Day 34, Year 3: Love ’em and Leave ’em
Date: Thursday, June 12, 2008
Weather: Spectacular Weather; Winds ESE 25-30
Location: Watson’s Bay, Lizard Island, Queensland, Australia

I am absolutely in love with Lizard Island, but we have to move on tomorrow morning. I am often very sad when we have to leave such beautiful places, but this one is especially hard. But we do have to get to Darwin, so we move on. I’m already plotting ways to come back here someday, so maybe Lizard Island hasn’t seen the last of me.

Mark and I are both totally exhausted tonight. Mark worked on bottom cleaning this morning while I did more laundry (the clothes we wore last night) and made granola. It seems like I just did that, but we were out and Windbird doesn’t sail very well without a cupboard stocked with granola. We then went snorkeling over the clam beds and when we were finished, Mark took me back to the north side of the bay to let me snorkel there one last time. I saw beautiful green cabbage coral and some huge
angelfish in addition to more giant clams, so I was a happy camper. Then it was back to Windbird where Mark continued to work on the bottom cleaning. We had lunch, did the last bit of bottom cleaning, and Mark went back to the clam beds one more time to try and get some good pictures of the clams. We are continuing to have problems with our underwater camera and it is very frustrating.

Once we were showered and had cleaned up from our underwater adventures, we headed to shore to walk across the island to the Blue Lagoon. When our daughter Heather was in college here in Australia, she spent some time here on Lizard Island. Evidently she celebrated her 20th birthday on the beach in the Blue Lagoon, so we wanted to go there to take some photos for her. Our walk took us through the mangroves and then through the pandanus plains, to the airstrip, and finally to the beach. As we
walked to the beach, I stopped to take pictures of the beautiful shrub-like plants bordering the path. I suddenly realized that the “shrubs” were huge heather plants. So I renamed the beach in honor of the plants and our daughter, Heather Beach. The Blue Lagoon was just beautiful and the various colors of blue in the water certainly live up to the name. There are huge rocks on the beach which, along with the occasional driftwood, make it very dramatic. We wanted to walk around to some of the
other beaches, but time was running out, so it was back to the “Lizard Island Yacht Club” on the beach. We had sundowners with other cruisers and I decorated our cuddlefish bone to hang in the Casuarina tree that serves as the “yacht club.” The beach in Watson’s Bay is lined with graceful Casuarina trees. I would call them the weeping willow of pine trees. The branches bend toward the ground and the needles are very long and wispy.

We will move on tomorrow with Rendezvous Cay and Scot Free II. Aqua Magic will following on Saturday, and Nabob, Blue Marlin, and Street Legal will follow on Sunday. We are all headed in the same direction but each boat has a different arrival time for Darwin depending on what needs to be done there. We certainly have plenty of wind, so we should fly to our next destination tomorrow-Ingram Island. Who knows who might be there going our way?

080612 Day 34 Walk to the Blue Lagoon

080612 Day 34 Underwater at Lizard Island