Hi Donald,
It is a beautiful part of the world. All the islands make up the Torres Straights Island communities. Each island is separate community and they commute between the islands in small boats. Life is generally fishing and maintaining the village. A favorite catch for the locals are the turtles. Tourism is a contributor to many islands. There is a newspaper out of Thursday Island that covers the news throughout the area. I met the owner and editor on the trip to Cape York Peninsula not long back. The people are just lovely and have a great lifestyle. The problems are education and job opportunities for the young but each island has a school and they compete amongst themselves in sports, etc. Despite the warm water swimming is not recommended – there are large salt water crocodiles that are very aggressive.