Dan or Justy

The isolation: our land surrounded by white, whitecapped foam and airborne watervapor, divorced from reality. Here we could be anyone, lonely shipwrecked steerage passengers (over 120 ships have wrecked on LEI's reef: see it at low tide, almost 10 meters shallower and you'll understand). We could be the resentful family of the lighthouse keeper: one wife donned her sunday best and walked irretrievably into the water. We saw her grave. As well we could be the young woman born here, who died at the age of 30, still never having left. The island shelters all spirits.

Animal spirits especially. There are about 110,000 birds on the island. You can walk from one side to other in 20 minutes. Take it from me, that's a LOT of birds. They are always there. Everywhere. Always. Flying past you way too close. Bumping into you in flight. Shitting on you occasionally. Squawking, screeching, squeeking, chirping, caw-caw-ing, clucking, running hither and yon underfoot, begging for food, reproducing, blocking the sun.

There are a lot of birds.

But I liked their company. They were not territorial. They shared their island with us and allowed us to go about our business unmolested (except as previously mentioned). I think we were a spectacle for them as much as we gawked at their raw biomass.

We dove the famous Blow Hole today. Rated the second best dive in Queensland (after the Yongala wreck, which we will take in sometime in the next 2 weeks). I'd rate it in the top 5 dives I've ever done (and they say it's better when the current is running the other way: I can't support that, based on our subsequent dive here, but maybe the conditions weren't right). The reef is endless, teeming with life of all sizes. We saw a HUGE eagle ray, just huge. A couple blacktip reef sharks were on patrol. Several Maori wrasse (giant fish straight out of Yellow Submarine, or for the divers, a cross between a parrot fish and a grouper). Turtles, such that we barely mention them anymore, but one was an obviously ancient loggerhead in fine shape. A large Queensland Groper (their word for grouper, not an aquatic reprobate).

The smaller fry were in abundance as well. There are vastly many anemones with a large assortment of clownfish species to inhabit them. Butterfly fish and uncountable fish with yellow and black color schemes. It seems to be the thing here. I even saw a soft coral, well, walking around. I don't know how to explain it, but it looked like a furry multi-tentacled soft coral. It was definitely walking around (slowly against the surge) and not floating. A big wtf on that.

We circled the island again on turtle watch that night. Found several, but none laying eggs (the actual egg-laying is a tiny sliver of the time for the whole show) and no little ones scurrying to the sea.

The fullmoon, free of the anonymizing white shroud of the tropical storm was strong enough to read by, but still the stars were a bright blanket.