Due to huge requests or just boredom on my part here is a page about where I live. There are 4 pages to this site, just click at the bottom of the page to get to the next one. There are a lot of photo's, so it may take some time to load, enjoy my tour of Willis Island.
The above photo is that of Willis Island located 500km ENE of Cairns in the Coral Sea. The Island was first inhabited in 1921 and set up as a cyclone warning weather station for the North Queensland coast.
The island is approximately 450 metres in length and 150 metres wide. The highest point of the island is the dirty washing pile located in the corner of my bedroom peaking at just over 9 metres above sea level.
The current Island population stands at four, and shall remain at this level given no unforseen accidents, however the personnel is exchanged every six months with a new crew. Our crew arrived here in mid December and shall be relieved in July 1999. Apart from the human inhabitants we share the island with 12 beautiful coconut trees, nesting turtles, crabs and hundreds of thousands of sea birds along with the beautiful marine life.
Willis Island also has its own exports, with the locally produced beer named after the distinctive bird flavoured water, ie. 'Guano Lager' & 'Booby Bird Bitter'
Work on the island consists of regular weather observations along with an upper atmosphere weather balloon flight performed every 6 hours, the information collected allows us to profile the atmosphere in terms of Temperature, humidity, Wind Direction and Speed. Other arduous work duties include general maintenance, fishing, diving, surfing, golf and Kite flying.
Below are some photos taken from the top of our wind anemometer mast at a height of 27metres.
Wind Mast + camera and I |
View Facing West down our front driveway |
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The next two photos show (a) - facing North, with the main building being our house and office, At the top of the tower is the 'Weather Watch Radar' and to its left is the Hydrogen Balloon filling shed.
photo (b) - is facing towards the South, The water out there is quite shallow until you get to the end of the Coral shelf where the waves are breaking, out there the coral and fish make for some amazing diving, plus the quite frequent visit by varying sized sharks. The Shark siting count so far is approximately 40 plus, ranging in size from a couple of feet in length for a white or black tip reef shark up to a 10 foot Tiger Shark, the latter was spotted at close range just 3 days ago, and since then I've been a little hesitant getting back into the water.
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Click Here to view the Wild life
