Boobies at Michaelmas Cay



WARNING: TWITCHER CONTENT

We picked up one of two public moorings at Michaelmas Cay, dodging around a few shallow coral bommies on the approach. Some practical Marine Parks' person has thoughtfully placed the moorings just outside the range where the booby guano really starts to really get on the nose.

Michaelmas Cay - a booby.

Michaelmas is another protected Marine Park A area. Giant trevally, batfish, reef sharks and fusilliers all swam up to the boat and greeted us, to the crew's delight.

More Boobies

The cay and surrounding waters are postcard perfect if you can get past the smell and cacophony of thousands of nesting birds crammed onto a small flat sandbar. Michaelmas gets heavy tourist traffic during the day as it is not too far from Cairns, but at about 3pm most boats departed and we had the place almost to ourselves. Despite the number of visitors, the cay and its surrounding reef are looking pristine.

Crested terns harass their parents for short order cooked gourmet breakfast.

Terns are sometimes called "wideawake" birds, wild party animals who socialise non stop all night.

Noddies

There had been no wind for a couple of days and the sea was glassy. In the morning we snorkelled the south eastern edge of the cay in about five metres of  water. As the continuous south easterly wind and swell hadn't abated for months, we hadn't been game to attempt snorkelling the windward side of any reefs.  But conditions were finally calm enough.

The amazing coral formations were quite different in architecture and colour to the more protected northern sides of the reefs we were used to. 

Painted cray - Michaelmas Cay

There were painted crays hiding under the coral overhangs and giant clams whose lips varied in colour from bright aqua greens to dark blues.

 

The big boats started to pull in. Time to head into Cairns to drop The Rock off in time for her plane. And time to return to a marina after an epic seven weeks to replenish water, fuel, food and wash all that salt off with bountiful supplies of hot running water.