Early this morning we entered the D’Entrecasteaux group near Fergusson Island. The plan is to spend the morning at a site called Twin Peaks. The conditions are perfect here for watersports, not only is the water calm and clear, there is also very little current presently.
After breakfast everyone goes their preferred way: snorkeling, glass-bottom boating, and diving. I go diving and it is beautiful: lots of color, lots of fish, lots of fun. Being as this place can have a strong current, there are many current feeders about like feather stars, strange relatives of sea stars, and sea urchins know as crinoids to fossil collectors.
In the afternoon most of us go ashore on Fergusson Island to visit Dei Dei hot springs. A local village supplies us with some very helpful guides. One of the most helpful jobs of the guides is to tell us were to walk so we do not break through the mineral crust and boil to death in the hot water!
The springs look like something out of the age of dinosaurs, all steam and bubbling water and mud. The ground is a crust of marvelous design of tiny circles and fine lines and simple sketches.
There is little soil here and the plants are hardy and stingy with their parts, leaves are rarely dropped. One fabulous plant is the carnivorous pitcher plant taking valuable minerals and nutrients from their insect prey. Unwary insects are captured in modified leaves that look somewhat like pitchers. There is a sweet smelling nectar in the pitcher that is reputed to be narcotic and digestive … whatever, it really seems to work given the number of small bodies that can be found.
Back on the ship, we are all a bit tired and dehydrated, but very, very pleased, it would be safe to say.
