After our extended stay in Cairns, the weather is now quite moderate. Temperature is in the 20s, day and night, and the wind has dropped to less than 15 knots. This is the best reef weather we have had all year, and with Arlington Reef only 15NMs offshore from Cairns, it is the obvious place for our first night out of Cairns.

The satellite image of Vlasoff Cay below shows a red track from our last visit here in 2016, and a black track of our trip today. After coming in through the pass into Arlington Reef, we edged along a couple of shallow patches on our way in to a mooring at Vlasoff Cay. The blue markers are the public use moorings that have been installed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, who install and maintain these moorings to reduce the incident of anchors damaging the fragile coral.

We went in for a swim and explore the cay and reef when we arrived, and were disappointed at the lack of colour in the coral compared to our previous visit.