" establishment, but it's one of a kind.

As you can see, the waves break beyond the lagoon on the windward side of the island, making an exceptional snorkeling pool, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

Though we were hoping for Mr. Rourke and Tattoo, Andreas the manager and Fabrice the resident marine biologist greeted our plane. As our luggage was taken to our room, Fabrice gave us a tour and explained the ground rules. Basically, we were warned to avoid touching anything in the sea and to always wear reef shoes when exploring during low tide. There are poisonous venomous stonefish and stinging corals, so that made good sense to me! Also, the island is a bird sanctuary and home to some pretty rare species, so we were advised to steer clear of them too. Not a problem.

We were shown the activity board where all the daily events were posted. Besides diving, just about everything is included in the price, but I'll discuss that as we partake. We saw that there was a fish feeding within an hour or so, so we explored the lagoon's beach while we were waiting.

As you would expect, the beach was very coarse sand and broken coral. No bare feet this week. We had brought our own water shoes, but they had plenty available to borrow. As we walked the beach we saw plenty of sea cucumbers, vibrant blue sea stars, and many fish right along the shore.

Finally it was fish feeding time. Fabrice came out to meet us with a small bucket of fish food. He explained that before the government took over the island, the lighthouse keeper blasted the "fish pool" area with dynamite in order to give his children a safe place to play without getting scraped up by coral. The kids soon got in the habit of feeding the fishes there, and the fish soon got in the habit of hanging around for food. So when the Marine Park took over, they decided to continue feeding the fish a small quantity of fish food, but just a little treat and not enough to make them dependant. And the tourists love it! Fabrice pointed out all the different varieties and let us have a turn too. Great fun!

After that, we walked across the runway that divides the island in two to explore the other side. Besides being considerably less windy, the leeward side is home to the big critters like manta rays and sharks (friendly ones). We saw that there are two clear entry points along the beach. Depending on the tide and current, you start at one and drift snorkel to the other. We walked that distance, then crossed back over to the other side (obeying the flashing 'watch for the airplane' lights) to wait for dinner.

Dinner was very good. The kids enjoy a good buffet, especially the dessert part! Afterwards we watched a sea life DVD and went to our room.

Our eco-accommodation is an eco hut. Basically, it's a yurt with a wooden floor. We have a double bed and bunkbeds, a fan, and that's it. The problem is, it's incredibly windy out here in the middle of the ocean and the canvas walls flap all night long. I got very little sleep the first night, so as I type this I have earplugs in and I'm feeling pretty confident l will get some sleep tonight. There is no washroom either, and it's a bit of a hike to the communal one. Fortunately, our tent is the last one and we have no neighbours on one side. Wink, wink.

This morning we were very excited to eat a big buffet breakfast and get out to the lagoon snorkeling. Call me cynical, but after I had talked up this trip so much to the kids and Bill, I began to fear it wasn't going to be as awesome as I said it would be. Not to worry, it was!

Literally the very first creature I saw upon entering the lagoon was a sea turtle about 20" across its shell! It was incredible. We flew with the current through the lagoon and saw more varieties of fish than I can count, several sea turtles (including one as long as Brody), an eel, anenomes, urchins, many varieties of coral, and more! It was better than I could have hoped for. We spent our whole morning making tours of the lagoon, starting at one end, drifting through the lagoon, and then exiting at the other end. We would walk back and do it again, and it was a new experience every time and better than any amusement park ride I've ever been on.

Between swims, we went to the dive shop and booked our scuba refresher class for Bill and I (it's been about 15 years since we last dove) and a Discover Scuba class for Jack. The guy at the dive shop said he could just do us all together, which is great. That's on the agenda for Monday morning. The rest of the day was dreary and rainy, so we had to cancel our plans to snorkel the other side of the island. Like Jack says, "we have all week". We did go on a guided reef walk with a biologist from the island, and she showed us some cool stuff through our reef scopes and let us hold sea cucumbers and sea stars.

Nick, our dive instructor.

Besides us, the resort is currently home to just a few other tourists and a bunch of students from the University of Georgia. They've been attending lectures, doing research, and, according to the staff, eating a LOT of ketchup! They ran out, and groceries aren't so easy to come by!

Monday

I had an excellent sleep in my earplugs, but woke up feeling kind of lousy. I tried to put it out of my mind, so as not to ruin our plans for the day.

After a very large breakfast (lunch isn't included, so we max out on breakfast -- yup, we're cheap), we attended our dive lesson. The instructor just gave our refresher at the same time as the Discover Scuba lesson, which included Jack and an Aussie couple. It is amazing how much I had forgotten in 15 years and a couple things had changed, but before our pool lesson was over I was feeling comfortable and Jack was doing great. We didn't realize that they had booked us for a dive this afternoon. So, we ended up having a small lunch since we were going to be burning extra fuel, and we weren't sure our mega breakfast would sustain us. That, and the kids really wanted a cheeseburger.

I'm not impressed by something

At the dive shop, they gave Bill and I the option of diving with other certified divers, but we decided to stay with the beginners because essentially we are beginners. Since we're certified, we were responsible for getting our own gear set up, and fortunately I didn't forget anything since the morning.

The dive boat was able to pull right up to the shore and we all climbed aboard. In addition to those of us from our class and our instructor Nick, another instructor was going to be joining us, so we would be well cared for. It was just a short ride out to our dive spot and one-by-one we took our "big step out" and descended to the bottom. The reef was quite literally a "Coral Garden", which was the name of our starting point. It was a thick, lush and bountiful garden just teaming with life. We saw a small reef shark almost immediately and soon after saw a massive sea turtle whose shell must have been at least 5 feet in diameter. It's head was bigger than mine and it's legs were as thick as trees. I was quite shocked! I had no idea they could get that enormous. Additionally we saw some other sea turtles, a huge stingray, and about a billion fish of every variety. I saw some species that I was specifically looking for including anenome fish (Nemos) and a few coral rockcods which are a big orange fish with bright blue spots and big, fat lips. In short, it was spectacular and just like swimming in an over-populated aquarium.

One other item of note during the dive is that Jack's weight belt fell off below his hips TWICE! It's a good thing we had two instructors with us to manoeuvre him back into it. Because we were only 12 metres down it wasn't really a dangerous situation, but a little deeper than that and it would have been because you must decompress before surfacing.

The three of us were led back up with one of the instructors, and as soon as I got aboard the boat, I knew I wasn't well. I sat down and chatted with Brody and the boat driver for a minute, then announced that I was going to throw up! She quickly got me out of my gear, and up came my lunch over the side of the boat! How embarrassing! Barfing helped a bit, but not entirely and I still felt rotten afterwards. I've never been seasick before and I've been on boats most of my life, so I think I was just regular sick. Maybe my stomach was just too full! I had a diet Coke while the boys had celebratory ice cream and/or drink. As we were celebrating, we realized it was nearly reef walk time, so we hurried back to the cabin to get our shoes. One of today's reef creatures of note were four sea hares (kind of slug looking things with two "rabbit ear" antennae), three of which ejected a purple dye into the water when Bec the biologist tried to pick them up. She left the fourth alone! We also saw abalone, urchins, anenomes, and a tiny little Nemo who was not very funny for a clown fish.

Tonight's Night Stalkers' Walk was cancelled due to rain, but we signed up for a glass-bottom boat tour and snorkeling trip for the morning. I'm sure the boat driver will be just thrilled to see me again!

I'm now in bed at 8:30 (with my ear plugs in), ibuprofen ingested, and waiting for sleep to come.

Tuesday

This morning we went on our complimentary glass-bottomed boat tour. The boat actually goes just off shore on the leeward side of the island. After we looked for manta rays but had no success, we all jumped off for a snorkel. I took along the disposable underwater camera in the hopes of catching some great pics of fishes. I guess we won't know until we get them developed. How did we manage before digital cameras? Oh, and I didn't barf, so I guess it wasn't seasickness yesterday.

The moments of note were seeing another sea turtle who allowed me to hang out with him for a bit. They are pretty awesome creatures -- such friendly faces! We also saw some massive type of camouflaged cod that must have been about 4 or 5 feet long and at least 60 or 70 pounds. Big, fat, and ugly! Other than that, more of the same beautiful tropical beauties we've seen all along.

After the boys had some lunch we snorkelled through the lagoon once again. Brody and I found a playful clown fish (anenome fish). He would come out of his anenome when Brody dove down to see him or when I wiggled my fingers in front of him. He was so cute! Now that in know where to look, I saw many more little Nemos in the lagoon. In the meantime, Jack and Bill saw a 2 metre black-tipped reef shark -- lucky boys! Unfortunately, we left our lagoon snorkel a little late and the tide was going out. I was rather nervous about getting scraped up while gliding over the coral, so we cut it short.

Bill and I went back over to do the snorkel trail on the other side of the island. Again I saw some species that I hadn't seen previously, and some were quite unique. My favourite was big and fat, black with large white polka dots all over and yellow fins. Stunning! I feel like I've now seen all the GBR fish in Jack's "Fish of Australia" book! In fact one I saw one especially awesome specimen today, the Maori Wrasse, that was featured in an Ocean Geographic magazine we picked up after dinner. Apparently it is endangered, and yet it is being hunted with cyanide (to stun it) in South-East Asia for the live reef fish market. Not only are they killing the Maori wrasse, but also the coral and smaller fish around it, not to mention the harmful effects on the uninformed people eating the wrasse. I've taken the time to learn about sharks and the senseless shark hunts, but this was the first I'd heard of the use of cyanide to hunt fish. Once the coral is dead -- that's it. It's akin to chopping down rainforest, but worse. Humankind is so stupid sometimes. I'm getting closer to vegetarianism every day.

The wind has finally died down and it is a breathtaking star night. Not much light pollution here in the middle of the ocean!

Wednesday

Last night Bill and Brody attended bingo night with two other guests and a couple staff members. They won us two free drinks and two free ice cream cones, all to come later today!

These tree frogs like to hang out in the washrooms

After breakfast we rented a wetsuit for Brody and headed out to the coral garden for a snorkel. Today's highlight was swimming with a school of hundreds of trevally which are medium-sized, sleek silver fish with big eyes. Brody thought it was great fun circling around and around with them. While we were doing that, Bill spotted a white-tipped reef shark who then leisurely swam right among us and our trevally friends. Even knowing these sharks are quite harmless, it's still a rush to have them swim alongside you. The boys kept their cool though! I was impressed. I'm hoping they'll now be life-long ambassadors of the reef.

Today's low point: We stayed in the ocean too long and Brody got cold in spite of the wetsuit. We need to find a fur-lined model.

After a light lunch, Bill and I went for another snorkel in the lagoon and the boys went on the Historical Tour of the island. Bill and I saw a collection of ten sea turtles together and a black-tipped reef shark. So cool. I also saw some pretty huge sea urchins. We're now sitting in the bar having our free beers while the boys are at the daily fish feeding. Yes, we are loving these daily organized events and are taking full advantage!

We also went on the Behind the Scenes Tour given by the resort's manager, Andreas. We saw the island's desalination plant, "poop farm", and solar power plant. It was all very impressive. Andreas explained that the island has gone from using 600L of diesel each month to only 200L as a result of their solar energy production. He also showed us the additional panels that they were waiting to install, which will obviously improve their production even more. All food waste is composted on the island, and other recycling and landfill is shipped off the island on the barges that come every three months. Fresh food is brought in by plane usually with the passengers, but sometimes on its own chartered flight. After going through the poop farm process, the remaining waste product is sprayed on the runway as fertilizer. All in all, the island is doing a really good job of being as self-sufficient and eco-friendly as possible. It was nice to hear that all revenue that is brought into the island is going right back into improving the island. The resort is the owner's passion project and Seair, the airline that brings passengers over, is his business. He's a lucky, lucky man!

Another highlight of the day was the Night Stalk Tour during which we were introduced to the ghost crabs on the beach, the bright red strawberry hermit crabs in the garden, the green tree frogs (who we had met previously in the washrooms), and the ghost story of Susannah, the original lightkeeper's wife who apparently walked off into the ocean never to be seen again. Fortunately there is a picture of Susannah in the bar (a handsome, plump lady), so if you tell her that she's beautiful then her ghost will leave you alone. We all obliged her, and slept soundly all night!

Thursday

We snorkelled three times and saw sharks, and fish, and sea turtles. Hurray!

On to the highlight...

Lots of sea turtles come to Lady Elliot every year to lay their eggs. Although we had been told that they had all already hatched and gone to the East Australia Current to spend the next 18 years, there are in fact a few more nests on the island. Early this morning someone found five hatchlings on the runway who had gotten confused by the lights of the resort and walked the wrong direction. Instead of heading to sea, they headed to the resort. So, Emma the biologist had collected them in a bucket and at 7:30pm, we headed out to the beach to set them on the right course. They were so tiny and so adorable! The scurried right down the beach and into the water. We wished them each luck as they entered the ocean as only one in a 1000 actually survives to adulthood. Would you believe they stay in the East Australia current floating around the world for about 18 years before finding a safe place like Lady Elliot Island to stop to hang out and eat. Then they continue on to their place of birth, but not until they are sexually mature at age 35! It is important that the hatchlings march themselves into the water because this is how their place of birth is imprinted on their brains. If you just plop them into the ocean, they will not find their way back. Nature is so cool!

On the way back from the beach, two more hatchlings were found and Jack (and I) got to carry one back down to the beach to release. His name is Lucky.

Friday

This morning Bill, Jack, and I went scuba diving again. It was an early start, so it was a bit of a struggle to get up for breakfast beforehand. I didn't eat too much just in case. ;)

At 7:15 we were at the dive shop to get suited up and before long we were out on the boat heading to our dive spot. Mantas had been spotted near the lighthouse bommies, so that's where we went. Unfortunately, the only manta we saw was from the dive boat. By the time we jumped in, it was gone. Boo! We did, however, see a pair of flirting white-tipped reef sharks plus a couple more, which are pretty awesome every time you see them. As with every dive/snorkel, I saw some species that I hadn't seen previously. I find that pretty amazing because we see such a huge variety with every outing.

Today's dive was better than our previous one because we were all much more relaxed (and I wasn't sick). Jack and I were able to stay down a full 14 minutes longer because we used that much less air. That's about a 50% improvement! (32 minutes vs 46 minutes). We also went down a little deeper, which is a thrill too.

By the way, Brody stayed ashore looking for turtle hatchlings to rescue. He didn't find any.

We all attended a lecture on humpback whales before lunch, and another one called Amazing Marine Animals in the afternoon, and finally Sharks and Rays in the evening. So great staying in a place staffed by such knowledgeable people. Oh, and we played bingo and won free drinks again!

Saturday

This morning Bill and I got up extra early before the dive boats went out to go snorkeling in search of mantas. LEI is called Home of the Manta, but we'd just seen the one from the boat yesterday. Well, we weren't disappointed. We swam out to the light house bommies and there was a manta having its morning cleaning with the assistance of all of the parasitic fishes. Woohoo! Our trip was complete. It was just the one and it was only about 2m across, but we were not disappointed.

After lunch, we had time for a final lecture on mantas before catching our flight home. I have a sneaking suspicion that we will be back one day! It's now 8:40 pm and we're driving 10+ hours up the coast to Airlie Beach and the Whitsundays. Only a couple hours yet to go!