CAY-TRIPPING! Sailing into a Wildlife Documentary on the Great Barrier Reef

The two destinations in this video – Sudbury Cay and Michaelmas Cay – are the reason we set sail up the North Queensland Coast in the middle of a La Niña summer.

Our goal was to see if instead of the howling southeasters that have prevailed over the last of Australia’s three consecutive La Niña years throughout the ‘typical’ cruising seasons, we might find calmer conditions for accessing less sheltered parts of the Great Barrier Reef.

Spoiler alert: there are no glass-outs here – but we definitely found magic. ✨

In fact, I’m still pinching myself that we were able to visit the places we did, and particularly Michaelmas Cay, which is one of the most important seabird rookeries in the southern hemisphere, with up to 20,000 breeding pairs recorded.

This is the sort of place you might actually expect to bump into David Attenborough and a BBC Wildlife film crew.

In their absence, I give you the ‘Brilliant II’ crew. 🤪

It’s a privilege to be able to share this video with you; I am grateful for my little family, who are doing this journey called ‘life’ with me, and for our ‘Brilliant’ boat, that takes us to places like these.

Enjoy!

💙 @shazatsea (IG)


Additional Resources
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Maps/Satellite Imagery - https://earth.google.com/web/
https://www.portsnorth.com.au/cairns-... - Marlin Marina
https://rustysmarkets.com.au/about-us/ - Rusty’s Markets
https://www.ausarmour.com - Tank Museum
https://parks.des.qld.gov.au/__data/a... - Michaelmas Cay rules for visiting

https://www.tropicalnorthqueensland.o... Cairns
https://www.australia.com/en/places/c... - Travel Guide to Cairns (Tourism Australia)
https://www.tripadvisor.com.au/Attrac... Trip Advisor - tours to Michaelmas Cay

https://www.template.net/editable/cli... - IG logo

Additional Clips sourced from YouTube
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   • Experience Cairns & Great Barrier Ree...   - Experience Cairns & Great Barrier Reef - TTNQ
   • BE Immersed Highlights 2021   - BE Immersed highlights 2021 – TTNQ
   • Salt House 10th Anniversary - Cairns   - Salt House 10th Anniversary – Cairns – Dexter Gross Films

Music via www.storyblocks.com
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Media Music Group / Cinematic piano and strings dramatic wonder
Humans Win (formerly Lance Conrad) / Explorer
OKO / Midnight emotional inspiring energy
Danail Draganov / Gentle Documentary Piano
Unknown / Glass 01
Jabameister / Magical Adventure
Tchaikovsky / Dance of the reed pipes

Music via www.epidemicsound.com
Luwaks / Into the Blue - https://www.epidemicsound.com/track/F...