The winning applicant will take on the job based on Hamilton Island in the Great Barrier Reef which comes with a salary of $96,000 for six months. The caretaker's responsibilities include writing a weekly blog, a video and photo diary, as well as feeding the fish and turtles and collecting mail.
As of 21:00 Moscow time [18:00 GMT] Tuesday a 29-year-old Russian woman identified as Julia is leading the selection process with 3,271 votes, her closest rivals are Cali from the United States (1,221 votes) and Mitchell from Canada (902 votes).
A travel company, Tourism Queensland (TQ), announced the competition, which drew 34,684 applications from more than 200 countries, in January 2009. On Tuesday the company announced a short list of 50 applicants, of which 10 will be selected by company managers and an eleventh wild card entry will be chosen in an online vote.
The 11 candidates will later fly to Hamilton Island for the final selection process, which is due to be completed on May 6. The winner is due to start work on July 1.
