On the Low Isles

There aren't many kinds of places where I haven't written, from a tent high in the Bolivian Andes to the top of a glacier in Iceland, even in the passenger seat of a car being driven at 220 km/h in Italy. But today on a sailboat heading back to shore from the Great Barrier Reef happens to be a first.

There are worse places. And maybe not many are better.

I've spent the day on board the SV Malaita with seven other people, and the crew: Ed the skipper (right), and Eric and Jody (below).

And over the last few hours I've learned more about the sea, sailing, and the natural wonders of the reef than a week of reading would give me. Not to mention a bit of local history.

We sailed out of Port Douglas at 8.45 this morning, and the trip to the 'Low Isles' took about an hour and a half. The isles are two, Ed told us, and named such because that's how one Lieutenant James Cooke noted them when passing by in 1770 in the barque HMS Endeavour. It wasn't long after that his ship hit a couple of reefs and several days had to be spent pumping and patching so they could move onward.

Ed continued his explanation about the subsequent naming of other landmarks on the north Queensland coast. Weary Bay because Cooke's ship was becalmed and its captain had the crew out in longboats towing it for several days. And Cape Tribulation because that seemed to have been all they'd had by the time they got there.



The Low Isles were built naturally as cays by currents and winds, from dead coral that built up into a shelf and was then seeded by birds' droppings and seeds carried in their feathers. In the 1878 a lighthouse was built on one of the cays, and over the next century or so was manned by two lighthouse families. It was automated and demanned in the early 1990s. Both islands are sanctuaries, part of the Great Barrier Reef National Park reserved in 1976. They are very popular points for visitors snorkelling to see parts of the reef and the life on them.

Which is what we were at. Once hove to (see, I know some nautical!) we were issued with face-masks and snorkels, and swim fins, neither of which piece of gear I'd used since my teens, and then only in murky Irish foreshores. Then, because of the time of year, we also got 'stinger suits', nylon mesh full-length coverings to stop us being injured by the 'marine stingers' which are a problem along the coast through the Queensland summer. These gave a new twist to 'men in tights' for the males of us along, as well as making us all look like the baddies in an undersea sequence of a James Bond movie.

A quick tutorial on snorkeling followed, along with some safety common sense, and then we were into the water.

Having seen the cartoon movie 'Finding Nemo' only a week previously, we had some idea what to expect. We even saw 'Nemo', aka the Clown Fish, which has a much nastier streak to it than the character in the movie; the fish lives inside the poisonous tendrils of the anemone, fooling other fish to swim in too, but the anemone kills them and digests them.

A reef itself is truly 'alive', growing from the waste of coral polyps, tiny jellyfish that embed themselves in the coral, feeding on microscopic stuff in the waters, and thus constantly building the reefs.

Of course, such activity also attracts much other marine life, so as you drift along the surface, face-mask in the water, you see a myriad of fish varieties, as well as giant clams and turtles -- the latter often sleeping on the bottom, but if they're awake and you don't frighten them, they'll swim with you.

After that it was back to the boat and an excellent salad lunch made even more tasty by the setting and the occasion; it's hard to feel that it is early January when you're sitting on a gently rocking deck in blazing sunshine, the heat tempered by a nice breeze in off the Pacific Ocean.

Then Ed gave us a talk on the geology and history of the Great Barrier Reef and this particular part of it. It is sobering to realise just how fragile the whole thing is, and that there are concerns about global warming damaging its ecosystem. Also that the largest oil reserves in Australia are right below, and the only reason it was made a National Park was so the Federal Government could overturn a Queensland state agreement to sell Shell Oil drilling rights many years ago.



Lunch suitably far enough in the past, there was another session of snorkelling, this time from the boat instead of the island (above). And then time to return, and it is on this leg that I'm writing this.

Because of the lack of wind, we had motored out to the Low Isles. But here on the way home there's no need for the engine, and with four sails up we're being briskly driven by a fair breeze, alongside a catamaran from Port Douglas which had people aboard who had been on the same mission as we had. Going under canvas makes all the difference, and one can understand why people become totally besotted with sailing.



I said to Ed that there are worst ways to spend a Friday. He's been doing this work for some fifteen years. And he knew that I'm still having fun at what I've been doing for the last 30 years.

"You and me," he said, "we're old enough to know that if what you're doing isn't fun, there's no point in doing it. There are a lot of people not so lucky." Quite.

Brian Byrne.