Thursday Island also known as TI, is the administrative centre for the Torres Strait Islands in Australia. 

It’s the most northernly town in Australia and part of the state of Queensland with only about 2600 residents.There are 274 islands in the  Torres Strait Islands and most are part of Australia.
We arrived just before lunch time to gorgeous views of beaches and various hues of blue on the sea due to the many shoals around. 

Unfortunately, we were warned not to swim or snorkel due to crocodiles and sharks nearby. Apparently, when some passengers mentioned this to some locals, they scoffed and said that there hadn’t been any issues in years. The more important issue we thought was the current. The tender and the ship at anchor battled strong river like currents and it took 20 minutes to reach the pier to disembark.
The island is very small but we opted to take a tour of the Green Hill Fort Museum at the top of the island. 

Originally built to repel Russians in the late 1800’s, the fort was also used in WWII to protect against Japanese invasion. Residents were evacuated with only a few hours notice and didn’t return until after the war.

The ground is hard and rocky and it is hard to imagine young men using pick and shovels to dig trenches and then build fortifications.

Many Japanese lived on the island because of pearl diving trade where the mother of pearl was used to make buttons until the 1950s where plastic buttons ended the need for the pearl ones. There is a cemetery where many Japanese pearl divers are buried. The headstones list and no longer seem to be maintained as well as the other headstones nearby.

It was a very dangerous trade where many died because of drowning or suffering the bends from diving too deep and coming back too quickly. 

Unfortunately, many Japanese residents were interned in WWII as it happened elsewhere in the world and never returned to the island after the war. Though Thursday Island never got bombed but a nearby island did, the thought was that Japan spared the island thinking that there were still Japanese residents there.

A meandering walk near the pier revealed a local art gallery which featured some indigenous art which unfortunately you are not allowed to photograph in the gallery but there was some outside that we could take a photo of.

Since the Torres Islands are near the tip of the Great Barrier Reef, many large ships require a pilot to come aboard and help navigate the shallow waters. The pilot provided a very interesting presentation the following day (we had passed the reef by then) of his job as a reef pilot and the wrecks that have happened on the reef which was sad to hear how human error was the cause of most of them.

Lastly, as we waited on the pier for our tender to arrive to take us back to the ship, a yellow school boat arrived to pick up some children to take them back home to one of the other islands. The kids simply hopped in through the front hatch. How cool is that!

Cheers!