Day 83 – Sunday 10^th October 2021 –  ? Km

Away at 8.20 am this morning to the Keppel Bay boat harbour where we have booked an adventure cruise with Freedom Fast Cats. We check in at 8.30am & look around at the boats before we depart, there is a great cod sculpture on the wharf. There is a pair of Osprey nesting on a light pole in the car park, with one Osprey feeding on a fish on another light pole.

We board at 9am & the boat is reasonably full with a good mix of passenger types. The mix of boat types in the marina is very interesting, with many millions of dollars of boats on display. The big catamaran we are on is very comfortable & fast, we quickly leave the boat harbour behind & enjoy the scenery of receding spectacular headlands & small islands. We pass a number of sailing boats either heading out or coming in plus a few fishing boats as well. The trip to Great Keppel Island takes around 30 minutes & as we draw close we get to admire all the sailing boats at anchor in the lee of the island. Our boat noses into the sand then drops a ramp onto the sand so that most of the passengers can disembark, we stay on board, time for our morning tea.

After morning tea we disembark & then walk a few short steps onto the glass bottom boat for the next part of our adventure. There are about twenty on board. We motor over to near the adjoining headland & look at the coral under the boat, we see some turtles, lots of fish big & small plus plenty of coral. Monkey Bay, not very far away, the next small bay around has a protected coral area & we motor there next. We see a lot more colourful soft coral, some large clams, some large brain coral & plate coral plus lots more bigger fish, as well as plenty of small fish. The glass bottom boat drops us back at the main beach & we get to explore the island for a little bit.

We walk up the beach & Tereza walks through the shark’s mouth, before we venture on to Tropical Vibes, a place recommended to us by friends. We do a little retail therapy & at the check-out we discover the girl serving is Hungarian. She has been in Australia 4 years & Tereza is the first person she has spoken Hungarian to in a very long time. It was a real surprise to her to hear someone talk Hungarian & she said she had to struggle to change her mind around to talk Hungarian, she has only been speaking English for so long. We walk along the promenade then onto the beach before walking along the beachfront in the water. The sand is so beautiful white & silky smooth. There are lots & lots of fish in the shallows. At 12.30 we board the big catamaran again & are served a nice lunch while we slowly motor over to our snorkelling spot at Monkey Bay. There is only about 15 of us, adults & kids now on the boat, nice for us, a small group. I am sure the cruise company would be happier with more people, things are tough because of the Covid lock down, tourists can’t come.

The snorkelling brief is very comprehensive before we are kitted out & enter the water. The boat has a very good swim platform off the back that is hydraulically operated.  The water is a little cool at first at 23C, however we quickly get used to it as we swim over to the coral. We get a lot better view of all the different corals & multitudes of fish whilst snorkelling. We take our time & are continually amazed at the variety & colours of the fish. We see some very large fish & some really big schools of small colourful fish that we swim through. We spend over an hour in the water snorkelling the reef & are the last back onto the big boat. The crew are very efficient in helping us out & cleaning our gear. We dry off & change, then it is time for afternoon tea as we slowly motor back to the main beach.

At around 3.30pm the big cat noses into the beach & a multitude of people get on, some that were dropped of this morning plus lots of new ones. It takes a fair while to load as the people have to wade through knee deep water to get to the ramp, the water is very shallow here for the big catamaran. The trip back is another 30 minutes & seems to be over in no time, the scenery is very pleasant & the ride on this big & fast boat is very smooth. We pass more sailing boats on the way back to the boat harbour. We are one of the last to disembark, we are not in a hurry. Walking to our car we see an Osprey chasing some crows away, the crows are too close to the Osprey nest.

Back to the Karavan & cheese, bikkies & some red wine, another great day.