Stunning Sisters

What a fabulous way to start the evening low tide trips! With corals galore in all colours of the rainbow, the Sisters are among our favourite destinations. Just 15 minutes from the main business district, the city skyline remains visible from these two tiny islands.

These are islands of legend. And what a legend indeed!

The poignant tale is of a pair of pretty orphan sisters, Minah and Linah who were inseparable. One day, Linah met a group of pirates while fetching water near the sea. Frightened, she ran home with the pirate chief giving chase. Brandishing a dagger, he made known his wish to marry Linah. When dawn broke, the pirate chief and his men came to take Linah away. Clinging to each other, the sisters were forced apart by the pirates, and Linah was carried away. The desperate Minah swam after the boat but drowned. Linah jumped into the stormy waters in grief.

The next day, the villagers were shocked to see two islands at the spot where the two sisters had drowned.

More about the Sisters Islands: how to get there, what to see and do and more links.

And indeed, I think the islands are our prettiest. Small and demure. So close to one another they are nearly touching. But always separated by some really scary currents that make the leap from the boat to the jetty quite a manhood thing.

'Tis been a year since we've visited the Sisters. The islands were closed to public visits due to jetty repairs.

We were excited to be back on our favourite islands. Landside, things were rather overgrown. The wild macaques,previously on Big Sisters, were now seen on Little Sisters...we're still not sure how they made it through the boiling currents in the channel between the Sisters.

The reefs were still very much alive! Crabs, fishies, nudibranchs and all kinds of critters. I was happily splashing around until the team said they got great footage of my not-so-favourite fish...the blue-spotted stingray. Eeks.

At this time of the year, the low tides are in the evening and are not very low. So we don't get to go out much. After a month without trips, I was a little rusty on the shores. Trying hard to remember what a stonefish looks like. Peering at every stone with suspicion. Fiddling with gear that I forgot how to use, or just plain forgot to bring. So didn't really get to cover much ground during the short trips.

The new tide tables have just come out. It's time to plot our adventures for 2006!

Meanwhile, time to enjoy 8 hours of sleep a day, and catch up with our Other Lives...