Green Island Redux (Cairns)

The tour out of Cairns (pronounced cans, as in an Andy Warhol painting) was advertised as “Green Island Eco Adventure.” This is the second time we have tried it and we found, blessedly, that this time it was much less of an adventure than last.

Back in 2020 we got on the catamaran in a light rain but the fact that we were each handed a concentrated ginger capsule should have tipped us off. By the time we got to Green Island, an inner island on the Great Barrier Reef, the boat was pitching and rolling, the rain coming sideways, and when we got off hats flew off heads and umbrellas flipped inside out. A tropical depression was quickly forming and would soon become Cyclone Gretel.

Our glass bottom boat tour was canceled, snorkeling was canceled, the beach was closed so for three hours we huddled under a beach umbrella that somehow remailed intact getting soaking wet. When we got a slack in the rain we took a short walk on the rainforest trail. The tour left the island two hours early. On the way home they handed out white sacks with the ginger pills. Soon after we got back on the ship, we learned that our cruise would end early because of COVID. We thought Green Island needed a redux.

This year there was no adventure. The 17 mile (27 km) cameramen ride to the island was smooth. Suzi and I walked, in the heat, on the rainforest trail through the Green Island National Park.

Green Island could have gotten its name because it has the only rainforest on a cay that is part of the Great Barrier Reef, but the name commemorates Charles Green, Captain Cook’s (then actually a lieutenant) Astronomer when Endeavour called. In 1970 another notable ship, the Royal Yacht Britannia, called with the Queen and her consort.

The Aboriginal name of the island was Dabuukii. In local lore it was a place to be avoided because it was haunted by spirits. The warning may have been prescient. In 1873 the owner of the fishing station on the island and three others were killed by laborers who had been press ganged to work on the island. They killed their overseers because the bosses withheld food rations that the workers had been promised. Local newspapers called for revenge but there is no record of a punitive expedition.

Now Green Island hosts an eco-resort, built in 1994, and the island is popular with day trippers. Much of the island is part of the national park.

We took a glass bottom boat ride over the coral reef. The boat driver apologized because the water was not as clear as it usually was because of the large amount of rain the few days before we arrived and the layer of fresh water on top of the salt that distorted the view.

He also explained that the corals were colorful, but it was high tide and they were so far down that the water absorbed the light so all we saw reflected to us were greens and some blues. He said that divers and snorkelers used lights on their cameras to provide us with the colorful coral pictures we see in the brochures. He threw out some chum and we saw a variety of fish through the glass, a little closer to the surface and a little more colorful than the coral.