“Here there and everywhere … making each day of the year “…

Kenny and Liz arrived early on their Jetstar flight which was a pleasant surprise. We met at the trendoid cafe on the Coral Sea marina where your açai bowel is a cool $20 … thinking about that more, it’s about 8 litres of diesel .. how the cost of living has changed ! I’m not sure which value is better ?! Probably the bowl !

Anyway, we walked down to ‘P arm’ and our guests quickly settled down into Charmer. We took the scenic walk to Airlie Woolies to stock up for the tour. We caught a cab back as it was a little challenging carrying a case of beer, bottles of wine and of course, a little food to compliment the wine or is it the reverse ? No matter, we had enough for either approach. We jostled for position at the taxi rank and did the customary wave to any passing cab thinking they couldn’t quite see us waiting at the rank. Of course they all had passengers and we were doing the tourist salute as they passed. You can just imagine the cab drivers ‘tsch tsching’ as they drove past the frantic waving then noticing the stocked shopping trolley… mmpf.. tourists are back !

We eventually secured a taxi and arrived back to the marina in time to unpack, restock and make our 4:30 booking at the Garden Bar Bistro on the marina. An enjoyable welcoming night was had by all. Next morning we would depart for Nara Inlet after adding some fuel into Charmers tanks.

The morning rolled around to reveal a rather sunny morning with a scattered clouds. The obligatory cuppa and toast was devoured by all and we untied to head for the fuel wharf.

Rounding the last pontoon we could see the fuel wharf was clear of any boat. In we go. As we were tying up one of the marina attendants walked over and asked “have you booked in for fuel ?” .. “booked in for fuel ??” was my surprised response - “what do you mean ?” … During busy times the marina slap a booking system in place for fuel .. “I’ll call the office to see if you can get a booking time, you’ll have to come back”. Well, that was a nice how do you do ! Luckily we were reasonably well known in the office and although there was a boat on the way to get fuel ( who was booked) if we moved down the wharf to the end we could obtain the fuel we wanted. So, with the assistance of the attendant we pulled Charmer down to the northern end.

“Geez”, she said “how much does she weigh ?”… “about 45 tonnes”, I informed… “she’s moving quite easily then” she said as I was delivering pretty much all of the effort to pull her down to the end. I feigned a courteous smile and continued to manoeuvre Charmer to her new resting place to pump fuel.
After initiating the prepayment for the diesel the hose was placed into the filler and fuel starting flowing at a reasonable rate. An understatement in some respects as the numbers are just a blur as the dials click from 0 to 9 pretty darn quickly ! One of the crew members (who shall remain nameless), inadvertently bumped into the hose as it was filling the tank. Now, picture the panic that ensued…. Diesel was suddenly spewing out all over the side of the boat soaking the teak and basically almost bathing said crew member up to their knees in nice, fresh, smelly, oily diesel. In a somewhat coordinated and cool fashion, the trigger was shut off and replaced into the filler pipe to continue fueling. The first mate informed the marina attendant of the situation and we were advised not to let any of the diesel spill into the water - the ensuing paperwork a miserable nightmare. She proceeded to open the yellow ‘spill bin’ and hand out the soaking mats which we placed along the teak decking to soak up what diesel they could as we continued to fill Charmer’s tanks. Other crew members did a commendable job stopping the diesel making its way into the drains on deck by stuffing rags over grates and adopting a more than effective and responsible role in hazard prevention. Miserable nightmare avoided. Having seen what happens when diesel is accidentally spilled into the water on a previous trip, we averted an embarrassing situation becoming a major public spectacle at the marina ! Let’s just say both the first mate and I were witness to a boat owner whose friend thought the rod holder was the fuel filler cap … it wasn’t pretty.

So we waited until the fuel was in, cleaned up the ‘diesel soakers’ as best we could and placed them in a plastic bag marked ‘ hazardous waste ‘ and was instructed to “put that in the rubbish area”.

We backed out of the wharf, threw Charmer into a 3-pointer and headed off for the morning. The clean up commenced on the first opportunity outside the marina heads. Soapy hot water scrubbed into the teak and saloon wall exterior until we were all satisfied ‘the diesel has gone’. We were headed to Nara Inlet and once past the last protected landmass of Pioneer Point we copped a bit of wind chop as we headed east towards the inlet. Fortunately, (and thankfully for some of the crew), it wasn’t a rough ride at all.

Reaching Nara Inlet and navigating the narrow entrance we ventured down to the bottom of the inlet and cast an anchor in what we expected was about 5 metres of water. It soon became apparent we were just on the edge of a drop away and low tide would see us swing perilously close to the bottom. So we upped anchor and moved a little more towards the centre and a few hundred metres back down towards the end of the inlet. It ended up being a prime spot and once a few more boats arrived, we still had plenty of depth and swing room. It would be a nice hassle-free sleep tonight !

Night passed and we woke to the often sunny morning with the usual spattering of clouds that ‘burned away’ by early afternoon, today would be no different.

Leaving Nara Inlet I set up a trolling line out the back hoping to catch a monster from the deep. We travelled up the western side of Hook Island towards Hayman Island, passing between Black Island (a small island with good snorkelling) and the western most point of Hook Island before we turned to the east and approached Butterfly Bay. As we were travelling past Black Island the Marine Parks Catamaran followed us and pulled up alongside. It is a rather imposing vessel and probably 5 or six metres from our midships. I went out through the starboard side door to see if they wanted to speak, but with no sign of life I stared for a short time into the fully tinted windows without seeing head nor human and then they sped off. Quite weird really. We continued onto Butterfly Bay.

As we approached the Bay proper I was thinking about the trolling line out the back reminding myself I needed to bring it in. We entered the bay and I dropped the revs back to idle while I pulled in the line. As I was doing so the Marine Parks vessel seemingly appears from nowhere and kept a course that followed us into the bay. We selected a mooring buoy and secured the boat. All the time being watched by two of the Marine Parks guys in a dinghy they deployed earlier as they followed us in. This was becoming even more strange.

After we had secured the boat, they came over in their dinghy and asked who was the master of the vessel. “I am the Skipper” I said. “I need to talk to you .. can you come down to the back of the boat ?” the guy in the official-looking Marine Parks uniform requested. He had a camera hanging around his neck with two sound recorders and a nice little notebook in his hands. He asked who was trolling as we entered the bay and naturally I said I was. Well, that started a whole series of questions and answers that could have been avoided had they spoke to us when they passed us 20 minutes earlier. “Do you know you can’t troll in this bay, it’s a marine park”. “Yes” I replied “that’s why I bought the line in when we came in”… “but you had the line in as you came in - I’m going to need to board your vessel to see your trolling line”… it was at this stage I realised they had stitched me up and all the time they were planning how to nab me for trolling once I got into a protected area. To cut a long and ridiculous story short, my man in the Marine Parks uniform who proudly showed me his identification, issues me “with a caution today” and would be “passing my details on to the Marine Parks for their information”. I was informed twice that anything I said may and could be used in a court of law. So I basically said nothing.

It was such a disappointing welcome to Butterfly Bay and an even more disappointing introduction to the Marine Parks patrolling work. What an absolute waste of time and money they spent to ‘hunt me down’. I acknowledged I was doing the wrong thing as I entered the bay and did in fact pull the line in, but apparently I was over the starting GPS coordinates and should have done so earlier. Guilty as charged … send me to the salt mines.
It was all a bit of overkill to be honest, but there was no denying I had flaunted the rules. Luckily we didn’t catch anything as I’m sure they would have called for a black hawk helicopter to air lift me out to Borralin Correctional Centre jail.

Taking my details and snapping numerous evidence pictures, he eventually joined his escort in their dinghy and returned back to their mother ship, no doubt high giving each other and planning how to trap the next careless boating enthusiast. We settled in and enjoyed the beauty that is Butterfly Bay. There is a small secluded beach on the NE corner which we took advantage of in the tender and just soaked up the warm afternoon sun as we walked around the beach and went for the odd dip in the refreshing turquoise water. Goanna tracks in the sand indicating there was wildlife around - sizeable wildlife.

Back onboard late afternoon, Liz whipped up a very tasty risotto and we sat around watching the Commonwealth Games for a while. Bedtime was around 9:30 and one by one we sauntered off to the berths leaving Kath up watching Athletics track and field events.

Lying in bed waiting to doze off to sleep the silence was suddenly interrupted by a loud banging noise up the front of the boat. I’m sure we all had the same thought - someone is struggling to close a door somewhere on board. But then it happened again and then again. It was loud and images of a ‘boat on the loose’ filled my mind immediately … banging and scraping into Charmer’s bow. I raced upstairs and called to Kath “what the hell was that ?”… “I think a boat has hit us” she said. Hard to tell as it was pitch black and we were connected to a mooring buoy. We grabbed the torches and immediately started the search on both sides of the boat hoping to spot the offending boat or at least the offending tender that had unwittingly broke its tethered line off the back of someone’s boat. Scouring the perimeter we saw nothing, no sign of a tender, no close boat, no sign of any vessel anywhere near to us.
By this stage Kenny joined the search and we were all asking the same question ..”what the hell was that ?”. We were all hypothesising on what the noise sounded like it could be with no agreement, just puzzling laughs … After we settled down and deduced there was no offending craft, I considered there were two potential possibilities for the incident … the first; an off-course Russian sub surfacing in the hope they have located the Ukrainian humanitarian grain boat and the second, and most likely, it must have been a turtle surfacing in the dark which kind of made sense, but then again, do turtles travel at night ? Who really knows ? If they do, they need to improve their night-time navigation .. does FLIR have a marine animal division ? I’m sure someone somewhere has completed a Masters degree or PHD on the journey of the Whitsunday night turtle, but for now, we must assume that was the offending creature.

One more lap around the boat with torches blazing revealed no other evidence. Must have been a turtle.

Ok, let’s settle back into pre-sleep routine.

Tomorrow is another day … in paradise.