Sunday 06 August, 2006 – 17:54 by Innforapenny
CAIRNS
We have now been in Cairns for 5 days – staying in the marina which is right in the middle of town. Its very hard to spot a local north Queenslander here as there are so many tourists and all the shops seem to cater for them selling Koalas, didgeredoos and boomerangs. We have already met up with Janet’s brother Col who organised a day on Green Island , which is a small island 2 hours sailing from Cairns on the outer reef. Its where all the Japanese and Chinese tourist go to get their reef experience. Col did us proud. He got us an introductory dive with the company he does some work for. Although the coral wasn’t that brilliant there were lots of good size reef fish around, including a rather large wrasse. After the dive and a look round the island we all headed back to Cairns on Innforapenny. Great sail – got up to 12 knots (left all the charter boats for dead) even started overtaking some of the power boats!!
Some of the rally boats have started to arrive from New Calidonia and Fiji. so the serious sailing starts soon.
Our friends Peter and Beverley from England arrive on Tuesday so for the next week or so we will be doing the tourist thing around Cairns and local area before we head up to Yorkeys Knob, a marina just north of Cairns, this is where the rally starts before heading to Darwin.
