Lucky Days at Lady Musgrave

With various distractions in the earlier part of the year we knew we weren’t going to get far north this year and embracing the ‘slow movement', we’ve spent quite a big of time everywhere we’ve been. We hadn’t imagined that this would extend to a long Lady Musgrave visit but we were gifted 6 beautiful days with big moons at night and even one day of a complete glass-off.

 

Gin-clear water allowed us to watch the sea life below - turtles, stingrays, fish and even a shark. Each day at around lunch time a very large muscular fish visited - we ended up giving him a name - Dave the fish.

There are public moorings in the Lady Musgrave lagoon but they were all occupied when we arrived and although boats moved off, we were quite happy with our anchored spot. We’d quite luckily found a spot between some coral bombies which then prevented newcomers from anchoring near us. 

 

We were treated to lovely sunsets filtered through smoke haze from fires on the mainland. 

A full moon rose above the fringing reef just as the sun was setting. 

 

We went ashore for 45minute walks around Lady Musgrave Island. There was not yet any evidence of turtles coming ashore for egg laying. We were a month too early. There were plenty of turtles pairing up however. Their embrace lasting hours and hours as they drifted past anchored boats and in some instances, leaving themselves high and dry and immobilized on the reef as the tide receded.

What looks like a rocky outcrop is actually a crumbly sedimentary pile of corals. The island has risen out of the sea built on this.

 

One Saturday evening at sunset, a Great Barrier Reef Marine Parks Authority vessel called over to all the vessels in the anchorage to deliver an info pack. Very professional, friendly and proactive. They are taking the policing of Green Zones very seriously. Fines for fishing in Green Zones or even looking like you might, are a brutal AU$2,000 + ! You can’t trail a line or even show fishing equipment unless it is in designated holders. For instance, what the Bloke calls fishing Ninja’s, have rods and rod holders festooning their vessels. That’s permissible. However anything dangling over the side is not and if it gets photographed by surveillance planes, the bill arrives in the mail. It’s quite brutal but the successful regeneration of fish stocks and corals in Green Zones point to this being a worthwhile strategy.

 

We were very lucky that during our stay there were very few power boats and we’d avoided the Riviera Rally. A force of 30 vessels was expected in Bundaberg and destined for Lady Musgrave a week or so later. Last year an armada of 25 arrived during our 5 days with family on board. We prayed we’d not have a re-run and this time we got lucky. No ‘Rivvies’ and 6 gorgeous calm days in paradise.