Today was just the day we needed – slow paced, relaxing and full of beach. The kids were up at about 7am, but with no rush to get moving, Debbie and I enjoyed sleeping in until about 8am.
Magnetic Island is known for its snorkelling – but rather than snorkelling from boats, you snorkel just off the beach! There are two proper “snorkel trails” on the island – one in Geoffrey Bay, and a much closer and easier one in Nelly Bay. We headed down to one of the fishing / diving shops in Nelly Bay to grab some snorkels and fins for each of us – $20 each for 24 hours’ hire. We had our pool noodles as well, and then headed back to the Nelly Bay snorkel trail. The first buoy on the trail is only 100m out from the shore. After a bit of a struggle to get everyone’s snorkel fitted nicely, we all managed the swim out to the first buoy successfully. From there, it was about 10-20m between each of the 5 buoys. The buoys were just markers of the trail – there was so much to see in between each of them as well.
We spotted some amazing coral along the way, and plenty of beautiful fish – we’re fairly sure we saw some Barred Rabbitfish and Birdwire Cod (thanks to the handy waterproof card we got with our snorkel hire). We also saw plenty of zebra fish – toward the end of the snorkel as the kids were swimming back in and Debbie and I were meandering behind, we were watching a very curious zebra fish who was swimming in and around my legs and kept pausing and looking at us. It was so cool!
The kids did really well. It was 100m out to the first buoy, and probably about another 100m across to the 5th buoy, then 100m back into shore again – so it was a decent swim! And even though we all had our noodles helping us float, for the kids it was still definitely a big effort. But they really loved it, and so did we.
After lunch and a bit of downtime for everyone (again, such a relaxing day!), we wandered back down to Picnic Bay, which is the bay and beach just at the end of the street we’re staying in – only about a 10 minute walk. We spent a couple of hours there last night, and the kids loved playing on the sand and paddling. But today, we headed back down with swimmers still on so they could have a decent swim there. Daniel also took his snorkel down as well, and saw some great fish under the jetty – including a reef shark! The kids and Debbie also had a great time exploring all the granite boulders at the end of Picnic Bay.
Like I wrote at the start, the slow pace of today was exactly what we needed I think. There was no rushing anywhere, but we still had plenty of fun and saw some great things. Tomorrow should hopefully be the same as well – it seems to just be how things go here on Maggie Island.
