Cast away on Nudey Beach
We wake to find the sea awash with translucent jellyfish, as luminous as stars, cast adrift in the millions on a velvety, indigo tide. They swarm the sea off Fitzroy Island, clumsy and graceless in their great, jellyfish dance, bumping each other softly and spiralling away into the deep.
My young daughter looks on, transfixed and beaming, leaning over the rail of our sailboat and staring down into the blue. Eventually it becomes all too irresistible to watch from afar, so we take the plunge, flinching and giggling, and paddling through water thick with the jellies that bounce off our masks and slide down our Lycra-clad legs.
This euphoric, early morning swim off the Great Barrier Reef’s Fitzroy Island woos me entirely, but it’s not the first time that I’ve fallen for this surprising tropical isle. Girthed by a rich tapestry of coral reefs awash with sea turtles and reef sharks and a million other wondrous creatures, Fitzroy Island is a rare beauty that rises to a lofty granite summit just off the Queensland coast.
National park protection safeguards its outstanding natural scenes, and
