Alex, cool and grey and overcast with a huge chance of Rolly Blues. Oh and a mystery.
See what happens as our Dinghy explores the curiosity of Musgrave Creek and see if you can solve this new mystery?
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"I'm really looking forward to exploring some of these mangrovey creeks that are here" I hinted out loud to Dave over coffee that morning.
First on my list was Ambristers Creek, just North of our anchorage in Old Bight. And where, the charts reveal, the creek flows into a lake. A lake that bubbles and boils, and the local sip sip (gossip) suggests it's all caused by the sea monster that lives there.
We were all packed and ready to go exploring, but looking outdoors had us shaking our heads. Once again the weather was dampening our spirits. A chop had developed in the harbour. Dinghy seemed to agree as it kind of sputtered it's displeasure at it all and we knew that hunting for that elusive sea monster might get a little challenging with a grumpy dinghy.
With the Weather Front came an overnight case of the Rolly Blues, and that afternoon, after one too many WTF side to side rolls, we weighed anchor and followed our friends to the Northern end of the Bay. Decent depths and a slight reduction in the sea state allowed for a huge sigh of relief.
Once settled, we thought that Dinghy could use an explore, but she wasn't feeling too thrilled with the idea and kind of balked as we tried to plane our way to the entrance. We looked at each other with a worried eye and frown.
Our thoughts were quickly diverted by the big brown dog barking on the cliff, heralding our arrival to the eerie silence that is Musgrave Creek. We dinghied slowly along, following the waters in twisty turns, leaving a wake of S-shaped tracks and keeping a watchful eye on the very shallow depths beside us
making sure to stay in the deep dark greens.
The grey sand and sediment and muddy shoreline made it all look sort of apocalyptic. Below Dinghy's hull, in the surprisingly clear waters, we caught sight of a few brownish greenish ovals that is a turtle shell, swimming away with great speed as we manoeuvred our way through the dense and dark tangles of mangrove roots.
Deep in the depths of Musgrave Creek we journeyed. The Dinghy slowing down, sort of afraid. The greyish skies, the deathly silence, all contributed to a scary movie scene and you could just imagine the long spindly roots grasping at us as we tried to make haste.
We found a boat firmly tied to the sturdy mangroves at the fork in the creek, and we chose to go left, ducking underneath as we lifted the slimy wet long lines that had been sitting in the creek for way too long.
And finally the end of the creek explorations at the Bridge that stopped us.
We walked with our friends to the grocery store and were relieved that dinghy started with one good pull when we got back. She revved up jes' fine, but as soon as we throttled into gear, she had nothing to give. And so we made our way back hoping we had enough zoom zoom left before Low Tide had us stranded on some sandbar.
And once we were safely back on Banyan, we gazed at the shoreline, with the entrance to Musgrave Creek,
and wondered just how we were going to solve this new mystery.