Lizard Island

Leaving Cairns, we took a 17-place Otter aircraft for the 200 km flight northeast to Lizard. Looking down, the waters were thick with coral atolls, reefs and Islands.

Arriving at Lizard Island, we find there are only three things on the small island: a runway, the resort, and a research station. The weather is warm (80's), the sky is clear and sunny. There's a light breeze, which would disappear later in the week.

During the next days, we dove a single tank dive the first day inside McGillvray's Reef. At 30 feet, it was not a deep dive, but that was where the coral was. The photo is of a Giant Clam. Yep, the kind Mike Nelson on Sea Hunt feared so much because it would trap a diver. It's about 5-6 feet long and in fact could not trap a diver.

The second day dawned clear and calm. Our 1st (of 2) tank dive was at Cod Hole. Named because of the large (6 foot) cod that frequent the place. A deeper dive this time, 50 feet, because that's where the fish were. The photo to the left is another Giant Clam. I told you Sea Hunt made a big impression.

The second tank on the second day, we dove outside the reef at 3 Sisters. It is quite unusual to dive outside the reef. Weather is rarely good enough to do it safely. Diving at 50 feet we saw numerous Nurse and Black Tip Reef Sharks, some neat Lion Fish and tons of coral. Back on the surface we found ourselves in a school of 100 Spinner Dolphin. Fantastic! Mostly the coral is soft coral. If you are familiar with coral in Hawaii or the Caribbean, you are familiar with hard coral. The soft stuff is pretty neat.

The 3rd day we dove a single tank on the outside of McGillvray's Reef. This time at 50 feet and again, very neat coral.

We trained and were certified for scuba using American gear and instruments. Here we were diving metric. Meters instead of feet. Bars instead of Pounds per Square Inch (PSI) of air. The conversion isn't very hard, but the tables (or the dive computer if you've got one) are different and you need to pay attention.

I suppose it's time for a small confession. While scuba diving, we were not carrying a camera. I DID take the underwater pictures here, but I took them snorkeling 50 feet from the shore near the resort. So it goes to show you don't need to be a diver to see neat stuff.

And I took them using a disposable point-and-shoot camera in a waterproof housing. When I had them developed, I also got digital images on CD. I think the results are pretty good considering and it just goes to show you don't necessarily need hot camera gear to get great pictures.

Having a good subject helps of course. Generally the pictures you see on my web site are straight out of the camera with no Photoshop tricks. In the case of these, I did do some Photoshop work to correct contrast and white balance. The camera had a weak flash which left some hot spots and I did use Photoshop to dodge and burn a bit to smooth out the hot spots. But otherwise, no tricks. Edit in 2009: I'm now much better at Photoshop, and Photoshop is much better. I routinely "develop" my photos now, but usually to make them look as they did to my eye at the time.

That being said, these are as close as I can get to what I saw. It's exactly how I remember it but, if anything, the reality is a bit more vivid.

Sadly, at the end of the week it was time to return. This and the following picture were taken on the flight back to Cairns ... the first of 6 flight segments over the next 24 hours that would bring us home.

This leg was in an 8-place Cessna. Smooth as glass if a bit cramped.