Under the sea (Lord Howe Island)

On a perfect day when too much snorkelling is barely enough.  But, I am getting ahead of myself.

The squalls and the wind and the heavy grey cloud of yesterday are a distant memory.  The day dawned light and bright with the usual clouds obscuring the top of Mt Gower and a light breeze ruffling the fronds of the kentia palms.  Music made in heaven, well if not heaven then paradise.  I just love this place and I wasn't sure I would twenty years on from the last visit.  Admittedly the Treehouse helps, the accommdation is 5 star and Rex and Louise are lovely hosts.

The day began as usual, wake, doze, wake, doze and finally, the Museum Cafe is open - it's time for breakfast.  Lying in bed looking out across the tops of the Kentia Palms in the garden to the top of the permanently (this time) cloud-shrouded Mt Gower is just too relaxing.  Who wants to get out of bed? Who wants to go home tomorrow back to reality?  As much as we love the new apartment, the amswer is: Jayne and me.  I even want to come back in winter to see how capricious the weather can be.

Finally out of bed we let gravity propel us to our breakfast venue.  It was so quiet we thought it was closed, but no, it just appears that Fridays begin slower than other days.  After breakfast and a reasonable coffee we marched (well, walked with purpose) back up the hill, changed and headed further up the hill to walk across the top of the island and down to Ned's Beach.  The different wind direction meant that it should be good for snorkelling or feeding the fish if that's what you're into.

One perfect day at Ned's Beach

Ned's was crowded by LHI standards, there would have 40 people scattered across the beach and the grassed area.  Claustrophobic.  Drop the towles and pack, grab the snorkels and fins and down to the water's edge.  The water temperature is a balmy 24.  Ned's is an underwater wonderland for a number of reasons, it is a no fishing area, people come here to feed the fish, there are coral outcrops and rock and sea grass.  It pretty much has it all and on a day like today when the wind is from the south or south-west, the swell is non-existent so you snorkel everywhere.  And we did.  We saw: pacific trumpetfish, silver trevally, garfish, whiting, drummer, spangled emperor, butterfly fish, blue sweep, book fish, sand mullet, sea urchins and OK I'm bored now so I'll stop.  There were lots of fish.

Once the goggles started to leave what we thought would be permanent lines on our faces and fingers became all rippled and soggy, we thought it was time to shift to another venue.  Out of the water, drying off, the kids feeding the fish amused us for a while.  One young boy, about 7 or so, thought hand feeding was a literal term, until he had his finger bitten.  Not happy.

Gear on again, we commenced the walk to Sylph's hole or the very northern end of Settlement Beach.  It is a significant sea grass area where the turtles come to feed.  Sylph's hole is about 100m off shore depending on the tide and is a haven for butterfly fish.  The down side is that visibility is very poor depending on rain fall and storms/wind direction.  Basically we should have snorkelled down there 2 days ago before the big wind shift.  

Wandering along the beach I thought I spotted a couple of turtles in the water, really close to shore. The tide was out and the sea grasses were merely a metre or two from the low-tide mark.  I was right, two, if not three turtles.  We kitted up and went for the water.  The visibility was worse than I thought it would be and I kept stopping and standing up to see if I could spot the turtles.  Finally I got close to one but it didn't want to be close to me and disappeared in a cloud of sand and debris.  Given the poor visibility we were not going to see much more than sea grass and the occasional fish so we headed back to shore.

I decided to walk to the northern end of the beach in case I spotted a turtle feeding in close to shore again.  Nothing.  On the way back, however, I noticed one in about 3 metres from shore.  Jayne had been watching it for some time.  We walked down together and watched the turtle grazing on the sea grass.  It was quite large and was a Hawksbill.  The one that avoided me in the water was a Green turtle.  We stood within 2 metres of it as it fed and then it had enough and swam out to deeper water.

Just let me breathe and leave me alone.

We repaired to the beach to sit and soak up the view.  Then another sighting.  Back down to the water's edge, this time with camera.  And we watched and waited for the little bugger to come up for air so I could get a snap of his head.  Meanwhile, Jayne had signalled to the only other people on the entire beach to come and have a look.  There we stood in waist deep water waiting for something to happen.  It did.  He came up for air, I snapped, photo below.  We talked the random family, told them at low tide they could walk along the beach and see the turtles feeding.  As we were chatting we could see other turtle heads popping out of the water further out.  Then in very close, a couple of young Green turtles.  The other people were very happy Jayne had called them over and sat down to watch the turtle show.  We walked from the water.  It was time for lunch.

We wandered to the Anchorage to see if we could get some ready made bread rolls - no luck - sold out.  So headed over to Thompson's store to get some made to take home since dinner is not till 7pm. Tonight we are heading to the sea food night at Milky Way.  The shop was an inferno but we placed our very complicated order of 2 ham and salad rolls, one with mayo.  Price: $15.50.  Hmm.  Pricey, they'd better be good.  Duely made and placed into the backpack, we carried them back up the hill to the Treehouse.  Unpacked them to discover - 2 salad rolls.  Both with cheese and mayo and neither with ham ... too far to go back and complain.  Guess we won't be going back there next time we are here; well, probably we will, but we will watch the creation of the product more closely.  Speaking of food creation, this process was typically not WHS aware.  LHI does not seem to have caught on to the idea that if something goes wrong, people will try to blame someone else rather than accept personal responsibility.  So things like life jackets on boats, using tongs or gloved hands for food preparation, observing the speed limit are merely if you feel like it and if no one has died yet, is it really an issue?

And so, post the lunch debacle we sit on the verandah and gaze at the view.  Alternately, the lagoon and the mountains.  As I tap the keys Gower has freed itself from cloud for the first time this week. The mountains are just spectacular and I can't keep from eyes from them.  The breeze continues, albeit from another direction, the sun moves across the sky and we sit and discuss the meaning life while looking at a priecless view and sipping wine from ... well, it doesn't really matter, sipping wine and waiting for the time to walk to dinner.  Ahhh.  I'm doing my bit for the economy.  And in three days I'll be back at work.  Sad face. Tears.

In the meantime, it's time to get changed for dinner.  There will be no post tomorrow dear reader because we will be having too much fun before we are in transit, more snorkelling and turtle spotting. Never fear, the final stage of our journey will be posted within the week.  I am sure you are looking forward to the review of the fish fry as much as I am to eating it.  It was talked about in both previous trips, but we never made it.  Tonight's the night.