Perfect one day, super perfect the next.

 

The clear waters of Fitzroy Island offered plenty of swimming and snorkelling opportunities.

What an amazing week we have had with Stuart, Tina and the boys on board.
My last blog took in Day One at Upolu Reef and sand cay where the boys took to exploring the reef coral and fish like ducks to water.
By the end of the week, they had both mastered flippers but preferred their goggles to a mask and snorkel even though they could manage the latter OK.
After a perfect day at Upolu, we decided to have a couple of land days, taking a day trip to Mossman Gorge (a big hit with all of us), with a brief side detour into Port Douglas on the way back to the boat.

Mossman Gorge

Cairns lagoon, Cairns Botanic Gardens and Cairns water park were included in the weekend's day visits before we headed out to sea again on Tuesday morning.

The trampoline on the water at Fitzroy Island was a big hit.

Our skipper for the trip to shore.

Pausing for a chat in the dinghy.

Anchoring off Fitzroy Island enabled us to swim and snorkel off the boat or the beach, walk the bush paths to Nudey Beach and the Secret Garden, give the little boys their first fishing experience, use the water trampoline and go out to dinner at the resort restaurant before making our way back to Sea Piper via dinghy in the dark. Very exciting.

Off to dinner on-shore with Midget and the newly knitted Perchy.

Even more exciting was catching a rosy jobfish (Sonny), a golden snapper (Alexander) and two stingrays!

Rosy jobfish for Sonny.

Patience paid off for Alexander who caught a golden snapper after two stingrays.

Note the tail on this stingray. It was a tricky business getting him unhooked but he finally managed to swim off undamaged.

Add to that the most perfect weather imaginable with beautiful clear days and hardly a breath of wind to ripple the sea. In fact it was so still we weren't able to raise a sail for the entire week.
It was a shame to have to head back to the marina last Friday in preparation for the junior Webbs to fly out at lunchtime Saturday.
To delay the moment, we anchored off Yorkeys Knob and the boys did a bit of fishing resulting in the catch and release of three small sharks, an exciting and memorable end to the holiday.

Shark number two - or maybe three.