Border Island - Eric's return...

Border Island remains a favorite for the crew of Lucey Blue – the shallow sandy beach is a great place to play and there is always plenty of fish in Cateran Bay.

Eric claims he remembers the beach from his last visit, but we remain skeptical based on our simple 2015 and 2011 boy in a bucket test!

Before anyone asks - the buckets are the same size...

Being at Border Island

As I mentioned before, I do have lots of photos taken above the waves around Cateran Bay, Border Island...it is a pretty little island!

Looking towards Mosstrooper Peak on Border Island, with Cateran Bay on the left. Deloraine Island is just peaking in from photo right.

Fringing reef and yachts at anchor in Cateran Bay, Border Island.

Both of these photos above were taken by Nick who was climbing peaks in a vain attempt to get phone reception so he could order another zinc anode after one of ours fell off. We don't get phone or internet reception in the bay due to the tall peaks of Border, Whitsunday and Hook Islands screening it from the mainland to the west. It is one of the few places up the east coast where we haven't had connection. We even have great reception out here on Bait Reef, in the middle of nowhere!

One of our first visits to Border Island, pre-school holidays...when we had the entire bay to ourselves for a day and night! Nowadays you have to scramble to get your anchor down in anything less than 14m.

Snorkelling off the beach in Cateran Bay, Border Island.

Bouncing off boulders on Border Island beach!

Bucket Baby on Border Island beach. Huge leaps forward are being made in the baby-carrier market by this cruising family...at least it is water resistant, to some degree ;-).

Motoring away from Cateran Bay, Border Island on our way out to Bait Reef, the first time.

Pretty yellow sea snake spotted in the water off Border Island, on our way out to Bait Reef.

That reddish brown stuff floating in the water is coral spawn stuff (I believe). I have no idea what the correct terminology is...but it was pretty widespread at one point, and came in lots of colours including red, green, yellow and brown.

Carving a path through the coral spawn goo from Border Island to Bait Reef...

Well, thanks for visiting us. We are contemplating where to snorkel today, before maybe moving over to Line or Hardy reef. We'll see!

More from Cateran Bay

I've been playing with more of Nick's underwater photos from Cateran Bay (I can hear you all cheering with excitement...no?). I also have a bunch taken above the water there...but I'll pop those in a separate post.

The myriad shapes, textures and colours are very beautiful. We have been watching the Stargate SG1 series on DVD while we have been out here, and often, while I'm flying through these underwater landscapes I can easily imagine myself on an alien planet (especially with the whalesong in the background).

While I am on the subject of whalesong....Nick put together a small video, where you can hear it in the background...




On our last visit to Cateran Bay (we left there this morning to come out to Bait Reef again) we didn't hear much in the way of whalesong at all. It felt a bit lonely in fact (even though the Bay itself was packed with yachts...14 in total [you can tell it is school holiday time]). I guess many whales have started their migration back south already.

PS. If anyone happens to find part of a Powerdive regulator unit in the vicinity of Cateran Bay...that'll be ours! We lost it on our last dive, somewhere between surfacing and swimming back to the boat. As a result, there may be a small hiatus in underwater shots published here, until we get a replacement part in Airlie Beach (aren't you lucky??!).

Colourful Cateran Bay

If you check out our trip map here, and zoom way, way in over the Whitsunday Islands, you'll see that we have stopped in Cateran Bay (on the north side of Border Island) three times so far (if you can make any of it out at all, that is...we have been doing circles of the place, and its looking like a big scribble until you zoom right in). We started out snorkelling at Cateran Bay, but on the last stop we threw in the Power Dive unit and wow...we had a ball! The Powerdive doover is proving to be worth its weight in gold.

Apologies up front...this is another picture heavy post...

We'll definitely go back there again. It is a really lovely place, and apart from one encounter with a cranky cruiser who didn't know how to use his anchor (and was taking his frustrations out on us)...we have enjoyed every minute we've spent there.

It is a tad windy out here on Hook Reef today, so we've had the stereo cranked up and while the kids have been 'dancing' in the cockpit, Nick has been pulling apart our Harken winches...as you do while you are sitting out the wind behind a reef....and I've been photo editing.

A Whale-y Good Breakfast...

Yesterday morning we were treated to the most amazing spectacle. We were anchored in Cateran Bay, Border Island (for the third time) and I had been watching the dorsal fin of a large whale quietly bobbing about just outside the bay, with a calf nearby. I'd not long gone inside to do some school work with Emily when people on a nearby yacht started cheering and yelling. We rushed outside and were greeted by the truly awesome sight of an adult Humpback whale breaching...less than 100 m from our boat!

The whale breached at least three times (that I heard/saw), which had all the yachts in the bay cheering and yelling for more, before it rolled over and began slapping the water with its flipper, almost like it was waving good bye.

I was too gobsmacked to catch her breaching on camera, but managed a slightly blurry shot of her farewell (I think that yacht behind us would have been less than 50 m from the action...hope they didn't choke on their Wheaties!!).