Showing posts with label island. Show all posts
Showing posts with label island. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
Goldsmith Island More fish great beach a badly anchored naughty cat and a storm
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| Stingray Bay on Goldsmith Island |
13-14 November 2016
After a couple of fantastic days in Sea Eagle Bay on Thomas Island we raised the anchor at the extremely civilised hour of 9.15 AM and set sail for our next stop at Stingray Bay on Goldsmith Island. It was only a short, ten mile hop so, with a modest northerly pushing us along downwind, we elected to run with just a poled out genoa and didn’t bother to raise the main or mizzen. We got along very comfortably at a relaxed four knots until we reached the passage between Goldsmith and Linne Islands. Here the adverse outgoing current met the northerly wind generating a short, sharp chop that combined with the tidal flow to bring us almost to a dead stop. We soon gave up on wind power alone and started the engine to push on through the overfalls that were developing.
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| Sailing downwind with headsail only. |
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| Battling the currents between Linne and Goldsmith Islands |
Once out the other side the water was beautifully smooth as we turned into Stingray Bay. We anchored far into the bay as close as we felt comfortable to the fringing reef in about five metres of water over good holding sand. There was only one other boat in the anchorage when we arrived and it was on the far side of the bay. With miles of swing room around us, we laid out forty five metres of chain to allow for the rising tide and just to be safe in case an unexpected south easterly should blow up which would see us on a lee shore with coral not far behind our keel. We then had a nice lunch on board and a relaxing afternoon taking in our surroundings.
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| Sea Eagle Bay, Thomas Island to Stingray Bay, Goldsmith Island – 9.7 Nautical Miles Average Speed 3.7 Knots – Max Speed 6.4 Knots |
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| We anchored far into the bay well protected from the northerly wind as close as we felt comfortable to the fringing reef. |
Next morning Karen spoiled us with pancakes topped with fresh fruit for breakfast. What an awesome way to start another fantastic tropical day in paradise.
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| Rob about to tuck into breakfast. |
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| With Karen in the galley, boat food is never boring. |
Stingray Bay is a ‘Green’ conservation zone so no fishing is permitted at all. Fortunately that’s not the case just around the point to the west so Rob and John zoomed around there in the dinghy for Rob to have a go at spearing us some fresh fish for dinner. John had a boring time sitting in the dinghy keeping an eye on Rod as he snorkelled back and forwards along the rocky point in a fruitless search for a suitable target. Much to John’s relief, he eventually decided to give up the hunt and headed back to the dinghy where unbelievably he discovered a good sized brown coral trout lurking around a rock right underneath. Thank you Mr Fish. Dinner was now catered for.
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| The nice coral trout Rob speared for dinner. |
With the provisioning sorted, the three of us then headed ashore to explore Stingray Bay. The place lived up to its name extremely well with a number of very large stingrays spotted as we made our way over the shallows. The beach is split in two at high tide by a rocky outcrop in its centre but, lower on the tides, the sand stretches all the way across. At the eastern end of the bay, a small stream emerges from the rocky slopes behind to empty across beach.
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| Karen walking the beach in Goldsmith Island's Stingray Bay |
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| John enjoying the shade. |
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| A small stream emerges from the rocky slopes behind to empty across beach. |
This area around Mackay experiences some of the biggest tidal ranges on the Queensland coast, and when the water receded as we wandered the beach, it really receded. We were left with quite a way to haul the dinghy before we could refloat her and return to the yacht. With the weight of a fifteen horsepower engine hanging off the stern we are so pleased we fitted a set of beaching wheels to the new dinghy. If not for them, we may have spent a few extra hours ashore waiting for the tide to come in.
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| When the tide goes out on Goldsmith Island it really goes way out. |
OK! Now here’s a question. Why is it that when we’re anchored in a big, wide open bay with miles of room for everyone, people have to come and anchor right on top of us? It happens time and time again. We first experienced the phenomenon in the Mediterranean where we could be the only ones in a two mile wide bay but any boat appearing around the point could be relied on to come and anchor within spitting distance of where we lay.
Rob did eventually develop a defence strategy to ease the problem. On seeing a yacht approaching, he would get the binoculars and see what flag they were flying. If it was the Union Jack or Stars and Stripes he’d wait until they were getting close and then stroll up to the bow naked, ostensibly checking our anchor. The prudish Brits and Americans would turn tail and anchor as far away as possible. Unfortunately we discovered most Europeans were immune to this defence and would be more likely to also appear on deck naked as they shouted greetings and anchored in our virtual pockets.
When we returned to Our Dreamtime here at Goldsmith Island, a catamaran had anchored not far off our stern. Considering they had the whole bay to anchor in, they were annoyingly nearby but at least not dangerously close. However, an hour later another catamaran appeared around the point, appropriately named Bad Catas it turned out. Sure enough, it made a bee line for our particular piece of Stingray Bay and anchored very close to our bow. Rob had no need to drop his pants this time or even say a word for as soon as he walked forward on deck the solo sailor on the cat began pulling his chain back up. He apologised and explained he had no windless and had to pull up the anchor by hand so wanted to anchor as shallow as possible.
After moving a few metres further off our starboard he re-dropped his anchor, again annoyingly near but, in the mild northerly conditions, probably OK. Not wanting to seem grumps, we let the issue lay. That was a mistake.
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| Storm clouds building in the distance over the mainland. |
After sunset a pretty impressive lightning show started to develop over the mainland giving us enough cause for concern to check the weather radar. Sure enough, there was a pretty nasty storm system heading our way. It looked like it may slide through a little south of us towards Brampton Island but we took all the usual precautions anyway. The dinghy was secured up on its davits, we made sure nothing loose was left on deck and centred our booms. (When at anchor, the main is usually swung out to one side or the other to avoid shading the solar panels on our cockpit roof while the mizzen is put to starboard to improve access on the stern.) Considering how warm it was below decks, we left closing up all the portholes, hatches and cockpit enclosure until we could hear the rain approaching.
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| Radar image of the approaching storm cell. |
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| Rob's coral trout went onto the BBQ for a very tasty dinner before the weather turned. |
Unfortunately the storm didn’t miss us and when it hit the wind roared into the bay swinging all the boats around. Our stern was now facing the reef which was far enough away not to be a danger as we began to stretch out our chain. Unfortunately the same could not be said for the cat nearby. It was on a far shorter amount of chain and we were fast approaching a collision. It only had a masthead light showing and was also extremely hard to see in the driving rain.
We started the engine and with John hanging half out the rear of the cockpit getting drenched while illuminating the bows of the cat with the spotlight, Rob motored forward and away each time we came close. Meanwhile Karen was unsuccessfully trying to raise the skipper of the other boat on the radio to ask him to turn some lights on so we could see him better. What he needed to do was let some more chain out so we wouldn’t reach him but with his bridle in place and no windless that would be impossible by hand even if we could have raised him.
As the wind gusted up to thirty-five knots and beyond with the rain pelting down and lightning flashing overhead with booming thunder, we spent the next half an hour or so repeatedly motoring away from the cat each time we stretched back on our chain and swung to within metres of it. When the worst had passed, we were able to call across to the skipper of the cat who was again very apologetic and quickly agreed to let out more chain as soon as the wind eased.
Fortunately once the storm was gone the gentle northerly conditions resumed and we were able to get a reasonable night’s sleep although Rob was up a few times checking on the still very nearby Bad Cat.
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| When you have this much open bay why do people need to anchor on top of us? |
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| The morning after the storm. |
When we arose the following morning, our near neighbour was still apologising but Rob was quick to tell him that shit happens and not to worry about it. It’s all another deposit in the experience bank. We should have asked him to move further away originally. We will certainly do so next time. No doubt he will also be keen to provide more swing room in future as well and turn his radio on in similar circumstances. We hadn't expected a storm to blow into the bay but after a similar experience with more damaging results in the Med we should have factored in the possibility. (To read what happened to us on Alcheringa CLICK HERE.)
We’ll all be smarter for this latest experience and our guest crewmember, John, learned about yet another aspect of the cruising life.
Now it was time to move on to our next tropical island paradise.
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| Good night from Goldsmith Island. |
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Friday, July 14, 2017
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Sunday, April 2, 2017
Living the cruisers life at Sea Eagle Bay Thomas Island
9-11 November 2016
According to latest forecasts, the best chance of us finding a sailing breeze was earlier in the day so we upped anchor and said farewell to the delights of Turtle Bay on Whitsunday Island and set a course for Sea Eagle Bay on the southern side of Thomas Island. We had spent five fantastic days anchored on the northern side of Thomas Island back in July (READ THE STORY HERE) but this was to be our first visit to the other side of the island.
In his excellent cruising guide ‘ 100 Magic Miles of the Great Barrier Reef’ David Colfelt describes Sea Eagle Bay thus, ‘”This is a lovely anchorage with a beautiful sand beach that is readily accessible at all tides through the break in the reef. It has a truly ‘South Pacific’ atmosphere.” That was easily enough to gain our attention and we were all very keen to see if the reality lived up to the hype.
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| John's photo of Sea Eagle Beach on the southern side of Thomas Island is spectacular. |
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| On our way to Thomas Island. |
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| Passing Pentecost Island. |
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| Our guest crew, John, doing it tough on Our Dreamtime. |
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| One of the Whitsunday Islands along the way. |
Unfortunately the morning breeze was weaker than we would have liked and we had to resort to motor-sailing against the flooding tide past Pentecost Island to round Jesuit Point on Maher Island. Once we had cleared the point and turned southward we were able to shut the motor off and enjoy a very pleasant sail along Shaw Island with good views of the cliff lined islands laying off its eastern side. We soon rounded Fairlight Rock and turned to wind to furl our head and mainsail and drop our mizzen. We were then free to motor into our anchorage on Thomas Island.
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| Turtle Bay, Whitsunday Island to Sea Eagle Bay, Thomas Island 18.8 Nautical Miles - 4Hours 11 Minutes Average Speed 4.5 Nautical Miles - Max Speed 6.6 Knots Full track details can be seen here -NAVIONICS |
Sea Eagle Bay proved to be every bit as attractive as Colfelt had reported, although John felt it lacked the one element needed to make it ‘truly South Pacific’, palm trees. Surprisingly there was not one coconut palm to be seen in the entire bay. We suggested he may have been a little picky as the bay and beach certainly delivered in every other way.
We were able to anchor in five metres over good holding sand again with the water clear enough for us to see the set of our anchor clearly from the deck. We had more than adequate swing room to the coral reef lining both sides while the head of the bay was clear all the way up to the tree lined, golden sand beach waiting to be explored.
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| Rob snorkelling the reef at Thomas Island |
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| A nice coral trout on the reef in Sea Eagle Bay. |
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| The level of coral bleaching we saw at Thomas Island was sobering. |
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| Despite the clear water, Rob dove down the five metres to check the set of our Sarca Excel anchor. No problem there. |
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| Our Dreamtime is still looking good after her six plus months roaming the Great Barrier Reef. |
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| After six months underway we're very pleased with her anti-foul but the Prop Speed is already gone on the blade tips. |
We then all headed for the beach with some Sushi Rolls Karen whipped up for lunch and a bottle of bubbles to wash them down with. As beautiful as the bay appeared from the boat, it looked even better sitting in the shade of the trees behind this wonderful stretch of sand. After devouring our delicious snacks, the boys climbed the rise through the bush behind the beach to get some photos while Karen was content to laze in the shallows enjoying surroundings. The rest of the afternoon was spent alternating between submersing ourselves in the crystal clear waters and lazing about the beach - all achieved quite effortlessly really.
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| Karen dishing out her delicious Sushi Rolls on Sea Eagle Beach. |
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| John, Karen and Rob celebrating the cruiser's life on Sea Eagle Beach with Our Dreamtime in the background. |
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| John looking for the perfect spot to take a photo on Thomas Island. |
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| Glorious Sea Eagle Bay. |
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| Our Dreamtime awaiting her shore party's return. |
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| Looking north to Mansell Island from Thomas Island. |
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| John taking in the view. |
Later back on board, Karen spoiled us all with sundowners of her special Pina Coladas in fresh coconuts accompanied with some great cheeses and crackers.
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| Pina Colada time |
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| Karen and Rob enjoying the cruiser's life. |
It was very easy obvious that Sea Eagle Bay was well worthy of a longer stay than simply overnight so in true cruiser tradition we elected to remain here the following day and maybe longer. The following morning, we again migrated to the beach where we set up camp amongst the trees with our hammocks. Karen and John were soon suspended above the grass engrossed in their books while Rob donned his snorkelling gear, gathered up his spear gun and assumed the role of hunter/gatherer,
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| If this isn't paradise we don't know what is. |
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| Karen alternated her time between the hammock and water. Cruising's such a tough life. |
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| Rob with the parrot fish he got. |
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| This sweetlip was chosen for our BBQ dinner. |
Before long he had bagged a collection parrot fish, sweetlip and a fish we originally miss-identified as a spangled emporer. Further investigation revealed it was in fact a juvenile chinaman fish which are known to be full of ciguatera poison so, needless to say, it went over the side pretty quickly. This experience did reinforce the need to properly identify any fish caught before turning it into dinner. We may have all become extremely sick if we had eaten this one.
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| The juvenile chinaman fish - full of ciguatera poison |
Beside our campsite under the trees someone had built a fire pit in the sand which had clearly been the location of many campfires since. Karen’s suggestion we that make use of it to have a beach barbie for dinner that night and roast the sweetlip in the coals of the fire was well supported by the rest of the crew who were quick to gather more than enough kindling and larger dry driftwood to achieve the goal.
A quick trip back to the boat saw the fish prepared along with vegetables. foil wrapped and ready for roasting. The cooler bags were loaded with drinks and snacks plus our ready to cook feast and off we went to the beach. Rob put his long dormant boy scout skills to work and we were soon enjoying our sundowner drinks and snacks with an excellent fire burning as a backdrop.
Karen was lazing in one of the hammocks enjoying her wine when she spied an uninvited guest making its way along the beach towards our campsite. ‘There’s a snake over there,’ she commented rather off hand idly and was met with a two voice alarmed chorus of ‘Where?’ from Rob and John.
Sure enough there was a rather large, brownish snake approaching the far side of our fire. It was about a metre and a half long with a bulge in its belly which we guessed was an unlucky, small ex-resident of the island that the snake had recently feasted on. Karen thought it was an Eastern Brown while Rob suggested it could be a Taipan. John was soon Googling snakes on his phone looking for the answer. Regardless, we were fairly certain it was highly venomous and not to be taken lightly. (More detailed investigation later revealed it was most probably a taipan)
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| Terry Taipan had no dinner invite but crashed our party. |
With a full belly, the snake unfortunately took a liking to the heat from our fire and seemed very content lazing on the sand beside it. Despite our willing it to move on it showed no desire to go anywhere. This was clearly not compatible with our cooking our feast in the coals. Rob decided to try to encourage it back into the bush by lobbing pieces of pumice stone close to it – from a very safe distance of course. Terry Taipan (as we christened him/her) took absolutely no notice and the Cruisers versus Viper Mexican standoff continued.
After twenty minutes or so of staring at each other at thirty paces we decided to capitulate. Our problem was that sunset was almost upon us and even if Terry Taipan slithered away before then we didn’t fancy the idea of cooking and eating our dinner wondering if he was about to reappear out of the darkness. However, we also couldn’t just leave with the fire still burning. We had a large bucket of water ready to douse it but couldn’t safely get close enough.
We carefully packed up all our goodies and circled around well clear of our unwanted guest to load the dinghy and then resumed our wait. Fortunately Terry Taipan grew tired of the game and finally slithered oh so painfully slowly into the bush behind the tree line. We then wasted no time putting out the fire and making sure there was no chance of re-ignition before scooting back to the boat to cook our, by now, well marinated fish on the BBQ.
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| Our sweetlip was still beautiful eating despite not being cooked in the coals. |
The following morning the weather was again glorious sunshine with a northerly wind still blowing so we pretty much just repeated the previous day’s activities, without the attempted beach barbie and snake encounter of course.
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| Karen and John hamming it up for the camera while lunching on Sea Eagle Beach. |
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| Karen's Vietnamese Rolls with Satay Sauce were spectacular. |
This time when Rob went off spear fishing on the reef he had direct orders from Karen for coral trout or crayfish. No sign of crayfish was seen but he did manage to bag a good sized coral trout much to the Admiral’s delight.
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| Karen cooling off, again, at Sea Eagle Beach on Thomas Island. |
Like many of the awesome anchorages we have experienced on the Great Barrier Reef, we could have stayed much, much longer at Thomas Island but we limited ourselves to just three nights as a south easterly change was approaching and we wanted to check out the southern side of Goldsmith Island just to our south before it arrived and we would need to shelter at Brampton Island.
Previously in his weekend sailing and seven day chartering, John had never spent more than a single night in one anchorage as there was always the desire to keep moving to ‘make the most’ of the limited sailing time available. The secret to cruising is to be able to stop and truly enjoy the places you sail to without having to rush off. We’re pleased to say John was leaning well and managed to SLOW DOWN enough to get a taste of the cruising life.
Lesson two was coming up.
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