EB News: Green Island

I loved diving with Passions of Paradise so much that I immediately turned around and booked an overnight dive trip. However, it wasn't available until Wednesday, which meant that Tuesday was a free day.

I had wanted to take a day trip up to the Atherton Tablelands, but it can be a bit iffy to mix altitude and diving. Since I had just been diving the day before and I certainly didn't want to risk my dives for the next two days, I decided to play it safe. Instead, I chose to go on a low-key island trip in the hopes of having a nice easy rest day.

My destination of choice was Green Island, which is known for being the only coral cay possessing a rainorest. Intrigued by that fact and the relatively low fares, I hopped on a ferry. We passed some breaching whales on the way out, which was pretty cool!

From the ocean, it looked a lot like Fitzroy-- same white beaches, tropical plants, and heavenly water. However, as I soon learned, the two islands are geologically very different; Fitzroy separated from the mainland about 4000 years ago, while Green Island was gradually built up as the currents deposited sand, bits of coral, and debris onto its coral base. Both were visited periodically by Aboriginals. In times of lower sea levels, they would actually walk right out to the edge of the present-day reef, which is now a multiple-hour boat ride from the mainland! As the sea rose, they remained on the mainland but paddled to various islands for hunting and ceremonies.

According to the tradition of the Guru-Gulu Gungandji people, once upon a time a little turtle was pushed away from the freshwater on Green Island. He eventually found a crab hole filled with drinking water, but as he bent down to refresh himself the crab reached out and pierced a hole in his nose with its claws, giving him nostrils! The turtle grew up big and strong, always recognizable by his pierced nose. Now, the island was known as a place of spirits and all the other turtles asked the spirits for holes in their noses as well. Following their example, the Gungandji would also bring their young men to the island for their nose-piercing initiation ceremony.

Today, although there are plenty of placards describing the sacredness of the place and its Aboriginal ownership, the island is a thriving little resort area where they really will make you pay through the nose. It's physically smaller than Fitzroy, but much more touristy. There is, however, a short boardwalk through the rainforest, which then leads you out to a stunning and largely deserted beach. I spent quite a while out there, just soaking in the peace and beauty. I even watched a sea turtle about 20 meters out which kept poking its head up for air!

I loved the perpendicular currents here!

Since I didn't have a buddy, I thought it would be a very good idea to stick with the lifeguarded beach when it came to getting in the water. Just as I was oh-so-reluctantly edging into the rather chilly ocean, I heard a voice behind me: "Excuse me, are you by yourself too?" And that's how I met Charlie, a young woman from England who was doing a bit of traveling before starting uni. I thought she was nice, and she thought I was nice, so we stuck together for the rest of the day.

The snorkeling was fine, but a bit disappointing after Fitzroy. There was a lot of sea grass and it was prety murky-- a few cool fish but not the flurry of activity I'd become accustomed to. I'm not sure if we were just not in the best spot, or if it had to do with the unusually low tide, but there it is. But that didn't stop us from enjoying ourselves, and we were in the water for close to two hours!

Just before we decided to head back, we swam another couple of meters out and all of a sudden there was a sea turtle! It was right in front of us, just sitting at the bottom grazing all the sea grass. Oddly enough, it made us both think of a cow-- as if anyone could consider the majestic green sea turtle bovine.

Next we stopped by Marineland Melanesia, a family-owned business that functions as a gift shop, traditional artwork display, and crocodile habitat. At first I was a little unsure how I felt about the huge crocs being caged up, but then I remembered two things: crocodiles aren't particularly interested in moving around unless there's food involved, and almost all of these crocs had been captured after they'd proven themselves a danger to humans. So for them it was either this or death, which meant that I could take it a little better.

Plus, it really was a unique little place. Our guide's grandparents had founded it when they settled in the area, bringing their collections of Papua New Guinea artifacts with them. It is also home to the largest crocodile living in captivity, at 5.5 meters long-- nearly a century old, much older than he would have gotten in the wild. Oh, and we were just in time for the feeding!

They had a couple of acquariums, so Charlie and I took photos to make it look like we'd seen the stuff snorkeling.

We really did see one of these blue starfish though!

Like I said, unique place.

Find the 5.5m crocodile!

If I hadn't just seen the 4m crocodile slide into this pool, I wouldn't have believed it could be in there-- an important lesson in croc camouflage before I went to Daintree!

He explained that he wasn't just being mean, teasing them with the food-- crocodiles are ambush predators and that's how they would catch it in the wild. Without working to "catch" their meals, they would get no physical exercise whatsoever, which would cause much bigger problems.

I couldn't get a good video, but look at the size of that mouth!!

Finally, we grabbed lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon chatting on the beach.