A Free Day

May 10
Cairns
Cloudy, then partly sunny. Warm.

I realized that I failed to post my May 7th journal entry. I'll post that before this one.

Today was a wash day for me, so I did not get away from the Queenslander until almost 11am. The washers and dryers here are only $2/load, but it seems that every dryer I encounter in Australia turns wet clothes into damp clothes. Once in awhile, I find one that works well.

There was not much new for me today: taking a few more photos, getting some developed, a few other errands. My underwater photos are only OK; you can see the better ones at Flickr. They are not as blue-green as the ones I've had in the past -- they're just grainy. The camera has a 28mm wide-angle lens, with fixed aperture of f/8 and 1/100 sec shutter speed. So the flash sort of does the work, although with preloaded 800 ISO film, there's plenty of light without. I think that it leads to an overexposed shot with some fuzziness. Preloading it with 800 ISO makes it the right thing for divers, as things will be darker farther down. Since I cannot dive, I'm snorkeling up at the top where all the light is. Next year, I'll try it with 200 ISO film and see if things look a little better.

The purpose of the flash in this case is less about making the objects brighter, and more about restoring some color balance. The water absorbs the reddish end of the spectrum, hence the blue-green tinge to a lot of underwater photos. I suppose a red fliter might do the trick as well. Since the underwater camera is really a regular camera in an underwater housing, there\'s no reason I couldn't just fit a bit of red filter material in front of the lens. Maybe I'll try both next year.

I did manage to get what I hope,is a nice photo of a willie wagtail, a small perching bird with clack feathers and a white underside. The pronounced tail wags back and forth along with the bird's head as it moves about while foraging. Some years ago, an Aborigine told me that for his people, willie wagtail is the watcher for the departed elders, keeping an eye on the people and making sure that they follow the law.

I ran into a few students as I walked around today. They are having wonderful adventures: one group went horseback riding on the beach at Port Douglas, another group went whitewater rafting on the Barron River. The 13th is our last free day in Cairns, and several have told me tghat they are planning additional reef cruises and fishing tours for the day. I'm glad that they keepme in the loop. Not only does it help to know ehere folks are, but also as they learn more about the place4, so do I.

For example: the group of students who went horseback riding needed to take a trip of about an hour or so up to Port Douglas, and were faced with the problem of how to get there. The outfitg that they were riding with arranged for a coach transfer, done by a local man who makes his living shuttling tourists between the two cities. He was especially kind to the students when their tour ran late, making sure to wait fo0r them. The students got his business card and gave it to me -- so now I know tyhe name of a good coach driver who works the Cairns-Port Douglas run.

The only other task for the day was making the 3rd quiz, which the students take tomorrow. It has been a challenge to get these quizzes together this year, though I suppose that means that it will be much easier next year. For the current quiz, I could find no copier service open on Saturday anywhere in Cairns, until I walked pastv the library and realized that, of course, they would have one! So, that's done.

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It is the morning of the 11th, and we've just had a power failure in the building. I seem to recall that this would happen from time to time here in Cairns. Since I'm on batteries on the handheld computer, it really does not affect me.

Today we will head up the mountain via Sky Rail to Kuranda, where we will visit Rainforest Station, a wildlife and cultural theme park.