Showing posts with label Island. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Island. Show all posts
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Off to Masthead Island for some reef hopping South
December 1 - 2016
The sky began to lighten nice and early at Great Keppel Island as the calendar ticked over to December first. It was now well and truly into summer and we were enjoying nice long days. Despite having fifteen or so hours of daylight available to us, we still raised the anchor in the predawn for our fifty nautical mile passage offshore to Masthead Island on the outer Great Barrier Reef. We wanted to arrive early enough to have time to go ashore and do some exploring as we only planned to spend the night there before moving onto Fitzroy Reef for a couple of nights before sailing further south to Lady Musgrave Island.
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| On our way from Great Keppel Island as the sun climbs into the sky. |
Only a very weak north easterly breeze blew in the early morning. Hopefully it would strengthen enough later in the day for us to sail but the engine stayed on as we began the passage on flat seas. Fortunately the wind angle generated as we motored along was such that we were able to fill the sails and gain a small lift. We also look a lot better with the sails up, very important of course.
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| Light winds and calm seas en-route to Mast Head Island. |
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| Our Whitby 42 ketch does well motor sailing in light conditions. |
As hoped, the wind did fill in enough in the late morning for us to silence our 80HP Ford Lehman and glide along nicely maintaining better than five knots. Karen took advantage of the calm sea state to spend some time in the galley teaching Kristian how to make his own sushi rolls for lunch which proved a smash hit – highlight of the very laid back passage in fact.
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| At last, enough wind to silence the engine. |
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| Kristian constructing his own sushi rolls for lunch. |
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| They're a winner. |
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| Great Keppel Island to Masthead Island 49.9 Nautical Miles – 9 Hours 17 Minutes Average Speed 5.4 - Max Speed 7.9 Knots To see our track in a zoom-able format click HERE |
The pilot guide suggests the best depths to anchor in are to be found off the north west corner of the island’s fringing reef and the Google Earth imagery also indicated this was also where the most sand was to be found. However, the wind was forecast to continue from the north east before swinging slightly more northerly over night. The tide was very low when we arrived and the reef was totally exposed but we were concerned that the high tide overnight could see any swell sweep over the reef so we anchored in 7 metres a little further in along the reef edge in attempt to gain some more protection from the island itself.
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| Masthead Island has good sand for southerlies through to north easterlies but we pushed the anchoring envelope with an overnight northerly predicted. |
Dinghy access to the beach was impossible with the low tide so that ruled out our planned afternoon’s exploration of the island. Rob decided to see if he could spear us some dinner instead so we dropped the dinghy off the davits and zoomed over to a likely looking section of reef. He was only in the water a few minutes before surfacing with a nice coral trout.
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| Hunter-gatherer about to do his thing. |
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| One coral trout headed for the dinghy. |
Next he spied two crayfish hiding under a coral ledge and was soon passing the first one into the dinghy before heading back for the second. Unfortunately this larger specimen managed to evade him scurrying into a deep inaccessible hole in the coral. Keen to add to the catch to provide a decent dinner of crustacean, a long but ultimately unsuccessful search for more crayfish followed.
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| The fringing reef at Masthead Island provides incredible snorkelling |
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| La Jorja arrives at Masthead Island |
Having enjoyed a sleep in and later start from Great Keppel, our friends, Matt and Debbie on La Jorja had arrived while Rob roaming the reef was chasing shellfish. They anchored up nearby and while a visit for another sundowners session was inviting, we opted to get the dinghy back up on the davits as the wind and swell was building. We also had another early start planned next morning to arrive at the right point of the tide to pass through the narrow entrance into the lagoon at Fitzroy Reef.
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| Rob's snorkelling yielded a good sized coral trout and crayfish. |
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| A couple of visitors on the bow. |
We enjoyed a nice feed on the very fresh coral trout done on the BBQ that evening and were treated to a truly awesome sunset that went on forever evolving through a number of stages. That night the wind did swing more from the north at about 15 knots with a bit of swell finding its way over or around the reef at high tide. We also spun 180 degrees when the tidal flow reversed but still enjoyed a reasonably comfortable night.
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| The Masthead Island beaches were lined with the tracks of nesting turtles. We look forward to exploring ashore next time. |
Next morning both us and La Jorja found our anchors/chains fouled and took a fair bit of time and effort to free ourselves. We both paid that price for choosing the additional protection of anchoring further behind the island rather than over the clearer sand bottom to the north west. Regardless, we are very keen to return to Masthead Island sometime in the future and explore underwater more of the great fringing reef and get to land on the island itself. A few more crayfish would be good too.
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| We hope you enjoy the evolution of a magnificent sunset below. Good night from Masthead Island. |
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| Cape Capricorn in the distance. |
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Monday, November 14, 2016
More Reef Hopping to North West Island
22 June 2016
After our unbelievably calm evening anchored inside the lagoon at Fitzroy Reef, ten to twelve knots of westerly breeze sprang up during the early hours of the morning. By the time we arose, the previously glassed out water around us was covered in a small chop which, combined with the wind, put us off our plans of spending the day snorkelling more of this incredible reef.
We were far outside normal phone service range so we downloaded the latest weather forecast via our new Iridium Go satellite communications. It indicated that this wind should swing more to the south west before dropping out late in the day with virtually windless conditions for the following day. A strong southerly change was on the way after that so we would need to be tucked away at Great Keppel Island by then. Oh the joy of getting up to date forecasts regardless of position.
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| It is very reassuring to be able to obtain current weather forecasts when out of normal internet range. |
Chris and Sally from Sea Whiskers and Garry from Chances came by in their dinghies to take a look and we all came to the same conclusion. A hop to an anchorage located against the reef at North West Island would let us explore another area and put us thirty miles closer to Great Keppel. As it was already after nine and we were at the top of the tide, all crews then set about getting underway.
The high tide meant we had more depth under us through the narrow entrance but with a small chop disturbing the surface it also meant the reef was harder to see under the water. Fortunately we were close enough to the slack for there to be minimal current running. As the tide drops the majority of the water in the huge lagoon has to flow out this small gap in the reef generating a very strong current which makes leaving at the wrong time far more hazardous. We simply retraced the GPS track from our entry and were soon on our way.
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| Here you can see our in and our GPS tracks through the reef entrance. |
Our course would take us through the channel between Wistari Reef and Heron Island and on to North West Island. We had thought the wind angle would allow us to sail but Murphy’s law struck again as the wind dropped and rather than swing to the south west it went north west, straight onto the bow.
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| Not the wind reading any sailor wants |
The engine stayed on giving us a bumpy ride. We bore off just enough to put some wind in our main and stay sail which steadied the boat a lot making things more comfortable. By the time we needed to come back on course to enter the channel we were well in the protection of the reefs and the sea had flattened.
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| Approaching the channel between Heron Island and Wistari Reef |
There is a small harbour on Heron Island excavated out of the coral but the resort controls it and does not permit access to private boats other than in an emergency. We would have loved to have made a stop and explored the world famous island but there isn’t really any suitable anchorage outside the reef. The wreck sitting high out of the water on the reef near the harbour is a stark reminder of what can happen if you miscalculate around here.
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| A reminder of what can go wrong around coral reefs |
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| Leaving Heron Island behind |
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| Wistari Reef to our port |
We cleared the channel and continued on with the wind progressively dropping further. The largest coral cay island in the Capricorn/Mackay section of the Great Barrier Reef, North West Island is located on the western edge of a huge reef formation. It was sadly once the location of a turtle meat canning operation but is now a national park and a major hatchery for thousands of migrating sea birds. Our anchorage lay tucked in against the island’s fringing reef and is considered secure in south easterly winds of up to 30 knots.
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| Fitzroy Reef to North West Island - 33.2 Nautical Miles - 5 Hours 30 Minutes Average Speed 5.9 Knots - Max Speed 7.4 Knots |
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| North West Island lays within a huge reef system |
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| Our anchorage tucked in against the fringing reef |
We were expecting less than five knots from the south west and that’s what we got as we dropped our anchor seven metres into the clear sand. Like our experience at Fitzroy Reef, by sundown the wind had dropped out entirely and we were treated to yet another magnificent, ever evolving colour show that lasted long after the sun had dipped below the horizon.
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| Anne on Chances bow catching the sunset |
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| The sky changed minute by minute |
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| Anne took this panoramic from Chances with Our Dreamtime just in frame on the right |
After the night sky finally went dark, we retired below to enjoy a nice prawn pasta that Karen whipped up. Tonight was the second game in the annual State of Origin rugby series that pits our beloved Queensland Maroons against the evil forces of the New South Wales Blues. Queensland had won the opening encounter of the three game series and success tonight would wrap up our 10th series win in the last eleven years.
This far from the coast we found we had no phone or internet service so Rob was seriously considering calling our son via the Iridium Go Satellite system for progress reports. In an act of mad optimism he swung the TV out of its locker and switched it on 'just in case' we had any sort of reception. You can imagine our surprise when a crystal clear television picture appeared on the screen. As an anchorage, North West Island was certainly delivering tonight. Our Maroons then won a tight game to extend their winning ways and we went to bed as very happy Queenslanders.
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| Goodnight from North West Island |
We love to receive comments on our blog from readers. If you do leave a comment and you also have a blog, please leave a link as well. We'd like to click over for a visit and leave you a comment too.
To stay right up to date with what we’re up to and see lots more photos check out and 'like' our Dreamtime Sail Facebook page at DreamtimeSail
If you have only recently discovered our blog and would like to read how it all started, or work through our previous adventures, click the link to go back to our first blog entry. Stuff it. Let's just go sailing anyway.
We hope you enjoy reading the previous posts to catch up on our story.
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