Lizard Island

Well yes it is a while since we last added a report. Lazy? Yes, enjoying the slow pace of life here.

It is really a beautiful place with a variety of things to do. The water is so clear and the snorkeling and swimming is great. The anchorage in Watsons Bay can be a hive of activity occasionally as dive boats come in to drop off or pick up new clients and there is a steady exchange of yachts passing through. Some of the luxury Gin Palaces are amazing, especially the one off our stern at the moment! Not as close as he was as we moved further into the bay feeling a bit intimidated! We found this one on the net and with 6 state rooms we estimated it was 30,000 AUD a night!!!! But don't get the wrong impression, it is pretty quiet, no jetskis!

We walked to the top of Cooks Lookout for a fantastic view of the Island and the nearby barrier reef. A fair walk in this heat.There is a visitors book in a plastic box which must get alot of entries as it dated only back to the new year. Our friends from Mandolin Wind were noted.

There is a marine research station at the other end of the island which generously gives the yachties a free tour on Mondays, and offers mail collection, library, fax etc! The guests at the expensive $1000 a night resort in the next bay have there own tour, they try to keep us at arms length! There is a regular need for volunteers at the research station with free board and 4 hours work a day. Looks fantastic. Most of the island is a national park with a campsite that allows only 8 people at any given time and apart from the $500 airfare from Cairns its $3.80 a night each! What is great here is no flies, sandflies, mosquitos, and of course no crocs! Even the sharks are tame.

The wind dropped for a couple of days giving us the ideal opportunity to visit the reef, in particular the world famous Cod Hole. We took some new friends along, Diane and Kerry.
It was a fantastic day. The water was so clear allowing us to see the bottom easily. Also the fish and the friendly sharks! The Potato Cod fish are enormous and obviously very used to the company. We could identify the reef sharks, nurse shark, but not too sure of the other two! It was a little disconcerting to drop of the back of the boat with 2 of the unrecognised sharks just a couple of metres away circling the ladder! Not helped by me feeding the fish with bread after lunch. Still we went back in! Fortunately they stayed with the boat as we swam off to explore the reef.

There are several great beaches to explore by foot and the dingy. Thats if I remember the way the tides are going and the dingy doesn't find itself being rescued by some fellow travellers as it drifted out to sea! The lagoon looks spectacular from the hill.

Despite being so isolated there is good internet reception on the boat phone/internet. Hopefully that will help us pick the right weather window to head south.

The only downer at the moment is our long standing issue of battery capacity! Many hours over drinks on the beach with fellow yachties has exhausted the subject and much examination of the system comes to the conclusion the batteries are stuffed! So we await our visit to Cairns and the verdict of an electrician before spending a few more boat units!

Retracing The Journey of Captain Cook and The Endeavour

Having stayed for longer than we had planned at the coral cay of Hope Island we sailed northwards again this time bound for Cooktown. Having read his biography during the earlier part of our own small journey it has been interesting to follow his route up the East Coast. Cooktown plays an enormous part in the fortunes of Cook and his men. I guess Australian history could have taken another course had he failed to extricate the Endeavour from her reef grounding and the safety of the Endeavour River had not been so close.

The coastline is punctuated along it's entirety by extensive reef structures and shoaling sands so that even with our modern navigation aids such as electronic chart plotters we are always on the lookout for isolated coral bomies. Quite what it must have been like for Cook on his first encounter with no charts leaves one marveling that he had not gone aground previously.

The day was a perfect sail having left hoping to arrive on a rising tide. The wind was so favourable that we attempted to slow our selves down by flying a mere postage stamp of a head sail. We still managed 5 to 6 knots and were destined to get there ahead of our planned time. A call to the local coast guard and some negotiating with the harbour master saw us drop anchor between 2 moored fishing boats at the head of the Endeavour River opposite the public jetty with every one fishing. It seems that anchoring a yacht is a new spectator sport! We now had to await the rising tide in order to cross the inner sand banks which dry in places at low tide! At 5.45pm just before sunset at 6pm we calculated we would have enough depth. Proceeding with minimal way we edged closer to our final location. We draw 2.1 meters under the keel. I was either on the bow anxiously staring into the green water looking for the bottom or monitoring our position on the chart plotter whilst Roger helmed. We scrapped across the bar with a depth sounding of 2.1 for an instance before it rose to 2.2 and 2.3 before hitting the patch of deeper water! Relief! A beer was definitely called for!

We spent the night calculating whether we would maintain an adequate depth under our keel as the tide fell but all was well thank goodness.

The next day saw us take the tender into the river banks and visit Cooktown. Having pulled the tender onto the bank and tied it to a mangrove tree we walked to the top of the boating ramp. At the top a large warning about the presence of crocs and recent sittings in the vicinity and warnings about cleaning fish and being to close to the edge! Well they didn't get us that time but from then on we were pretty cautious.

Cooktown was an enjoyable visit being dominated by the history of Cook and his voyage. The information was all well presented and the town was attractive with old elegant buildings and open park land by the river. The view across the river to the green rainforest mountains was beautiful and very peaceful. We climbed up Grassy Hill from where Cook surveyed the the extensive Barrier Reef and almost despaired of ever being able to find a route out to commence his homeward voyage. This was also the first location where Europeans sited the Kangaroo. A hot climb up an unsealed road but the views were majestic. The Captain Cook museum is located in a beautiful old building which originally was a monastery. It is owned by the National Trust being restored in 1973 it was opened by the Queen on her 1 hour visit to Cooktown! The original anchor which was discarded by Cook in his attempt to lighten the Endeavours load is on display. It was a great museum as was the local historical museum which highlighted the highs and lows of the towns history.

We treked again to the local botanical gardens which were excellent with a detailed information centre showing some of the tropical plants that had been catalogued on the original Cook voyage by Joseph Banks. From here it was a relatively short stroll to a local beach called Finch Bay. We were tempted to go for a swim but with a fair few mangroves fringing the beach one was left wondering what might be watching!

From Dreamweaver we took the tender to the opposite river banks and walked on the sand exposed at low tide. It seemed along way from the safety of our boat and Roger was pretty anxious about the possibility of being eaten by a croc! He stood armed with an oar as we walked along the edge trying to get a better view up the river. None about although we learned that they are plentiful in the river.

We spent 2 full days exploring and left early next morning on a raising tide. Crossing over the sand bar with a little more water underneath the keel than the first bound for Lizard Island. This will be our final northward stop before turning south!

Port Douglas and Hope Island

Well Jonathans visit to Far North Queensland has ended and he has returned back to the blustery cold south. He sailed with us for 2 weeks and we had a wonderful time visiting some beautiful islands and ending up in Port Douglas. Roger and I hadn't been here for a few years but Jonathan had no recollection of his previous visits so all seemed new and interesting to him. He was able to consolidate his scuba diving with 6 dives over a couple of trips to the reef, by his account it was great! It was strange not having Nick along for the journey and we recalled the last time we had a holiday with just one son, this was before Nicks birth over 21 years ago! We missed him and thought of him often.

Port Douglas had changed and grown with more apartments and restaurants than before and also some larger national chain shops which I felt changed the character of the place. In some ways I like to get away from these but everyone is different. The beach was as lovely as ever and Roger and I enjoyed some long walks as a way of justifying the cappuccinos afterwards! It was good great to return and seeing our old apartment on Maccrossan Street brought back some good memories. We couldn't help but compare our exchanging solid bricks and mortar for a yacht floating in the nearby marina!

The marina was interesting!! We had to enter Dickson Inlet on a high tide to give us enough draft under the keel. No problem. We moored up in our allocated pen within the marina and immediately realised that with a low tide we would be touching the bottom! I high tailed it up to the office only to be told that it was silt and that most boats “floated” in the mud suspension! We remained unconvinced and in fact rested on the bottom on several occasions! It appears that the area is due to be dredged but environmentalists, marina operators and politicians can't get their acts together so nothing is being done. We have subsequently learnt that the whole marina is going to be refurbished/replaced in 18 months time so that it can accommodate Super Yachts. All that came to mind was that it would need to be somewhat deeper under their keels!

We spent an interesting few hours motoring up Dickson Creek, to find it went on much further than we had time or petrol in the tender for. The mangrove lined water was home to a few more yachts, some in no state to move, and I gather a fair number of crocs! We confirmed this much to Anne's anxiety! The tender didn't offer Anne the security she needed with the croc only 10 metres away.

Well we have now left Port Douglas and set off northwards again! The skies are blue the breeze still from the south east at a gentle 10 to 15 knots and the water flat like a lake. The verdant green rainforest tumbles in folds down the slopes of the coastal mountain range falling into the blue seas. High peeked and quite spectacular. We have sailed 40nm to Hope Islands. These islands were spotted by Capt. Cooke on his discovery voyage to Australia and caused him to make the fateful decision to turn out to sea in search of an outer reef channel. He subsequently and almost catastrophically ran aground on what is known as The Endeavour Reef.

The two islands are different. The first a beautiful white coral cay and the other a mangrove covered reef, both are surrounded by an extensive reef structure which becomes visible at low tide. Lots of bird life and ? resident crocs! We were told by some friendly yachties from a few other boats that they weren't a real threat but the sign on the beach seemed to tell a different story! It made me wonder how real it has to be! Roger of course takes no notice of warnings and signs and plunged in for a swim. He didn't stay in for too long though so perhaps not quite so brave as he makes out! He's thankfully still here!

It is spectacular to see the change with the tide and enormous reefs become exposed at low tide. We were glad we came in at low tide yesterday, because in the wrong light at high tide we would have run straight into the reef! The reef here is so close to the mainland.

We are still failing at the fishing, but to be honest we haven't tried as hard as we could. Two lures lost, at least we have had some bites. The wildlife is beautiful, here there is a large group of reef egrets, pelicans, turtles, sea eagles and moray eels. The sunset tonight was different but as spectacular as ever [more photos!].

Whilst on the beach this morning we came across “Wilson” from the movie Castaway. We can report that he is alive and well enjoying all that Hope Island has to offer!

Well from here we travel to Cooktown for a couple of days and then onto Lizard Island where we will stop heading north and contemplate our return journey!

Anne