Arrival at Fitzroy Island

A two and a half hour flight north of Brisbane is the coastal city of Cairns. In terms of population,  it's a bit bigger than Abbotsford although the airport is substantially bigger as tourism is the main driver of the economy. Weather is a lot warmer - tropical really - with highs in the mid 30's. Yesterday, we took the catamaran service for a 45 minute ride to Fitzroy Island for a 4 night stay.

This place is within the Great Barrier Reef, of course, with many folks coming from all over the world to dive or snorkel. Although not a student of linguistics, I can usually pick up on some of the languages being spoken but I flunked out here! 

The resort itself is quite nice - 70 or 80 rooms I'd guess. Most seem to be like ours: quite spacious, a 1 bedroom suite, really, with small kitchen area. Below is picture taken from the open-air bar where we went for dinner last night.

Pretty much everyone here is WAY younger than we are! We remarked on one young woman wearing one of those thong type bikinis. Frankly, there are simply some things that I really don't need to know about another person.

Today we go for a snorkel tour so will give an update latter. Jellyfish are a serious concern here especially the quite small (1" or so) irukandji species that are quite venomous. To protect oneself, we've been issued a lycra "stinger suit" that covers a person from head to toe. More to follow.