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.
We are heading north, and all the way to Indonesia, so this is the end of Australian cities for now. We’ll be able to get a few supplies at the top of Cape York, and again at Nhullunbuy, but we had to top up with all essentials before leaving Cairns. There’s no hurry at this stage, as we will have six months to be out of the country, and I don’t want to have to leave Indonesia while cyclones are still active over the top end.
The satellite image of Vlasoff Cay above 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 back in 2016, showing clear signs of degradation.
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