The sun setting on Sand Cay. This was the only solid ground we were able to stand on during our week at sea. We landed with the intentions of having champaine at sunset. Mother Nature didn’t really like those plans, so she put some clouds up to block the sunset. It was still nice to get on some terra firma.

There were a few different types of animals living on Sand Cay. The most obvious were the birds. There were also hundreds if not thousands of hermit crabs.

Sea turtles also made use of the island. They build nests in the center of the island (where the tide can’t reach). Mark was lucky enough to see a little baby turtle run from its nest to the sea.

Another shot of the swiming land mamals. It is almost like you can’t go diving anywhere without running into these guys.

Meet Boris.

He is a potatoe cod that calls the S.S. Yongala home. The week before we went out there were reports of Borris attacking a diver. I have a feeling that the diver did something he shouldn’t have done, and that he might have deserved Borris’ wrath. Anyway, both diver and fish are doing ok.

Since I’ve come back from Australia I’ve seen Borris on TV. There was a Discovery Channel commercial that showed Borris swimming along.

Here is another criter living at the S.S. Yongala. This is a blue ringed octopus. Swiming death, if this guy attacked me I would not be writing this.

This dive was the last for the week. Kerrin went down as my buddy. It was becuase of him that I saw my blue-ringed. We were swimming along the bottom when Kerrin stoped and looked at the sea cucumber.

He pointed the cucumber out to me. I thought, “Big deal, lets move on.” He pointed to my camera, then to the lump on the back of the cucumbers back. I was getting a little annoyed, becase I didn’t want to spend my last dive looking at a stupid cucumber. But he had shown and taught me a lot that week and I figured the fastest way to get out of there was to do what he said. I took some video of the lump. Then I moved out of the way and he started taking some pictures.

While he was taking pics, the lump got up and started swimming away. I immediately got more interested. Turns out the little lump was this guy. We spent a few minutes harassing the little guy, then headed out.

Sucks to be this jellyfish. Both times we were at the Yongala we saw jellyfish stuck on the wreck. There isn’t much they can do once they get stuck. Just hang around and wait for a turtle to come by and eat them.

Welcome to Ulurur. Or Ayers Rock as the white folk call it.

Ulurur is the biggest monolith on the planet. Its big. Trust me. I went for a walk around it one day. It took over two hours to get all the way around. I took the walk right before noon, which wasn’t very intelligent.

This is a shoreline of Tasmania. Taz was a great place to visit. All of the people were friendly and there were lots of environmental stuff to see.

This is a pair of eagles at the Tazmanian Devil Park. They were not in an enclosure. It was just a tree with a fence around it (to keep humans out as opposed to the eagles in). The sign outside of the fence said to look up and maybe you could see them flying around.