September 5, 2011, , Hanover Bay
Aaahh..a lay day in Hanover Bay. Time to do some exploring of the gorge and hopefully catch some fish. We decided to put the 15HP on the dinghy so we could get up-river. This means taking the 5HP off and putting it on the rail, hoisting the 15HP with the lifting straps over the side and manhandling it onto the dinghy. A bit laborious but worth it to give us more speed. We haven't used this outboard much this trip, so Bruce took it for a test run. 20 metres from the boat the engine died. Re-start it. It died again. And so on...seems there was a fuel delivery problem. Now those of you who know Bruce probably know him as an easy-going, happy kind of chap. But.... there is another side - the Donald Duck side, which emerges occasionally when things go wrong. "Donald" moments usually involve.....well, just think of the cartoon and you'll get the picture. On this occasion it went something like "That's it!! I've had enough of fixing f#@!% problems. I'm selling the f#@!% boat". It was, after all, supposed to be a day off. Sadly the day didn't improve. We tried numerous spots to throw a line over, but not even a nibble. Then to really cap it off we took Widget into the beach for her afternoon constitutional, the dinghy got swamped by the breaking waves on the beach, and as we tried to get out through the breakers Bruce missed his footing getting into the dinghy and fell in the water. Uh oh......Donald re-emerged, still alive and kicking! But nothing restores the equilibrium quite like the medicinal properties of a cold one (or two, or three) and the day was redeemed by enjoying the company of Chris and Heidi on Bella, and the giant oysters we'd chipped off the rocks earlier in the day. Heavenly!
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September 5, 2011, , Careening Bay
Our next stop after the Hunter River was Careening Bay, around the next headland. In order to work the tides, we needed an ebb tide to get us out of Prince Frederick Harbour and up around Ena Island, and then a flood tide down to Careening Bay. And the only way we were going to achieve that was to leave the Hunter at 4.30am. Yikes! I thought this cruising life was supposed to be, well, cruisy. Silly, silly me.
4.30am arrived and it was, of course, pitch black. The current was also flowing furiously, slewing us from side to side as we made our way out of the creek, so whilst our GPS track in was a nice smooth line, our track out looked like a lunatic's breakfast (Bruce had a much more choice phrase which I won't repeat here!). After an anxious half-hour we made it out into the mouth of the river and were treated to the beautiful pink and purple colours of dawn silhouetting the cliffs. After all that effort, I'm glad to say our timing paid off and we had a great sail to Careening Bay, laughing at the skinny fish (Gar? Pike?) doing a combination of tail-walking and belly-flopping over 100 m on top of the water, looking for all the world like commuters late for a train.
Careening Bay is where Captain Philip Parker King careened the Mermaid for repairs in 1820. Apparently he and his crew stayed for several weeks and were instructed to leave a permanent marker of their visit. A handy Baob tree fitted the bill, and they inscribed HMC Mermaid, 1820 on its' trunk. It must have been a big tree even then, but now is huge. We have no idea how old it is, but it would have to be every bit of 300 or 400 years old. We took the obligatory photos then headed off to Hanover Bay Inlet 20 nm further on, arriving at 4.30pm. A long day but worth it, and tomorrow we reckon we've earned a lay day to explore Hanover Bay.
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September 4, 2011, , Hunter River
On Friday morning it was another early start, another (very) muddy anchor and chain to wash before leaving for the Hunter River 50 nm away. The wind was light to start with, but then filled in and we were able to do away with the iron sail. Always a joy. Every day now is very hot and cloudless, with flat turquoise seas and blue skies. We're starting to see more whales too, which always brings us rushing onto deck with "oohs" and "aahs" as they breach and blow waterspouts - somewhat akin to watching the fireworks! The approach to the Hunter River is spectacular - steep red cliffs rising out of the aqua water, with incredible rock formations. One in particular looks exactly like a sphinx guarding the entrance to the river. We had a couple of options for anchorages - the first looked too shallow, so we took the second option up Porosus Creek (Porosus apparently means crocodile). And it certainly looked like croc country - lined with mangroves, muddy banks, murky water. Unlike our first anchoring option, this was the opposite - it was hard to find depths less than 20m! Eventually we anchored in 16m at half-tide. By low tide the depth under our keel was 6.6 m - that's an amazing 10m tidal range! And with the tidal range came strong currents -at one point our swim ladder was almost horizontal in the water. So lots of chain went out, and we settled in for our first night, scanning for crocs but seeing nothing.
Saturday morning I was up at dawn to take photos of the truly stunning scenery and taking in all the sensory experiences of this ancient part of the world, probably unchanged for centuries. If there were crocodiles in this creek, surely this would be the time to see them. I scanned the edges of the mangroves and the water, but nothing. Just as I started to head back into the cockpit, up pops a 2m croc right next to the boat! By the time I got my camera it had submerged, but we then spent the next 2 hours croc-watching. A much larger croc was on the bank, cruising up and down and occasionally sticking his snout into the mud to catch crabs. The other one (we assume she was the female of the pair) bailed up Bella, just hanging around the back of the boat eyeballing them. Maybe she could smell the dogs, or maybe they're fed by the tourist boats. Who knows? At this stage we were visiting Bella for morning tea, with our dinghy tied alongside. We'd heard tales of crocs attacking inflatables, so as she got closer and closer to our dinghy my hero the skipper bravely got the oar out, ready to do a bit of croc-bashing. But not necessary - there were no aggressive displays and she eventually went over to her side of the creek to hunt crabs. After that we tried fishing (with one eye over our shoulder for the crocs) but again we were woefully lacking. We'd heard stories of catching barramundi and threadfin salmon here, but despite trying our barra lures in amongst the mangroves we came back empty-handed. I truly think we're the worst fishermen in the world!
Later that afternoon a very large commercial tour operator boat came into the creek, followed shortly after by two more boats. Gee, our special spot was becoming crowded. Must be time to move on!
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September 1, 2011, , Bigge Island
Another 6am start this morning to take advantage of the tide to get us to Bigge Island, about 35 NM away across Montague Sound. We now have our early morning routine down pat - everything is tidied up (and tied down) the night before, so in the pre-dawn semi-dark all we have to do is have a quick wash, light the gas stove for tea, turn on instruments, engine, electronic charts, running lights, anchor switch and deck wash. I've also learnt after many encounters with Kimberley mud, that the only sensible attire when raising the anchor is old, preferably already dirty, clothing! Not too hard to find on our boat...
We made good time to Bigge Island, arriving a little after 11am, and on the way were treated to several sightings of whales with calves, all slowly starting to make their trek back south. I suspect we will see many more over the next few weeks.
Wary Bay, on the northwest of Bigge Island, is famous for its' Wandjiina rock paintings in the caves. There are also sacred burial and ceremonial grounds nearby that are strictly no-go areas. The caves are right on the beach and although not deep are very imposing, with many paintings documenting aboriginal contact with foreigners (men smoking pipes, men in rowboats) in addition to the more traditional dugong, turtles and Wandjiina spirit figures with large eyes and halos. One of our cruising guides mentioned that these depictions are of Sea Wandjiinas, in control of clouds and weather. So we were extra-specially respectful.....
Wary Bay was not a particularly good anchorage, being too open to the swell, so we went a further 7 nm south to Boomerang Bay. We're starting to lose faith in the WA cruising guide - had we followed their directions to the anchorage we would have been right over the drying reef. After our last experience, our caution paid off and we anchored safely further out, enjoying another wonderful Kimberley sunset (but I still can't get used to seeing the sun setting over the sea!)
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keep the reports coming
August 31, 2011, , Krait Bay
Today we had a fantastic sail for most of the morning - 15 kts of breeze, 4 kts of current with us. At one point we were reaching speeds of 11kts over the ground!!!! For Illusion, that's almost double our normal speed. So we made it to Krait Bay by lunchtime, and anchored way out in the middle of the bay to avoid the fringing reef. This afternoon we tried our hand at fishing (our record lately has been woeful), hoping to catch a trevally or two off the headland. Nothing, not even a nibble. Then just as I was pulling my line in, I got a huge hit. Wow, this is going to be a big fish! I excitedly hauled it in, to find I'd caught a 0.5 m black-tipped reef shark! Some people say sharks are good eating, but there was no way either of us was game to land our toothy friend in the dinghy, so we hurriedly said our goodbyes and he disappeared off into the deep.
Later in the afternoon we went into a little beach tucked around the corner of the bay for sundowners with Bella. The tide was going out and we tarried a little longer than we should have, so by the time we made our way out big sections of reef were exposed. Out came the paddles and we pushed our way across the top of the rocks and reef and round the corner, only to see a large area of exposed reef alarmingly close to the back of Illusion. Crikey! No time to waste, quick get the anchor up and move further out. The reef obviously extends much further into the bay than our charts indicated, so from now on we'll be even more cautious about where we anchor!
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August 30, 2011, , Parry Harbour
We would have loved to stay another day at Freshwater Bay, but we're ever-mindful of the need to be well down the west coast by the end of September. So we said goodbye to our friend the tawny shark (who turned up this morning with a much larger mate in tow) and headed for Krait Bay 54 NM away.
I remember before we left Sydney a friend of ours commented on how wonderful it would be to have no particular schedule, no stress, no need to plan ahead. Ha!! The reality is quite different. Every afternoon Bella's cockpit (sometimes the beach) turns into the equivalent of a war-room HQ. We study tides and currents, calculate distances, check weather and often scratch our heads in bewilderment about how to tackle the next leg. Today we discovered that you can't hope to cover too great a distance without getting punished by the tides and currents. We left at 6.30am, motor-sailing (again) around the top of Cape Bougainville and had current with us all the way. But once round the Cape and heading down into the Admiralty Gulf it was a different story - the current gradually built against us until we were once again battling to maintain 2 kts headway against a 3-4 kt current. It looked increasingly unlikely that we would make it to Krait Bay before dark, so after a couple of hours we admitted defeat and turned back towards Parry Harbour, just around the corner from Cape Bougainville. Now we were doing 9 kts over the ground and took ½ hour to cover the distance we'd made in the previous two hours!! For the first time our electronic charts weren't accurate enough for the passage into the harbour, so we resorted to the tried & true visual naviagation, with me on the bow looking out for reefs and rocks. Once in, Parry Harbour turned out to be a pleasant, calm body of water. We anchored in the lee of an island with large, monolith-like rocks which looked like oversize molars. Unfortunately we couldn't get to the beach because of the extensive fringing reef, so Widget had to be content with her mat on the back deck, looking longingly at the shore.
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