Cape York - "The Tip"

Wed 31 Oct.  We hired a "Limo" for  our trip to the tip.  It was a Toyota Landcruiser troopy. None of that looking around the car for scratches and minor dents that you don't want to be blamed for later on.  We would have been there a week listing them all.

After using a crow bar to adjust the door so we could close it, we were off.  There were 8 of us in all and we could all fit in this vehicle and apart from hoping that it would make the distance, that was all that mattered.

I made this movie clip of our trip.  It takes 4 mins 16 secs.  I've resized it to email quality - 46.6mb

As usual, the main topic of conversation between us and the other yachties was the weather, especially wind speed and direction.  Bob and Cheryl had to get back to Cairns for work commitments and left the 2 Nov, bad winds and all.  The rest of us stayed put - no point in punishing ourselves and our boats if we didn't have to.  As it turned out, Bob and Cheryl haven't had too much of a rough trip so far, but they have sheltered for a couple of days at Portland Roads for the worst.

Ian had been busy fishing and I have lost sleep over it.  

• Ian gets up early
• I can't focus and go back to sleep
• Flippity flippity flap flap flap
• What the ? ? ? ?
• The world comes into focus for me
• IANNNN are you fishing?

He is catching sardines for bait for bigger fish which he catches but they are too big and break the line before he can bring them in.  

We do a fair bit of walking to get ourselves fit again.  The jetty is always a hive of activity as the locals manage to supplement their food supplies there very well.

Locals catch fish by the bucket load from the jetty.

Wayne gets some tips from the kids on the finer art using a cast net.

Barbara in front of a termite mound.

Barbara and I do a long walk.  Our waistlines are steadily approaching the dimensions of our boat's waterlines from too much food and too little exercise.

We go bush for a while so I can go looking for birds while Barbara looks for new plants - she has a background in horticulture and is a wealth of information when I need to know what a particular plant is that I've never seen before.

Proiphys Lily

This beautiful scented lily emerges after the first rains of the wet season.  Few people get to see this lily as most visitors have left the Cape at this time of the year.






I spot a Red-backed Fairywren, in all his feisty glory.  He is fiercely protective of the grasshopper he has just caught and dares me to try and take it from him.

Red-backed Fairywren

Native Spider Lily

This eye-catching Native Spider Lily is another flower which emerges at the onset of the wet season.  The bulb can be dug up, ground and boiled and then applied as a "painkiller, disinfectant and insect repellent all in one".






The next day, a few more people join us in a walk to Red Island which is just a stone's throw from Seisia.  Ian and I attempted to visit this island not long after we arrived here but we chickened out when a crocodile jumped into the water from the beach we were about to land on.  

We decided there was safety in numbers and ventured forth.

Bees visiting a Scarlet Flowered Bloodroot 

We found this attractive little plant growing across the island.  Once again, it heralds the wet season - nature is telling us something!

After consulting John Beasley's 'Plants of Cape York' once again we find that it is a Scarlet Flowered Bloodroot.  Named for the red sap of the bulb which is used as dye by Aboriginal people for baskets and bags. 






On a less happy note, Ian finds a discarded fishing line lying in a tangle, complete with a bird skeleton.  It must have been a slow and cruel demise for the unfortunate bird that met with the careless action of a fisherman.

once was a bird

A pigeon pair

On a happier note - a pair of Pied Imperial Pigeons also known as Torres Strait Pigeons.  These beautiful birds migrate to the north of our continent from New Guinea each year to breed.

There are enough yachties here now for a game of cricket with the arrival of a couple more yachts.  Ian finds a splintered plank on the beach and fashions it into a cricket bat.  A lot of insulation tape applied over the lot to prevent splinters and it's ready to go.  Wayne and Barbara had a cricket (tennis) ball and we used jerry cans as wickets.  A concrete path running parallel with the beach proved to be a great pitch.

After a couple of dismal bowls from our participants, we accosted an innocent passer-by. 
 "Can you bowl?", we asked the hapless stranger.
It turned out he had played cricket for Townsville and Brisbane and was quickly enlisted in our game.  

All went well for a while till someone spotted a crocodile cruising close to the beach.  The cricket rules suddenly had a new one. If you hit the ball into the water, you had to go and get it yourself.

We are itching to get going as usual.  The weather patterns are unusual and we can't seem to find a good break.  Seisia is a good place to be as everything (shops, water, fuel, showers and washing machines) are in walking distance and it is only a short distance by dinghy to the shore. There are good beaches and bush walks to go on as well. 

On a longer walk, you can get to Bamaga which is about 3/4 of an hour by foot.  On the way to Bamaga there are sewerage ponds.  I bet that excites all my readers!  Well, we noticed a lot of ducks there the other day and I'm hoping to 'spot' some Spotted Whistling Ducks.  I suppose that would make them 'double spotted'.

There are also pockets of monsoonal rainforest in which reside Magnificent Riflebirds (one of Australia's 4 Birds of Paradise).  I heard them the other day as we were walking past.

Ian hasn't seen any more Palm Cockatoos and is now appreciating the sighting earlier in our trip.  If we have to wait at Seisia for much longer, the Beach Almonds which grow near the jetty, should ripen.  Palm Cockatoos love them.

Well, it's off to the showers for now.  Amusing signs on the amenities ensures that Ian and I go into the right ones.

Across the Gulf at last

Courtship flight of Sea Eagles at Gove Harbour.

We finally left Gove Harbour on 17th Oct. 

'Easy Rider' with Rob and Henma and 'Casper' with Barbara and Wayne left before us.  We decided to leave after we enviously watched them motoring out of the harbour.  A quick look at the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) site on the computer showed a better weather prediction than they had the day before.  We had to return  our amenities key and retrieve our $100 deposit so after our last shower for the next 4 or 5 days, we returned the key, removed the squid which had jumped onto our deck through the night, upped our anchor and were away.

Early morning before lights out at the refinery

When we came across the gulf from east to west it took 3 days and 2 nights.  We had good winds in our favour then so we knew it would take 1 to 2 days longer going into the wind and swell. 

We were hoping to get to Seisia but would go to Weipa depending on how the wind played.  It was Seisia for the first 2 days till the weather turned on us on the last night.

Ian had just managed to fall asleep at 2 in the morning.  Scotty the auto-pilot had broken a belt so I was at the helm.  A few spots of rain had started falling so I was ready to race in, close the hatches and grab a raincoat should it get any heavier. 

For the next half hour, it remained the same with the wind picking up to 15kn but nothing to get alarmed about

until. . . . .

a mighty whoosh!

Rain bucketed down and the wind speed jumped to 25kn.

I was alarmed! ! !

I leapt out from behind the helm to grab that raincoat (even though I was instantly wet) and close the hatches without waking Ian. As I did so I slipped and bumped the throttle.

The motor screamed, I screamed and Ian woke up.

After Ian got everything under control, we headed to Weipa which was closer at that stage.  

I made a radio call to 'Casper' and was rewarded with a response.  We had  radio contact with them and 'Easy Rider' on the first day and apart from a relayed message through the Customs Aeroplane, hadn't been in touch since.

'Casper' had just anchored at Weipa and we found out later that 'Easy Rider' had found an anchorage just south of Weipa at Boyde Point.

It was good to know that we were all across.  The other 2 boats wanting to make the crossing from Gove Harbour, were both still waiting for parts to repair their motors.

Yikes! Those pointy things hurt!

Brown Boobies were once again guarding their channel markers as we entered Weipa.  It's good to know that some of our tax dollars are put to good use, by putting Booby-proof spikes around the lights on the channel markers.  However, Terns are immune to them :) and there is usually a Tern on the top of each marker.


Weipa is a modern town and has all the services you could need.  We needed a replacement belt for 'Scotty' so Ian called 'Raymarine' to see if we could get one in the near future.  Yes, they sent one express and it arrived the next day.  Not bad considering we were in a remote area.

Lesser Frigate-bird

 We were fascinated each evening by thousands of Frigate Birds which congregated and spiralled overhead.  The air was thick with them soaring on the thermal air currents which must have formed the same time each day.  During the day there may have been the odd one or two about but I suspect they were off following one of the many trawlers for an easy feed.


These birds continued to fascinate us when we arrived in Seisia on 26th Oct.

There we were able to see them display their kleptoparasitic behaviour.  They will harass another bird which has caught a fish until they drop it.  From observation at Seisia, the dropped fish is often missed by the Frigate-bird and nobody gets it.

Although they sometimes steal fish from other birds, mostly they catch their own.  Their main diet is flying fish and squid.  They are excellent flyers and they have the largest wingspan to body ratio of any bird.  The drawback is that, like the Albatross, they are not very good at moving on land, nor can they take off from a flat surface such as water.  Therefore, they can't dive into the water but can scoop their prey up with their long hooked beaks.

Like so.

Ian and I were kept happily busy recording the antics of the Frigate-birds versus the Terns near the Seisia jetty which is the home to millions of sardines.

Tern dives in to catch his fish.

Tern happily takes off with fish.

"I say, that looks like a nice fish you've got there".

Tern drops fish into water.

"I'll have that thank you very much"

The fish got away.

  

I mentioned that there are literally millions of sardines around the wharf at Seisia.  

The water is thick with them.

The great white hunter and his trusty assistant went fishing - with little mini hooks and tiny little lures.

It was fun. The locals catch these little fish to use as bait for much bigger fish. 

The trusty assistant wondered if they were any good to eat and set about to find out.

There was about one small forkful each side, full of tiny little hair-like bones.  I didn't bother to cook any more of these.

Action at the Seisia wharf

Taken from under the wharf - Winkali on the left, Casper on the right.

Casper frames the setting sun.

We'll be at Seisia for another couple of days waiting for favourable winds.  Rob and Henma with 'Easy Rider' were here when we got here so it's been a small reunion.  Another couple, Cheryl and Bob with their yacht 'Bittersweet' who we know from Cairns are also here.

Its interesting to note, Casper, Bittersweet and Winkali are all mono-hulls designed by Joe Adams.

Easy Rider is a Lightwave catamaran.

We will be hiring a 4WD for the 8 of us and venturing to "the tip" while we're waiting for the wind change.  By the time we get to Cairns, there should be a whole Armada.

                                                                                                             

  

                                                         

Baking Bread

We headed out for Seisia optimistically on 5th Oct.  I sent Krista (my daughter) a happy birthday message for the following day as I would be out of range for phone calls by then.

We motored out of the bay, past the bauxite refinery loading wharf where we were greeted by the eerie spectacle of a ship engulfed in steam.

 I would tell you what they were doing if I knew.

After passing the last channel buoy, the sails went up.  We needed to go east but as the wind was coming from that direction, we had to settle for north-east.  After a while we tacked to south-east and so it went that day, zig-zagging our way eastwards.

As the day went on, the oncoming swell got bigger and the wind got stronger.  

Ian said, "this is ridiculous".

I agreed.

It was 2 o'clock in the afternoon, we had been sailing for over 7 hours and had only progressed about 25nm.

Dalywoi Bay at Cape Arnhem seemed like a protected anchorage when you looked at it on the map, so our new heading was south. 

Tuna and Terns compete for the the schools of bait fish which whip the waters into a frenzy.

 We arrived at Dalywoi Bay about 5 o'clock to find that it wasn't as sheltered in reality as it was in theory.  Well, too late now, it was going to be a rock and roly night. 

Swell turns into surf as it meets land at Dalywoi Bay

About 8 o'clock that night we see another boat anchor further up the bay.  I thought it might have been Rob and Henma who had left for Seisia on their catamaran "Easy Rider" the day before us.  Ian didn't think so.

As we left the next morning, the VHF radio sprang to life. 

"Is that you sneaking off Winkali?"

It was Easy Rider!

They had had enough of the rough seas also and it was back to Gove for both of us.

"That's funny", say the Brown Boobies sitting on their  channel marker, "didn't we see you guys leaving yesterday?"

That evening we had 'sundowners' with Rob and Henma and discussed options for weather breaks to get to Seisia. 

It is now a week later and the wind is gusting up to 20kn in our sheltered harbour.

Sundowners have been on Easy Rider every other night - there are advantages to having a roomy catamaran.

We have stocked up on books and movies and there are now 5 boats waiting to go east.

I have been honing my skills at bread making.  I started on Foccacia  and Naan bread.  Then bravely tried making bread rolls.  It takes time but it's getting better.  I bought a loaf tin and some Lauke Bread Improver from town.

Take a look 

A Week in Gove Harbour

Weary and in desperate need of a shower, we arrived at Gove Harbour on the afternoon of Thu 27 Sept.  

After nosing our way through the floating residences in the bay, we found a particular bit of water that was just right for anchoring in.  Ian dropped the anchor and stood there for some time observing, just in case we had made a mistake.  Good, all was well.

Time to grab our towels and shampoo as well as our growing collection of rubbish and head to shore.  The Gove Harbour Boat Club is open Thu - Sun  so we were in luck and took out a one week membership for $10 each which entitled us to facilities we were in desperate need of.

I think we got our full value after that first shower.  They must have been getting ready to call the police to get us out.

Smelling socially acceptable, we went and had a meal in the boat club.  While there we met John and Barbara who were on their way to Darwin.  

The following day, we caught a bus into town (Nhullumbuy) to restock essential items.  We thought we would hire a car for a day as we needed to buy 4 jerry cans of diesel.  The bus driver told us that hire cars were $300 a day so we decided to do without the extra diesel!

As the bottle-shops didn't open till 2 o'clock, we needed to kill a bit of time - it was only 10 o'clock.  Lucky we ran into one of the others who had caught our bus.  He informed us that we would have to get a Liquor Permit to buy alcohol and pointed out the office where we could obtain it.

It was starting to look like there was not much you could do in this part of the world without a permit for whatever it was that you wanted to do.

So, off we went to the liquor permit place.  
"Are you in here for a Liquor Permit?" asked the friendly lady in the office.
"Yes", we said enthusiastically in unison.
"I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait.  The lady who issues those has been called to Darwin and won't be back till Monday."

We got our groceries, missed the bus by ten minutes and would have to wait for another two hours for the next one.  Our groceries wouldn't survive that long.  We got back to the boat club minus $35 for the 10 minute taxi ride.  Living isn't cheap in this town explained the taxi driver.  He told us how much he would like to go to Cairns.




This video goes for about 8 mins.  Ian appears in it for a short while as I pan around the audience, the rest is The musicians.


Saturday was AFL grand final day which was to be followed by a jam session at the club.  We sat through the last quarter of the match so we would be in time for the music.

Ian was impressed with Shane's skills on the harp.  I took the video camera and added a movie to You Tube titled Gove Harbour Jam Session.  



Sunday was NRL grand finals so it was back to the club to watch it with  John and Barbara.

Monday arrived at last.
We could get our Liquor Permit.
We could get alcohol.






We went for a walk around the wetlands behind the township between getting our permit and waiting for the bottle-shop to open.














A Brolga shows us how quickly he can fly away when he sees a camera.

                                                                                                                         


I managed to get a photo of this dragonfly before he realized he had a camera pointing at him - and flew away.

I went in search of a subject that wouldn't fly away.  This flower took my eye.  It belongs to the Morning Glory family.

Tuesday and we're still here.  As has become a way of life, we are waiting for the right weather to continue on to Seisia and down the east coast.

Peter and Shannon who are friends of John and Barbara had arrived.  They needed diesel too and managed to hire a car for $65!  They kindly gave us a lift into town so we could fill our jerry cans too.

That afternoon they were going in to Yirrkala Art Centre with John and Barbara.  

Having missed out on the Elcho Island Art Centre I was keen to have a look too.  As they only had one spare seat in the car, Ian decided that he had things to do on the boat and I should go along with them.

We were warmly welcomed to the centre and shown to a small theatre where we watched a short documentary on the centre and early history of Yirrkala.
Although a new building is in the process of construction, the present centre is quite spacious and well laid out.

There was many, many pieces of art, each very intricate in their designs, some required more than one artist to complete.  They were all constructed from natural materials, the baskets made from pandanus and grasses, dyed with natural dyes gathered from soil and plants.  The paintings done on bark, with ochre and other colours gathered and made by the artist.

Many other pieces of art, all requiring much painstaking work, patience and a ton of artistic ability with a story behind each one.

A short movie of the Art centre starring our new friends.

A great day was topped off by an invite to John and Barbara's 'Murrundi' for dinner where Barbara spoilt us all with a family favourite.  

  

John and Barbara departing on 'Murrundi'

Shannon and Peter make a picturesque exit
 on 'Tryphena"

 

Great food and great company, we were sad  

  to see them go the next day, leaving us hoping for a wind change.

          

A scaly resident  drops by to see what's for breakfast as we bravely watch.

                                                                                                      

Leaving tomorrow (we hope)See you at Seisia.

A Conundrum

Why did the chicken cross the road?

We still don't know the answer, even though we witnessed the crossing!

Orange-footed Scrub Fowl crossing the road at Gove Harbour.

We Left Port Essington on 18 Sept, heading for Gove Harbour.  The Great White Hunter decreased the population of Spanish Mackerel once again after leaving Port Essington.  His trusty assistant suggested that this looked a likely place to catch a fish and it was. 

Hmmm, where to put it.  It might be that we haven't finished eating the last two mackerel yet.  Time to re-organize the freezer, put the rod in moth balls for a while and eat more.

The first two nights found anchorage at Croker Island and Malay Bay which are along the north coast of Arnhem  Land.  Interesting country but you need a permit from the Northern Land Council which is the authority for indigenous affairs in this area.  We didn't have one.

From there  we had a long stretch of three days and two nights before the next anchorage which would be at Elcho Island.  Favourable winds  would have got us there sooner but easterly winds meant a lot of zig-zagging and straight into the oncoming swell.

It was slow going with a lot of dramatic waves breaking over the bow.  

I went below to make a cup of tea.  Winkali was heeled over on the zig and as I was eyeing off the floor to see where the best spot would be to find a secure foothold, I noticed a thin line of water lying along the junction of the floor and wall.  

I lifted the floor boards to see what was happening in the bilge.  This caused me to inform Ian that there seemed to be quite a lot of water in there.

Panic! ! !  Where was it coming from?  Were we going to sink?  What to do if we were going to sink and what to grab?

Lucky I knew all the answers to this because I had just finished reading a book where the family yacht had sunk off the Galapagos Islands and they had to survive in their raft, then dinghy when the raft sank, for thirty eight days.  They lived mainly off turtle and drank turtle blood when water was scarce.

If we sank, we were going to do it easy because I was more than ready to grab the food and water and I would have even saved the lollies.

Ian tracked down the source of the water and found it was coming through the   hawse pipe (anchor chain hole) on the bow of the boat.  Crashing headlong into the waves put a lot of pressure on our usually functional chain cover and the excess water found its way into the anchor locker, under our bunk (giving our bedding a good soaking), into the locker where we keep our computers and into the bilge.  

The next couple of hours were devoted to pumping out the water, stripping the bunk, organizing our bed to dry out and finding out whether the computers had survived.

There were three laptops and one printer in the flooded locker.  The printer and Ian's old laptop which he had used for his work were write offs.  Lucky our other two laptops were on top and still dry.  They have all our photos on them.

We got to Elcho Island on 23 Sept exhausted and had a full night's sleep - luxury!

The next day was spent drying out the boat and sorting out ruined computer stuff.  

There is a township on Elcho Island called Galiwin'ku.  As we had internet and phone reception, we were able to research the area where we were and found that Galiwin'ku is the second largest indigenous community in the Northern Territory. They boast an Arts and Crafts centre in a modern building.  Also, it is the home of the famous Galiwin'ku Chooky dancers who sky-rocketed to fame when they appeared on U tube doing their rendition of Zorba The Greek.

Locals getting ready for a bit of  (non) fishing.

We watched these locals spend some time sharpening this over-sized spear.  When they were happy with it , they put it away and drove off. . . . as you do!









This island was worth visiting so we upped anchor and moved to the bay adjacent to the township.  I made a call to the council office to see if we could get permission to come ashore.

The authority in charge was out of the office at the time and I was told that they would ring back in half an hour.  I was also informed that there was a 5 meter crocodile in the area that had been giving them trouble lately but we should be ok.  It had taken a dog the night before.  I suppose that meant it wouldn't be hungry that day.

During our wait for the phone call,  we considered our fragile inflatable dinghy.  There was a fine line between inflated and deflated and crocodiles are experts at deflation.  

The phone call we were waiting for took sufficient time for us to weigh up the risk involved.  We changed our minds about visiting.

Also, the timing was right (with tides) for passage through Cadell Straits which runs between the bottom of Elcho Island and the mainland.

Ian concentrates on getting us through Cadell straits safely

The straits are tricky as the channel is narrow and there are shifting sandbanks.  The water was extremely turbulent where the channel narrowed, almost creating whirlpools at times.  









That night anchorage was at Inglis Island which is part of the English Company Islands south of the Wessels.  (Ian thinks it was named after Greg Inglis, South Sydney Rabbitoh's full-back).

The land was changing.  Flat sandy coast was replaced by hills and valleys.  Large trees had replaced scrub.  Monsoonal forest was now dominant.

Next night was Astel Island.  This was only a short sail from Inglis so we still had lots of time to go ashore.  Our map showed us that this didn't belong to Arnhem Land so we didn't need permission.

We took a crab pot and a tin of cat food which is apparently the best bait for crabs.  The beach looked croc free.  We found a suitable corner of the beach where there was some rocks and likely to be crabs.  Ian opened the cat food and the rich odour of sardines wafted through the air.  I could almost see the crabs clambering over each other to get to the cat food first.

Then . . . .  Ian saw a croc cruising the rocks.  The crab pot was folded up again, cat food disposed of at the other end of the beach and thoughts of crab for supper dismissed.

Time for photos.  The bay was full of birds, mainly congregated in one small corner.  Bowerbirds, Beach Stone-curlews, Honeyeaters and ? ? ? some other bird sneaking up over the rocks. 

"What's that?" asked Ian.
It was about the size of a Scrub Fowl.  After looking it up in the bird book it turned out to be a Chestnut Rail of which not a real lot is known about because of difficulty of access to their habitat.

Ian got a bad photo of it which was better than my no-photo.

The rocks in this area are as unusual as any we have seen along this whole top end.

A large piece of coral with its fragile honeycomb structure, at home amongst the other sandstone sculptures.




These brightly coloured flowers were popular with the Honey-eaters.

Me standing amidst some very nice pandanus.

If we couldn't eat them, we could still photograph them.

Then it was on to Gove Harbour via Cape Wilburforce. Working with the right tides is of utmost importance in this area because if you get it wrong, you can expect to be going backwards in the rip.  The country and coastline is spectacular in this area.  It came to us as serendipity as it was every bit as good as we could have hoped the Kimberleys to be
Landscape now became soaring cliffs.  Mile after craggy mile.  Islands were carved and sculpted.  

Cotton Island - largest of the English Company Is group.

Entry to Gove Harbour

Gove Harbour bauxite refinery on the right, tropical island on the left.  Not something you would see too often.  The refinery was visible on the horizon from about 10 miles away.

Gove Harbour anchorage taken from boat club.

Blue-winged Kookaburra

Little Corella

Trees at the boat club car-park provided great nesting holes for the feathered locals.