Splash (x2)

Wow. Another cool animal to add to the menagerie that I’ve already seen this trip. We went out sea kayaking on Fitzroy Island yesterday – a constructed paradise about an hour’s boat ride from Cairns. All good clean fun, although my random partner had no arm strength so my right arm is a bit knackered today (even after my quality kayaking skills lessons from my years teaching the kiddies at PGL). Anyways – on the way round the island we came across three humpbacked whales swimming through the straits – parents and a calf. Amazing sight as they just sat on the surface getting their air and then flapping their flippers at us about 100m off. Then they got a bit spooked by a large boat coming to see them so they started swimming off with plenty of tail fluke smashing. But then, the highlight, one of the whales jumped straight out of the water – followed shortly after by another. Wow. Such an amazing sight. We all just clapped and cheered and then paddled after them a bit and they did it again. Such good luck.

So after that the rest of the day seemed quite dull really – you know how it is when you’re on a deserted tropical island in the sun, snorkling round giant clams and looking at two metre long monitor lizards basking in the sun. Same old, same old. Actually there was another highlight – the crew provided a lunch which included Fry’s Turkish Delight bars. Haven’t had those in aaaaaages. Mmmm.

In other exciting entertainment news I’ve now learnt the French rules for draughts (or ‘dammes’ en francais). This is a completely different, and possibly more fun, game played on the same board setup. Patric has taught me well, but now the student is the master – coff. Basic rules are that normal pieces can take backwards as well as forwards, you can ‘blow’ a piece of the board if it didn’t take the most opposition pieces it could of taken and queens can move more than one space at a time along a diagonal. Plus etrange je pense…