Lady Musgrave Magic

What can I say - Lady Musgrave would have to be one of the wonders of the world. A true island paradise.

Lady Musgrave Island - the photo failing in the attempt to show the real beauty

We left Bundaberg, Saturday 15^th July, with no wind and motored most of the way, taking the opportunity to run the water-maker while the engine was going. It is strange though, to have to motor all day with the sails only up for an hour. It doesn’t quite feel right.

We kept a lookout for whales, not seeing any but we did see more dolphin!!! They again came to play, at one stage we had three different groups all having fun.

Boats anchored in the protection of the coral cay

Having never seen or been in a coral cay we were understandably apprehensive about entering especially as we had heard so many opinions – don’t go at the middle of a rising tide, don’t go in at the middle of a falling tide, don’t go in in dark, go in when the sun is overhead, its best to go in after 10am and before 2pm, etc, etc. so we made the executive decision to anchor just outside, in the lee of Lady Musgrave Island, for the night. And what a good decision it was. We caught many fish, mostly too small but as two committed suicide by swallowing the hook we ended up with a lovely fish and salad dinner!!

Map of Lady Musgrave Island

The anchorage was calm but deep, we dropped the anchor on a patch of sand amongst the coral in about 12 metres of water and settled down for a peaceful night. But, the anchor chain rubbed on the coral bottom all night, a terrible sound making you think that the anchor is dragging along the seabed but it is not – enough to ruin a good night’s sleep though. Your mind knows (and the hand-held GPS proves) that you are held fast, but your ears hear different so sleep is evasive. And I had visions of all our beautiful new galvanising lying on the sea floor below us!!!

There were a couple of smallish tinnies which came out and anchored near us to fish, one of which held some very friendly young men, Carl, Craig and Dan – who were camping on the island and spending their days fishing, eating, drinking and generally having fun – as one does. They invited us to come and check out their campsite later.

We waited until midday Sunday to pull up our anchor and enter the cay. We had worked out that the sun was at the best point, the tide was perfect, we were giving ourselves the best opportunity for an easy passage. All would have been well if we could have gotten the anchor up!! The anchor chain had wrapped itself around a lump of coral and did not want to budge. We went forward, then backward, then left and right, to no avail for near on an hour. We ended up just using the anchor winch to shorten the chain and letting the swell pull us away kind of like reeling in a fish. It took some time – but it worked!! Phew

Getting through the entrance turned out to be a doddle. Maybe as we had set ourselves up so well for it. Anyway we were in and anchored amidst about 30 other boats, and alongside 2 other Schionnings!! within the hour.  The water is so clear and blue.

We lowered the dinghy and went ashore for a quick look around, the beach is white - predominately coral, broken coral in all shapes and sizes, and I found it easy to collect the letters to make a name plaque for Lilly – now I just need to find something to attach them to!

Early next morning we joined the crews from another 3 boats for an expedition around the coral reef at low tide. The reef is a truly remarkable place and we saw a diverse amount of splendid sea creatures – including - sea cucumber, sea slugs, sea urchins, clams, crabs, starfish (bright blue, orange, brown) and in the shallows were turtle. We spent about three hours walking around oohing and aahing at the incredible sights.

We went and visited the boys at their campsite, an exceptionally well setup campsite it was too, with everything imaginable for comfort. One of them – Carl, aka Captain Chaos, has been coming over here with his tinny for the last ten years for two weeks holiday, no wonder he now has it so well sorted. They had had much more success with the fishing too than us, evidenced by the beautiful coral trout and red emperor they proudly showed us. They invited us back to share the sunset at their campsite, but sadly, a conflicting invitation meant we had to refuse.

We returned to SOL, collected the laptop and both phones which we took to shore where we went to the light tower, the ladder up was caged and padlocked to prevent access however by climbing around the back of the ladder and squeezing through between the girders we climbed to the top where we managed to get enough reception to send a message (just letting the children know we are still alive!!) The view from the top was outstanding and being such a clear day, you could see for miles. This turned out to be a super place to whale watch – we saw many, some were just outside the reef jumping out of the water, smacking their tails, and blowing stuff out their blowholes – as whales do!!

Next morning we said farewell to Lady Musgrave as the weather was predicted to be unfavourable for the next few days so a mass exodus occurred as we and about 20 other boats left. We chose to shelter in Pancake Creek, haha, as did everyone else it seemed. Leaving Lady Musgrave the wind was fairly fickle, we seemed to be continuously altering our mode of propulsion – starting with the screecher up for a couple of hours, then when the wind died, one engine was turned on, then back to screecher, engine, screecher, engine, then thank god, the wind started to fill in and we could finally turn the engine off, raise the jib and the main, and for the next three hours we had a very agreeable sail.

We were escorted from the island by large numbers of whales, some coming really close to us. Nature is wonderful.

Lady Musgrave, we will come back to your beautiful coral cay again.

In Foodie Heaven...

So, we sailed overnight from North Keppel Island past Cape Capricorn (so named as when Captain Cook was here back in 1770 he found it to be on the Tropic of Capricorn – however it has since moved, or the Tropic of Capricorn has – I’m not sure which but now the Tropic of Capricorn is slightly to its north !!!) and at 9am we were anchored in the Burnett River clutching a cup of coffee, too wired still for sleep even though we had been up since leaving North Keppel at 7am on Thursday.

Another sunset, beginning our night sail

The wind was perfect and the night sailing went without a hitch. We had a great run with the screecher out for a couple of hours, taking it down just before dark and continuing with genoa and main.  

It took nearly two hours to pass all the large ships anchored outside Gladstone waiting for their turn to be loaded with various goods – primarily coal, and it was a huge relief to see the lights of the last one fade behind us.

There is something about an overnight sail, the quiet is even more quiet at night!! The moon was just two days short of full moon so was huge in the sky, the stars were out – I even saw a shooting star at about 230am!!

We stayed in Bundaberg Marina on a “pay for 5, stay for 7” deal for a week, doing the usual few repairs – this time the starboard water pump seals needed to be redone and the anchor light had decided in North Keppel to no longer work which meant a trip up the mast for Jamie to remove it so we could fix that as well. They do say BOAT = Bring Out Another Thousand and it sure seems that each time we go in to reprovision we must repair something or other.

My birthday lunch - crab, prawn and a glass of white - what more could a girl want!!!

For my birthday - on the Saturday night, we had a fabulous meal out at the Baltimore Restaurant and it turned out to be a superb food filled week. Sunday morning, we took the marina’s free bus to the Shalom Markets where we loaded up with fresh fruit and veg – pineapples, avocados, passionfruit as well as the usual. Then to the fish market just beside the marina to purchase fresh prawns and spanner crabs which we devoured for lunch along with a glass of white. In fact, that became the pattern each day, up to the fish market for the days fix of prawn and crab and to pick a nice piece of fish to cook for tea. Life is good – we are in foodie heaven!!

A fishing boat leaving Bundaberg with entourage of following birds

The marina berth we had been allocated was right beside the fuel dock so we had a constant stream of boats coming and going beside us and mostly we jumped up and offered to take the incoming boats lines, (it is always nice to have someone to take your lines and as I say, mostly we did – sometimes we hid though!!! Hahahaha). Turns out it is a great way to meet a lot of lovely people. One night we were fortunate to take the lines of a power boat with, shall we say, slightly inebriated deck hands – it was the night of the rugby league State of Origin and looks like the boys had started early!! Anyway, we took their lines, chatted while they refuelled, then just before they left, one of them says – you like crabs, do you?? Then he raced away, came back and presented us with an armful of freshly caught blue swimmer crabs – YUMMO – Thank you, Ted.

Blue markers each 5 metres, 1 red at 10m, 2 reds

at 20m, 3 at 30m etc. Lovely new galvanised chain

Having heard that Kenco Galvanising in Bundaberg is the place to go we took the opportunity to regalvanise the anchor chain, no longer do we have a rusty mess in the chain locker but now we have a bright, shiny 60 metre length, newly marked every 5metres so we can easily see how much we are letting out and more importantly, how much we still have to pull in when we are raising the anchor. We had organised to hire the ute from the marina on Tuesday to do this and the nice man in the marina office also suggested to someone else who wanted the ute for the same purpose that they get in touch with us and share the loads, consequently we have met Robert and Sylvia from “Phoenix X”, an absolutely beautiful Cole 43, which they showed us through, and enjoyed their company at the free cruisers bbq held on the Friday night at the marina.

 We also had the genoa and storm sail restitched while we were here - the sun and sea are not kind to the stitching and over time this becomes fragile and this is not ideal!!! Now they should be good for another three to five years, we hope. Certainly something that needed to be done before any blue-water (offshore) cruising was undertaken.

We will be back to your foodie heaven, Bundaberg.

Bundaberg Bound...

Shortly before we left Mackay we were lucky to see and go on board the 15^th century replica Portuguese Caravelle, “Notorious” which was constructed over a 9-year period just out of Warnambool in country Victoria. Built of Monterey cypress – also known as macrocarpa, she is exactly how you would picture a true old pirate ship. She was launched in 2011 and now sails the coast stopping to allow public viewing.

"Notorious" at Mackay Marina

Amazing patterns made on the sand by crabs

Arriving at Curlew Island was a bit hairy. Just outside of the anchorage is a reef area called the Tinonee bank, the water swirls and eddies around the edges of it and the current races through the smallish gap, this is probably due to the large 5-6metre rise and fall in tide. However once we were in, this was a delightful anchorage (certainly the power boats thought so as they outnumbered sail three to one). We stayed here two nights, walking the length of the white sand beach in both directions, each adding a white rock to the collection on what we called “Inukshuk Rock” at the eastern end of the bay, and clambering over oyster clad rocks at the western end. We walked as far as we could inland too, drawn in by what sounded like hordes of monkey screeching to each other – we never saw what was making this noise as millions of little bitey things sent us out of the mangrove swamp region back to the beach smacking at our ankles.

Yet another beautiful sunset, Curlew Island

We did have fishing success though – but not the result we desired – we caught many Remora, the horrid looking sucker fish and there is absolutely no way that we are eating anything that looks that disgusting, even the thought makes me feel ill. And yes, the island is aptly named – curlew nest in the sandhills along the shore.

Hanging out in an abandoned dinghy on Curlew Island

Adding a white rock

Next stop the Percy Group, much famed, this group of islands has attracted boaties for decades. The first resident, in 1860, Jimmy Joss, lived here until 1918 and the story goes that he apparently left 1500 gold sovereigns buried beneath a special rock when he left the island in 1918 too ill and old to stay!! Goats were introduced in 1874 and have been utilised by the island residents for meat, milk and skins since. Leaseholder Colonel Armitage moved to the island in 1887, he grew coffee, raised sheep and cattle. Back in 1921 the White Family bought the lease, moved from Canada, building the Homestead and running a sheep station until 1964 when the next leaseholder, Andrew Martin took over. Andy began catering to the needs of the passing boaties – building an A-Frame hut, shelter area with BBQ, starting an apiary, selling honey, and planting coconut palms the length of the beach. 

A-Frame hut on Middle Percy Island

The A-Frame hut is home to a huge collection of memorabilia – all passing boaties are encouraged to leave a sign with the name of their boat and there are hundreds – possibly thousands. We had found a nice piece of driftwood up at Newry Island, had spent some time carving and now “SOL 2017” hangs at the top of the stairs.

SOL 2017

Walking to Rescue Bay

We had a great three nights here. We walked to the homestead on Wednesday, where the current leaseholder, Andy Martin’s cousin, gave us cold drinks, told us some island history, showed us photos and sold us some homemade chutney, marmalade and some of the island’s famous honey. On Thursday morning we walked to Rescue Bay, a completely different bay to where we were anchored. Rescue Bay is covered in sand dunes, with white, white sand that squeaks under your feet as you walk. The waves were crashing in here this day and I could feel that it would indeed be where many a rescue had taken place in the past.

There is a spot, halfway to the homestead, about 2km along the track where there is a sign that says – “ring ring” – and here, if you are lucky, hold your tongue right, wave your phone around above your head you may, just may get enough reception to receive or send a text!!

Rescue Bay

Truly a beautiful anchorage, although I have read that it can be very uncomfortable to be anchored here as it can be very rolly, we had flat calm and peaceful nights, where sitting enjoying a glass of wine in the cockpit around sunset each evening we were entertained with dolphins swimming through and around the boats, just having fun. On Thursday afternoon we were returning to SOL and it looked like the water under her, between her hulls was just boiling. A large school of small fish was there and racing through, grabbing a feed every time was a dolphin, this spectacle continued for about 10 minutes with the fish and dolphin so close you could almost touch them before the school of fish realised that to stay much longer meant certain death and away they went!!

Weird sky, shortly before the wind started howling!!

Friday 30^th June saw us having a good but somewhat bumpy sail to Hexham Island with dolphins again keeping us company for part of the journey.
We arrived in a really pretty bay which we had completely to ourselves and at low tide we collected oysters which we enjoyed for tea. We tried fishing from the rocks, but guess there must be a knack to it and we haven’t acquired that knack yet as we managed to get caught up on rocks more often than not. Caught a blue tusk fish, a really strange looking fish with bright blue teeth and although the book said it was ok for eating we let him go back to his friends.
With a strong wind warning for the next two days here we will stay, so checked we had enough anchor chain out, made sure we hadn’t moved and sat inside listening to the wind howl. There was limited sleep for us that night, in fact at about 1am I gave up and settled in the saloon with a blanket and my kindle. The anchor held but there was no way I could sleep so may as well get up and read.

Simply gorgeous Hexham Island anchorage, small bay, well sheltered for the most part - but no decent fish

Beautiful Pearl Bay - before 8 other boats arrived !!

First thing Monday morning we set off the 35nm to Pearl Bay watching the sun rise as we sailed in light winds south of Hexham. We were the only boat when we arrived and dived in for a swim then dinghied ashore for a walk along the 2km white sand beach but by evening there were 9 yachts sharing the flat calm clear water. Walking along the beach we saw a stingray in the shallows – thank god I hadn’t seen him earlier when we were swimming!!

We have had our first whale encounter!!!

Sailed out of Pearl Bay and Jamie saw what looked like an oil slick on the water just 30-40metres from us, he’s looking at this and saying what on earth could this be when we remembered that Dale, who had done our rudder bearings up in Mackay, had mentioned that he was going out fishing in his tinny and not far ahead they saw this pattern on the surface, he had thrown his boat into reverse just before a whale surfaced not far away!! Well, sure enough, within a minute or so there was a whale!! We were so excited that there was no way I could take my eyes off it to get the camera until of course it was too far away to be seen in the photo.

Yet another amazing picturesque anchorage, this time North Keppel Island

Spiders everywhere as we walked in North Keppel,

strung between the trees, hanging from the branches.

Loads of different looking ones too, fat skinny and scary!

North Keppel Island was our next stop, and I had thought that the water in Pearl Bay was flat calm and clear – but no, out of all the places we have anchored, North Keppel wins so far. We entered the bay at near low tide and anchored in just over a metre of water, and when we looked through the escape hatches we could see the grains of sand on the sea bed!! We could see our anchor and chain so clearly.
Also, caught the most beautiful golden trevally tonight – enough for two meals – nyum nyum.
On Wednesday we walked the length of North Keppel. Someone has done a super job and labelled the trees with both their botanical and their common names which we read as we walked along and although its a fairly big walk the view from the lookout made the uphill trek worthwhile.
If Brampton Island is the place for butterflies, North Keppel Island is the place for spiders – there were millions, strung between the trees and bushes along the paths, so much so that Jamie had to have a stick that he waved in front of him to clear the way else I would not have gone!! Also, at Mazie Beach, this was our first encounter with little blue soldier crabs, these tiny blue bodied crabs who move forwards, not sideways like other crabs, are seen in large groups all marching along together, like a proper battalion – hence the name. So fascinating are they that I could have watched them and followed them along the sand flats for ages as they moved in well-orchestrated formation.

View from lookout, North Keppel Island

Thursday, winds were predicted to be North-Westerly 10-15knots, so we figured a nice sail south – achieving 75nm to Bustard Head was doable – however – the wind was everything but. We even had 0 wind at one stage and were just drifting for a while. The highlight of the day was some dolphins who came and played in our bow wave – magical.

The wind did come in around 3pm so we decided to sail down to Bundaberg. We put up the screecher and with the wind behind us were making good ground. As the sun set we lowered the screecher, and with the main and jib sailed on into the night. With an almost full moon, clear skies for the most part it was a lovely night for a sail and we were going in to the Burnett River entrance at 9am where we dropped the anchor.

AAH … sleep, blissful sleep.

Another Abandoned Resort...

Sunday 25^th June

We just sailed past Hay Point Coal Loading Facility – and – got a call from the authorities to tell us it is an offence for us to sail in Restricted Area Alpha – OOPS.

Anyway, to backtrack, we got off the hardstand at 11am last Monday, (uneventfully thank goodness). The strange thing about the hard stand – after years of living on land we must have transitioned to this sea life fast as it was so odd to be on land!!! We have these hatches in the hulls – ostensibly they are escape hatches so should the boat ever turn over (it better bloody not!!) there is a way to get out of the hulls, anyway, normally of course there is sea under them, you look through this window to the ever-changing colour of the sea. However, when on the hard stand, each time we went up the steps to the saloon from the hulls all we saw was concrete – which is pretty unsettling when you have gotten used to seeing aqua, green or blue water, even though we have only been on board for just a couple of months it was a shock each time.

Deserted runway, Brampton Island

Welcome to Brampton, how may we help you?

Well, with the repairs we wanted done completed and a nice clean anti-fouled bottom, we pulled up the screecher and had a magic sail out to Brampton Island, where we spent another couple of lovely days, this time in the company of Olaf & Annie (Kathamaria II) and Peter & Toni (Heatwave). This trip we walked the length of the old runway, which is still in surprisingly good order, then past the plane hangar and around the back of the now abandoned resort – how very sad to see all this wasted infrastructure. The buildings here have been left just as if the apocalypse has happened – with the people just disappeared – the office, for example has stationary still sitting on the shelves, tennis racquets and balls in a basket waiting to be handed out to happy and excited players, the kettle still plugged in and coffee cups ready on the counter in the staff area. The harsh reality is that it will not happen, and these lovely places are doomed to crumble over time.  I am a romantic and would like to see these abandoned resorts restored and once again filled with joyous holidaymakers and as I walk around my mind is filled with pictures of how it was – and how it could be.

We caught just one fish this trip – a nice golden trevally, smallish but tasty. This lack of fish however is very disappointing, we had to have a chicken curry for tea last night!!

Newry Anchorage

Wednesday mid-morning we said goodbye to Olaf & Annie and Peter & Toni and had an even better sail to Newry Island – we flew along achieving boat speeds of 14 to 15 knots (managing to miss photographing the 15kn of course) and were anchored between Newry and Outer Newry by lunchtime. Tidal range in these parts of the coast are pretty big, being 6.5 metres here and about an hour before low tide we went ashore to Newry for a look. Again, there was once a resort which operated from the 1930’s closing in 2001. Now National Parks maintain the area with fences around the remains of some of the older buildings and signs telling the history. It has been done very well. One of Newry Island Resorts famous guests was a lady by the name of Annette Kellerman, the Marrickville born marathon swimmer (3 English Channel attempts) and star of vaudeville and Hollywood back in the 1900-1920’s. She was the sister of the wife of one of the earliest island lessees and they built a special cabin for her overlooking the bay, which still remains.

From this, to this, to this - coconuts from Newry - Yum

We walked up to the lookout on the point then back to the open-air beachfront bar, it would have been very pleasant sitting enjoying a drink in the afternoon sun back in the day. We collected a few coconuts from the trees lining the beach then made our way back to our dinghy where we had left it at the end of the railway tracks that had been installed by another island resort lessee in the 1960’s to make an all tide access for guests’ arrival and that of supplies as the sand only reaches halfway to the water at low tide then becoming mudflats. Back on SOL we put out the fishing lines once more, but again it was chicken for tea - something large and strong making off with all the line from one reel and twice taking the hook from another.

Mangroves, a haven for crocs!!

Thursday, we went back to Newry Island at high tide and took the walking track to Sunset Beach and around the island, looking for evidence of the orchard and vege garden from resort days but not finding any. In the couple of hours we were gone the tide had fallen significantly – meaning we had to lower the wheels on the dinghy and then we could pull it down to the water – these same wheels that in the beginning we had both slammed as being “for old people” and “hrumph, we’ll never need these” yet which were coming in incredibly handy with the huge tidal ranges we were encountering. We also went across to Outer Newry where we went up the little inlet through the mangroves to find a track up to the “Fishing Hut”, a structure erected by a man named Fred Lapsley who leased this island for at least 30 years. We entered our names in the diary that serves as a visitors book there, had a bit of a walk around then left before we could be stranded by the fast dropping tide – the mudflats already looking like good crocodile havens to me.

A great sail back to Mackay on Friday where we had hired the car for a few hours so we could go and reprovision – I wanted to get enough supplies to last for at least a month as we really weren’t sure once we left Mackay to head south if we would actually want to make the trek north again and lose the ground we had covered which with the winds persistently from the south-east, so the car was an essential for this. The Mackay Marina hires out a car for just $30 for the night, picking it up at 415pm and dropping it back at 830am which is perfect as all the shops we could get to in that time, with most being open to 9pm.

I had ordered the game Finska and discovered to my delight that it had arrived at the marina office that morning. Saturday evening, we set it up on the grass and along with Pete and Lizzie (Windana) spent a couple of great fun hours playing – laughing a lot, drinking a little, finishing with fish and chips from the Lighthouse Takeaways – an excellent evening.

Sunrise leaving Newry

Early Sunday morning we left Mackay and watched the sun rise as we made our way south passing Hay Point (and getting the aforementioned call from officialdom at the Coal Terminal) under sail but soon we started the starboard engine and motor sailed as the wind dropped to below 10 knots.
We have had our lure out but with no success, I am sure that we have now proven the old salts tale that having bananas on board means that no fish will be caught so today Jamie and I have eaten 3 bananas each to get rid of them!!!