South Herald Cay

Today the ship pulled up the anchor. They wanted to have enough time to do it in case it was taking many hours. However, this means that getting on and off the explorer was a bit tricky as there were swells, and the ship’s engine is permanently on, keeping us in position.

They decided to find another cay, the South Cay, which was about an hour away on the explorer. They lowered the plastic blinds so the spray didn’t come in, and we were off! There was quite a swell, and the trip was exciting. The zodiac that comes with us as an extra spotting vessel drove in our wake. When we got to the cay there were incredible numbers of birds.

And ghost hermit crab cones lined the beach.

We counted nine new turtle tracks, and somebody saw that a turtle was still making its way down the beach to the water.

There was a male waiting for her in the shallows.

I went snorkelling. There was more coral than at the previous reef, and lots of anemones and algae. 

There were also quite a lot of fish. The water was incredibly clear, so they could be photographed from a fair way away.

The ship came to the cay (there was a lot less swell here), so it didn’t take long to get back. I didn’t go on the afternoon snorkel, as I was very tired. Our last sunset in the Coral Sea was glorious!

Herald Cays on the Beach

Today was our second day at Herald Cays. We are anchored off North East Cay, which is a RAMSAR wetland. I’m fairly certain it doesn’t have any water, but it does have an amazing amount of birds. 

This morning we got up early to go to the beach to see if any turtles were still there - there were fresh tracks yesterday, so there could be fresh tracks again today, and maybe a turtle. As we neared the beach, we saw a pair of turtles mating in the water.

And several fresh turtle tracks. Two, at opposite ends of the beach, even looked like the turtle might still be there, as there was only one track!

We landed, and decided to walk in the opposite direction to the walk I did the previous day. There were cones where the ghost hermit crabs had burrowed into the sand. 

The baby masked boobies were still asleep.

We saw a lot of hermit crabs of different sorts. They were pairing up to exchange shells.

I was tired, so I turned back after we’d reached the single track. It was a fizzer, as the turtle had gone back over most of the track it left on the way up!

It was also strange as it appeared to have a tail (males have a long tail, but females don’t). Turtle tracks look more like this.

The turtles that were mating had reached the shore (this is very unusual). They mate for up to eight hours, so I sat there watching them on the shore for about an hour.

And then we came back for breakfast. I had a lazy day, although the others went snorkelling in the morning and the afternoon. We had a barbecue dinner, but it wasn’t on the sundeck as it was far too windy. But I managed to catch sunset and the burrowing birds coming back to their holes after a day of catching fish. They fly low so the garnets don’t steal their catch.

Herald Cays

Today I did not see baby turtle tracks. They were strawberry hermit crab (the tracks with a line in the middle) and ghost hermit crab (the ones without a line) tracks. There are many bird footprints as well.

But I did see a lot of fresh turtle tracks of turtles laying their eggs.

And brown boobies

And masked boobies

And frigate birds

And some other bird

And a heap of fish.

Unlike the Great Barrier Reef, the Coral Sea Marine Park had a lot of bleaching in 2022 (the Great Barrier Reef was saved by a storm lowering the temperature just before the coral would have died, but the coral sea wasn’t), and it gets smashed by lots of cyclones. I went snorkelling twice today, and there wasn’t much living coral either time. The coral in the previous photo were in the best parch. 

There were amazing chasms.

I took some photos at sunset.

Tregrosse Reef and the Diamond Islets

The Australian Coral Sea territory is 780,000 square kilometres. In the 1960s various nations started to do things in this area (including searching for oil), so Great Britain and Australia had a discussion about which country actually owned the area. Great Britain gave up all claims to the area, so in 1969, Australia formally declared it an Australian external territory. Later, the French decided to transfer ownership of a couple of reefs near New Caledonia to Australia, and a couple of reefs to the south were added to the territory.

Coral Sea Marine Park is the third largest marine park in the world at 989,836 square kilometres (the Great Barrier Reef marine park is only 334,400 square kilometres). It’s somewhat larger than the territory, partly because it includes some reefs that the Torres Strait Islanders traditionally use, which are part of Queensland.

The area is virtually uninhabited. There is an array of weather stations throughout the coral sea, and the one on Willis Island is manned by about five people, but that’s it.

Today we started by going to Tregrosse Reef. Unfortunately, they are having trouble raising the anchor (it’s taking hours rather than minutes), and they didn’t want to lower it there, because they weren’t sure how deep it would go. There’s a weather pylon at Tregrosse Reef, but no cay.

We then went to the West Diamond Islet. We could see the waves lashing the shore, and we weren’t going there.

The brown boobies and frigate birds engulfed the ship.

So we continued on, and passed North Diamond Islet, where the waves were also lashing the shore.

However, we soon came to East Diamond Islet, which looked very nice. You can see the weather station pylon on it.

You can see the birds coming out to greet us.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t much coral near the beach, there was a strong current where the coral was that would have sent us out to sea, so we didn’t snorkel, but we did walk along the beach, where there were an enormous number of turtle tracks, 

and nesting masked boobies and frigates.

I was photographing all the turtle tracks and ran out of camera battery (it was a wet landing, so I took my underwater camera which wasn’t fully charged), so I didn’t photograph all the birds nesting in all the trees. The frigates and brown boobies nest in trees while the masked boobies nest on the sand.