We left Scawfell Island early for the days trek to Middle Percy Island – it was a beautiful morning and the day just got better as we cruised South. It was the first time that we had cruised past the outside of Scawfell Island and it was spectacular with massive granite cliffs and rocks. The fish were jumping and we hadn’t gone past the island before I had my first hook up. The reel screamed and Leanne took the helm while I played the fish. It was a workout to get it to the boat and it was a good size tuna. Leanne, as superb crew and deckhands do, passed me all the appropriate tools – gaff, mouth grabber, stainless pliers, knife, rope, buckets - and a cup of tea after all the hard work was done. Well we didn’t have time for the cuppa before I hooked another and again a bit of work to get it to the back of the boat however we let this one go to fight another day. The reel went off another couple of times during the morning however these fish managed to throw the lure so that saved a fair bit of effort – though a mackerel would have been good for the freezer.
You couldn’t have asked for a calmer day, flat seas – hot and sunny. The beach at West Bay, Middle Percy looked like paradise when we arrived – coconut trees lining the white beach in the afternoon sun. Only one thing was missing – the water! – the tides on this day being over 5 metres and it was near low tide – so our swim became one off the back of ‘Echo Beach’ with the cooling water perfect after our sunny day’s passage.
We went to the beach for sunset drinks and to check the boat name plaque that we fixed upstairs in the ‘Percy Hilton’ A Frame on the trip North. It was there (it has big stainless steel crews holding it so it will last as long as the A frame lasts) and we added 6/10/2013 to it. Neil and I wandered checking out many of the numerous pieces of memorabilia left by visiting yachties – there is everything and anything that has yacht and crew names left on it – life jackets, hats, clocks, cameras, gin bottles, floats, flags, toilet seats, a bogey board – and ‘Lunacy’ left a nice piece of coral. Meanwhile Leanne and Tamara had set up drinks (and started) facing the sunset on the beach – we happily joined them before retiring back to our boats for an early night.
Funny though you seldom find perfect paradise (as we have learnt along the way) – the beach was crawling with small ants. They literally covered the whole beach to the water (and it’s a big beach at low tide) and into the A frame area –so in no time at all they were crawling up your legs and on everything – no escape.
So we escaped to our own paradise aboard ‘Echo Beach’ and sleep was good until about 2am when the wind started to blow hard from the North West and the waves started to build – another night of rock n roll had sprung up. So we had no problem early the next morning moving to around the other side of the island to Whites Bay. It was a shame not to be able to do our planned walk up the hill to the homestead but it wasn’t safe to leave the boats for 3 hours in the conditions.
And wow – White’s Bay was another paradise found! White sands, turquoise waters, against a backdrop of coloured sand hills -red, yellows and whites. Stunning contrasting scenery. We went to the beach for a walk and swim – and it was now pretty hot so we really enjoyed it in yet another great location – again almost paradise apart from the huge sandflies!
After our swim we headed off for the 3-4 hr journey to the Duke Islands - a small group of islands which we were keen to see before we leave the region. We weren’t able to get here on the way up due to the weather so now is the chance.