Leg 1: Cairns to Townsville, via Fitzroy Island

Heavy winds and big swells were what the Queensland coast has decided to serve up this Halloween. We were dealing with sailing upwind in 20 knots of breeze and plowing through some pretty significantly sized waves (which did a number on my stomach, let me tell you). We stopped over for a night at Fitzroy Island for some shelter from the waves, and in the morning I went for a snorkel. It's amazing what the Great Barrier Reef has in store under the water, even though it wasn't a "hot spot" for tourists to check out the reef, it was still gorgeous.

rain and a rainbow leaving Cairns

I guess the above picture isn't really that great, but when I was swimming back to the boat, I saw two baby sharks circling under the boat, obviously looking for food. We threw some of our leftovers overboard (no surprise, they didn't really like lettuce that much, but were keen on Irene's leftover kebab) and had a little bit of fun feeding it. A loggerhead turtle popped it's head up a little while after that and swam around for a while until we left.

For those of you who drank all night on Halloween, I was up all night too....being sea sick and doing night watch to make sure we didn't get run over by a cruise ship or worse, a sheep freighter.

taking a break at an anchorage off an island housing a James Cook University research station....LOST anyone?