Happy Birthday Kylie

Tuesday, July 03, 2018

2018 Travels

Date: 2/7/18

Location: Cid Harbour

20 15.88 S

148 42'.09 E

Weather: Grey

Author: Peter

Yesterday was Kylie's birthday, which she wanted to spend on an Island. The only problem being, the weather did not cooperate. It was windy, cool and wet. As such it became a boat day. The kids and I tried our best to make it as special for her given the weather and the small space that is the boat.

After the kids gave mummy birthday cuddles in the bed and their special cards that had taken them a few hours to make, we got out bed leaving her to read, whilst we prepared a warm yummy breakfast. With the kids help we made a tomato and avocado salsa, with bacon, sunny side up eggs and caramelised balsamic on wholegrain, and peppermint tea. The weather held off enough for us to eat this in the cockpit which was nice.

Joel was very thoughtful and decided that mummy should wear his birthday badge for the day.

After a few games of snap and go fish, Kylie then sat down to do some quilting. During our trip Kylie has been enjoying, hand sewing a new quilt for a lounge room back home. She spent a few hours on this before we again sat down outside for lunch which was a simple picking plate of some of her favourites.

After lunch and a relaxing shoulder massage, Kylie worked some more on her quilt before relaxing with a book, while I prepared dinner. Given the amount of food already consumed and the lack of physical activity nobody felt like a big dinner!

The only problem over the whole day was that Kylie had requested a profiterole cake which went a little pear shaped when the gas ran out to the oven part way through baking. Having not noticed immediately, this batch was ruined. After swapping over to a new gas bottle and starting again she did get her cake, just a little later than I had planned. Both Kylie and Joel loved the profiteroles! We finished the day off with a movie. Although boat bound for the day Kylie said she still enjoyed the day. We hope that the weather improves soon so that we can get her back to the beach.

Since leaving Airlie last week, we have been back up the North end to StoneHaven and Butterfly Bay. Early in the morning we had a lot more butterflies to play with behind the beach.

We then went snorkelling on the western side of the bay which was probably the best coral and fish we have seen in the Whitsunday's. We were happy to see some large clam shells again (sorry no photos of them). The kids even got to swim with their first shark.

A Banded Wobbegong, which Kylie called us over to see calling out, come and see this giant "cat fish", before I informed her it was actually a shark. The kids also got to see their first Nudibrach.

Their confidence and skill in the water has increased so much with Mia not really needing the noodle and more and Joel not so far behind. Joel even asked to go for a second snorkel up in Butterfly Bay, which would not have happened a fortnight ago due to fear. Now when we ask if they want to snorkel it is such a happy yes, I can't help but feel proud of them.

Again like other parts of the Whitsunday's, we could still see the devastation from the cyclones. Whole coral reefs smashed apart and pushed up into tall long banks both in the water and on shore. As such it is positive to see new growth and recovery, both ashore and in the water. It must have been a massive effort from the parks authorities to clean up and get things back to working given what we have seen and what regular annual cruisers have told us it looked like 12 months ago.

After leaving Butterfly Bay, we made our way back into Nara and then further south to Long Island and Happy Bay. Here we went for a 3.6km walk around the northern end of the island seeing more varieties of butterflies and a couple of snakes. Last time we were here my father was with us and we went ashore and had a meal at the resort. Sadly the resort has been closed for some time now and as such is looking somewhat sad. This again seems to be trend with many resorts that were open here 10 years ago, now no longer operation. Many as a direct result of damage from the cyclone. We hope that like the nature they will recover and reopen again soon.