Heading north

Pearl Bay

It's time to slowly head north to Cairns again.  We had spent a week at Great Keppel which included a day at Yeppoon to get provisions for the next few weeks.

Good winds were forecasted to get us there, however, they turned out to be just a little bit too good.  

Our first stop was at Pearl Bay, which is just a little north of Port Clinton where we stayed a few blogs back.  Pearl Bay is also a part of the large Shoalwater Bay military exercise area.


We marvelled at our luck of having huge expanses of tropical paradise to ourselves.  

It's not as bad as it looks, it's worse!

We stayed here for three nights waiting for the 'good winds' to abate.  The bay was quite sheltered from the wind, but the swell managed to sneak in which made our accommodation extremely rock and rolly.

Nights were spent being flung from one side of the bunk to the other.  I was grateful that I had melamine crockery as I lay there listening to it being smashed about in the cupboard.



Fresh water running from the backdrop of hills behind the beach created artwork in the sand.  

The remains of a Painted Crayfish lay in the sand like a half finished piece of artwork.






We somehow managed to safely get to shore in our dinghy, where we strolled along the beach collecting sea shells. 

When we had too many to carry we would put them in a neat little pile on the sand to collect on the way back. By the time we got back to them, we would decide that we didn't want to collect shells after all.  

We did this quite a few times on our trip, leaving little middens of sea shell collections on deserted beaches.

After two days and three nights, we decided it was safe enough to make a dash up to Percy Island where we collected coconuts and got new reading material from the book swap shed. 

From there we went to Scawfell Island which seemed to have quite a protected anchorage.  We were getting a bit tired from lack of sleep in the rolly conditions here.


Although Scawfell had a protected anchorage, the large swells generated by the strong south-easterlies overcame all barriers and insisted we become desensitised to being thrown about.  Boy, are we going to have our work cut out for us getting our land  legs back after this.

Once again, we had this island to ourselves and we didn't even have to risk live bombs and lasers this time.  

A  surprise was in store for us when we went ashore as we found a picnic table and shelter with a rain water storage tank - FULL!  We quickly went back to the boat and got our shampoo and returned for a much needed shower.

That afternoon, we decided to go snorkelling, even though it meant getting salty after our lovely fresh water shower.

The tide was low and the reef could be seen just below the surface.  Ian took his spear gun and I took my camera so we could both shoot some fish.

Wow!  We had been a bit disappointed with the reef in this area, and now we found some of the most amazing reef ever.  

From a snorkeller's perspective, this was heaven.  A myriad of coloured corals bloomed under the surface. decorated by living jewels of fish.  Then suddenly the reef dropped into sudden depths of blue, with millions of fish securing the perimeter.  There were deeps chasms and grottos interspersed throughout the reef with shafts of light dissecting the deeper blue depths of shadows.

No coral bleaching was apparent in this reef.  

I felt like a kid let loose in a lolly shop.

Giant clams were in abundance.  It is amazing at the different colours theses come in.

 The reef ended abruptly and fell into the depths of blue.

We found these fish filter feeding at the surface of the water.  These may have been the same as the fish we saw on our previous trip to the Top End at 7 Spirit Bay.  I took about 200 photos which I managed to edit down to 4 photos.  I'll only make you look at two of them :)

I had to make a movie of my underwater exploits.  If you want to watch it, it uses  *62mb and goes for 1:41secs  - I've upgraded the resolution on the movie from my original blog.

If you want to know how the Great White Hunter went with his shooting, yes, he was successful.  He managed to spear a large parrot fish which looked much too beautiful to eat (that's why I won't show you the photo).   Grant's Fish Guide said they were good eating, we were dubious till we tasted. Yum!  However, we reserved the thumbs up till the next day after we found that we didn't get sick.

We are now at Shaw Island, Burning Point where there isn't any swell, only strong wind, and there is internet connection.  

After consulting the weather charts on the B.O.M site, we are a bit worried about a low sitting to the north east of Cape York, so we'll wait around in safe areas a while before venturing north again.  

Back to Fraser Island

Walking along the track near Gary's Anchorage

After eight days of living with all the mod cons of showers, washing machines and shops at Tin Can Bay, we were more than ready to "rough it" once again at Fraser Island.  

Cyclones Dylan and Edna had finished their destruction a bit further up the coast, the wind had died down and it was safe for us to leave.

Even though the weather was quite cool and drizzly, it was a pleasant change for us to put on our raincoats to go for a walk.  

We found this little fresh water creek not far from where we anchored.  

The water was stained the colour of weak tea from the tannins of the trees but it was clean enough for us to have a dip in.  Luxury when you are on strict water rations.



While I was standing in the water, conducting my ablutions, I kept on feeling something prickly on my foot.  Thinking it was just the weed and sticks flowing down the creek, I didn't take much notice.  Later, I noticed there were yabbies in the creek, so I took my trusty little underwater camera and snuck up on one to take a little movie. All went well till I felt more prickles on my foot.  I looked down and noticed that my feet had attracted the attention of several yabbies, and far from being afraid of me, they were investigating to see if I was edible.  I got out of there in a hurry and asked Ian if he would do the movie for me.

Bravely, he went in and recorded them for me.  I gave him instructions from the safety of the bridge.  

The movie goes for 1:21 and uses 16.4mb

The area between Fraser Island and the mainland is well named, The Great Sandy Straits.  The many sand banks and low water levels at low tide, have caused many boat delays and worse, as they wait for high tide to rescue them from a terrestrial confinement.

This area is also important to many migratory birds which come to fatten up  on our delicious worms, shrimps and other delicacies which abound in their muddy habitat.                       
      

One of these summer visitors is the Eastern Curlew, easily identified by its ginormous long downward curved beak.  These birds migrate from Siberia, after a short breeding season, often leaving their chicks behind before they can fly properly.  The chicks follow on this migration from as young as 6 to 8 weeks old. Arriving in Australia with several stop offs at wetlands along the way, they spend our summer fattening up before heading back north around March/April.

Birds aren't the only inhabitants to benefit from the riches of the sand banks.  We watched these dingos from the safety of our boat for several evenings as they wandered along the low tide line looking for stranded fish and crab pots with delicious morsels of bait still in them left by unwary fishermen.

From Gary's Anchorage we went north about half way up Fraser to where the wreck of the Ceretodus sits.  It used to be a barge which transported sand from Fraser to the mainland.  We had stopped at this anchorage on our first voyage with Winkali when we brought her home to Cairns from Yamba. One of the reasons we wanted to do this trip was to spend some time exploring the places we had sailed past so quickly on that first trip.  We were in a hurry to get back to work then :)




Our next stop was Kingfisher Bay.  We woke in the morning to find that we had guests - about 20 to 30 of them.  

These Welcome Swallows are so named as they often fly out to 'welcome' ships, as far out as a couple of kilometres.  They will also build their nests on boats and just follow the boat around to tend their young if the apparently stationary boat leaves its harbour.

We would often hear the loud expulsion of air as either a turtle or dolphin passed us by.  Both these animals were in abundance in this area.

Ferry photo by Ian

The ferry made frequent crossings from River Heads on the mainland, to Kingfisher Bay.  The road from this terminal leads through Kingfisher Bay Resort to the rest of the island.

Jetty photo by Ian

The jetty adjacent to the wharf was home to a few die-hard fishermen.  They would even come and tie up their boats to the jetty and prefer to fish from there, rather than from their boats.

I managed to talk to the most sarcastic fisherman on the wharf when I asked what they catch there.
"Fish" he says with the tone that says I'm stupid.  Not to put out I ask (with what I hope as the right amount of return sarcasm), "What kinds of fish?"  He answers with the only answer someone of his type can answer, "all kinds".
The other two chaps who were fishing there, made themselves small so it didn't look like they were friends of his.

Ian has a bit of an interest in reptiles and likes to take photos so he can identify them in his Snake and Reptile book.  I am also interested but there are so many, I leave the research to him.  We both often take  almost identical photos when we go for walks.  Sometimes a split second makes all the difference between a great photo and the other sort.  Ian got this great photo of the skink and the ant (I got the other sort).

White-cheeked Honeyeater photo by Ian

Ian got this photo of the White-cheeked Honeyeater while I was on the phone.  These birds were prolific in the area and would perch on low branches, often not more than 2 or 3 metres of where you stood.  Not all that common with birds in the wild.






There are quite a few walking tracks around Fraser Island and we did a few of them.  In the summer when it's hot, it's not much fun to do strenuous walks, so we didn't.  

One thing that we've found in our travels is that birds often tend to hang around human habitats.  

Fraser was no different and after hearing the sweet calls of the Mistletoe Bird, we found several families of them feasting on the Midyim berries which grew around the perimeters of the tennis courts.

Kingfisher Bay resort does not grow lawns and roses.  It is an Eco-resort and the only planting they do is of native vegetation.  Their chalets are surrounded by 'bush' and wildlife is all around.

Back to the Mistletoe Birds.  The Midyim Berry which is the size of a blackcurrant and a greyish green colour, is a favourite with them.  It must have quite a sticky mucousy centre judging by the photos we took.  The birds in the collage are only babies.  When they mature, the male has a bright red breast and under-tail area, with the female having a more pinkish colour.

Male Mistletoe Bird photo taken by Ian

Red-browed Finch

Laughing Kookaburra

                                           
 Banksias made a picturesque backdrop for these birds which rested a while before being frightened off by our cameras.

Welcome Swallow

Boardwalks meandered through the  freshwater wetland area of the resort.
It was a good place for Red-browed Finches to take a birdbath.

Wetlands wouldn't be right without dragonflies and damselflies.  A couple of hours slipped by without me noticing while I had fun trying to get photos of these erratic creatures.

A Reflecting Damselfly

Quite often you find they have a favourite resting place, so when they take off, you can keep the camera focused on that stick that you know they will return to.

Even more of a challenge is to get a photo of one flying. 

What is the difference between a Damselfly and Dragonfly?

I copied this table from About.com/insects

Differences Between Dragonflies and Damselflies

Characteristic	Dragonfly	Damselfly
Eyes	most have eyes that touch, or nearly touch, at the top of the head	eyes are clearly separated, usually appearing to each side of the head
Body	usually stocky	usually long and slender
Wing Shape	dissimilar wing pairs, with hind wings broader at the base	all wings similar in shape
Position at Rest	wings held open, horizontally or downwards	wings held closed, usually over abdomen
Discal Cell	divided into triangles	undivided, quadrilateral
Male Appendages	pair of superior anal appendages, single inferior appendage	two pairs of anal appendages
Female Appendages	most have vestigial ovipositors	functional ovipositors
Larvae	breathe through rectal tracheal gills; stocky bodies	breathe through caudal gills; slender bodies

From Fraser Island, it's back to Great Keppel Island.  That's where we are now. We have a few more places on our agenda which have good anchorages in south-easterly winds on our way back to Cairns.  

We hope to get there about end of March/early April and (yes I'm saying it), hoping to work.  It's hard to "live the dream" without an income.  Of course, there's always the Dream Job!

Waiting for the Cyclones to Pass

A storm moves over the coast towards Tin Can Bay

We left Bundaberg two weeks ago now during a short weather break.  The first few nights we spent sheltering in the Sandy Straits, the area between Fraser Island and mainland.  First Woody Island, then Gary's Anchorage at the southern end.

We went for a terrible walk the first night at Gary's Anchorage.  The mozzies and midgies were ferocious.  Lucky there was a storm coming and we had to get back to the boat quickly.

After the storm by-passed us by, in the first photo, we were treated to some more spectacular sky scenery. 

The following morning we woke to the sounds of zinging (the noise mosquitos make around your ears when they're looking for somewhere to land).   The mozzies were undeterred by our swiping antics, so we rose to watch the sunrise -  and March flies.  


Oh dear, March flies are attracted to the colour blue and our seat covers in the cockpit happened to be their favourite colour.  There were half a dozen of them reclining on our seats.  

Ian managed to swat one of them and swiftly relocated it to our watery surrounds.  Well, it looked much nicer there.

We could now enjoy the stillness of the morning.

We checked on the weather forecast and found a couple of low pressure systems which had the potential to turn into cyclones, so we said 'see you later' to our picturesque anchorage and headed the short distance to Tin Can Bay and the safety of their marina.




We enjoyed a week at Tin Can Bay.  It's a quiet little town with lots of nature walks to do.  There's a long Foreshore bird walk and a shorter Wildflower walk with interpretive signage so you know what you're looking at.

We were impressed with the neatness and cleanliness of the town.  Graffiti was absent, public amenities were spotless and everyone was friendly and would say hello as you walked by.  

Although we missed the height of the wildflower season which peaks in the spring, there were still a few hardy species which stubbornly flowered through the hot dry summer.

We probably enjoyed the banksias the most as they had all the different flower stages - from bud to dud.  

The Swamp Banksia on the right started out with a dark green flower during early stages, changing to lime, yellow, golden, rusty brown, before turning dark brown then revealing its seed pods.

The area around here is known as Wallum country.  Wallum being a local aboriginal word for swampy. All these Wallum plants spend a large part of the year in wet boggy soil, but are able to withstand the dry months of summer.

A few more of the Wallum locals.






At this time of the year, there are often many jellyfish.  We were told that sometimes in the Sandy Straits during peak season, it seemed as though there were more jellyfish than there was water.

I was quite fascinated by them and spent many hours photographing and videoing them around the harbour.  I couldn't resist including a short movie clip of them.  It goes for 59 secs and uses 11mb

After a week at Tin Can Bay, we braved the weather and came back to Gary's Anchorage at Fraser Island.  We've since learned that it is the safest place to be in bad weather and many boats come here to shelter in the event of a cyclone.  

There has been two cyclones in the past week, with another forming in the Gulf of Carpentaria.  The first one did a little damage at Great Keppel but that's been the closest one and we had no effects of it on the Fraser coast.

We're waiting for the weather to settle a bit before we move to another anchorage at Fraser Island.  Our movements will all be northwards from now, till we get back to Cairns at the end of the cyclone season.

More coming on Fraser Island in next blog.

see you soon