Last Day on Green Island

Originally, I thought I wouldn't plan to do anything today. I had a few hours of nothing yesterday and the day before and that was more than enough, so my better judgment prevailed and I decided to make plans. I ended up deciding to go to Green Island.

Green Island is a small sand island about 45 minutes (by boat) from Cairns. There's nothing too remarkable about it I guess, but I picked up a book by Nevil Shute called A Town Like Alice in Alice Springs and some of the characters go to Green Island and it sounded pretty idyllic. When I discovered there were day trips from Cairns, I decided to check it out.

The day started out rainy and cloudy, and once again seasickness bags were handed out on the way there. Once we got there however, it cleared up pretty nicely. There was a nice little sandy beach where I rented an umbrella and spent a while reading. There was also some decent snorkeling in the area - I saw a lot of little fish in the reef areas just off shore. Here's a picture of the beach area from the pier:



Partway through the day I took a ride on a semisubmersible boat. It's kind of like a glass bottom boat to the extreme - the sitting area is completely underwater. We saw all kinds of fish, but it was hard to get a good picture. Here's one I got of a big group of fish that swam by. If the water had been clearer I'm sure we'd have seen more, but it was still pretty cool.



And another of a ramora (I think). They have suckers on the top of their heads and on the way back, one of these latched onto the window!



Then it was time to come back. Here's one last picture of me on the pier at Green Island. I look a little goofy because the sun was in my eyes, but oh well.



Tomorrow I head home. A bus will pick me up at 4:00 AM to take me to the airport, I'm on a flight to Brisbane, then another to Los Angeles, then a final one to Atlanta. I worked it out and starting from my 6:30 AM departure in Cairns, I'll be on planes or in airports for the next 26.5 hours. I think it will be a long time before I want to see an airplane again!

Thanks for following along and leaving comments - it's been really fun keeping this blog while I was gone! I'm not sure what I'm going to do with it now - check back in a week or so and I'll have added a bunch more pictures. After that...who knows. :)