The Spaniard

We ate the last of our meat last night when we had lasagne and are still a few days away from a resupply in Cairns. Hence, on the way from Lizard Island yesterday we were trolling to catch a feed or two. I was very disappointed that the day finished with four strikes, two resulting in hook ups; both hook ups resulted in lost fish, lure and trace; and the last one took all my line as well.

I woke up early this morning and made myself a new single strand steel wire trace and rigged my rod with the 40lb line. We put a lure out the back once we cleared South Cape Bedford and at around 10:30am we had a strike and hook up. I put the boat into wind then went for the rod. Heather took the helm, started the engine and heaved to. Haydee pulled the main sheet on and then got the fishing gloves, knife and board out. Cameron got the camera and took down the life lines and helm seat to give access to the sugar scoop. The immediate action for a hook up is now a family drill!

Anyway, after about 8 minutes we landed a good spanish mackerel; 105cm long and 6.5kg. I killed and bled it but didn't want to fillet it on the back deck in a rolling sea, so I cut its head and tail off, put it in a garbage bag and into the fridge. Once moored at Hope Islands I filleted it and ended up with enough for five good feeds. The first one went down well tonight.

Give us a kiss, love.

Strangely enough, the lure we got it on is now our most successful lure for the trip; landing the tuna a few weeks ago and this spanish mackerel. It is also the cheapest lure I have; some no name brand out of the specials box at Tackleworld Cairns for $8.95. I bet I don't keep that in mind when I replace the two lures I lost yesterday ...

Port Douglas and beyond

Haydee's prawn claws!

We left Port Douglas and headed out to Low Isles, two islands about 8nm north-east of Port Douglas. One of them people aren't allowed onto at this time of the year, which is fine because the other one is fantastic - great snorkeling, friendly turtles, friendlier locals (the caretaker and his family), calm anchorage and some slightly extroverted black-tips thrown in for good measure.

Low Island

From Low Isles we sailed back inshore to the Daintree River bar. We had no issues finding the fairway marker and the two channel markers after it that are meant to guide you in through the deep water. What we did have trouble finding was deep water. Everything except the depth of the water was spot on - we entered the channel a few minutes before the highest high tide of the day, followed the channel markers and, shortly after entering said channel, skimmed then hit the bottom. The wind had kicked up some decent waves which, when we were in their troughs, weren't enough to keep us off the bottom. We've bumped the bottom a few times before - anyone who says they've never touched, even if they own a kayak, is either yet to bump the bottom or they're outright lying - but this was not good bumping. The jolting was bad, the noise was hideous and knowing we had two little kids on board was worst of all. I had to keep doing stuff - ordering the kids to put on their jackets, getting the handheld VHF ready for our mayday call, double checking where we were in the tide, anything to avoid sitting still - Haydee shed quiet tears and Cam sat quietly in his seat. Shane was focused on getting us back to deep water and did so with minimal swearing and maximum grace. I recently read an article in a sailing magazine by a lady who wrote a book called "A Fright A Day" (and thought at the time that she probably shouldn't be a sailor) - we're a long way from a fright every day but attempting the Daintree bar counted as one of them. After making deep water, we scooted back to Low Isles, dove under the boat the look for gaping cracks, monitored the bilge for water ingress and pretended the whole thing never happened - aside from publishing it on the world wide web.

Holding on for dear life, at Hope Island

From Low Isles, we continued north to Hope Islands. The Hope Islands provide amazingly calm anchorage even in dreadful weather, which we sort-of had while we were there although it did clear enough to allow some swimming and kite-flying. From Hope Islands, we moved to Cooktown. That is all I have to say about Cooktown. Seriously though, there is heaps of history on display but, unlike 1770 who have a similar claim to fame, Cooktown is a little stuck in the past. And they need to dredge their harbour (we didn't bump, it's just shallow!)

Anchored at Lizard Island

After an overnight stop at Cape Flattery, we sailed to Lizard Island and were stunned by just how good it was. Beautiful clear water, fantastic snorkeling, secure anchorage, lovely beach and super-friendly locals made this one of the highlights so far. There is a small community of long-term (some as long as 3 months) yachtie residents anchored in Watson's Bay who gather each afternoon on the beach and make visitors very welcome. And we saw more of Lizard Island Research Station's work than I did in 3 years at UQ. One of the highlights was a super-friendly postgrad who showed us some baby coral he'd made. Amazing. Shane and the kids were energetic and did lots of walking and we also celebrated Shane's birthday while we were there. Cam made him some little "toothy critter" gang hooks (we're so proud!) and H made him a lovely nautical paperweight for charts. He also scored a new spray jacket and swim shirt. Lizard Island was our turnaround point and we've been sailing south-ish for the last few days now. The wind has been kind to us so far although we're keeping our fingers crossed and our fuel topped up.

Back to the Reef

We visited Arlington Reef, Vlassoff Cay and Michaelmas Cay after leaving the islands off Cairns. On the first day out, we anchored off the southern side of Arlington Reef, a massive (35km long) reef, and dropped lots of fishing lines overboard. Happily, we caught lots of fish (have a look at our movie below) some of which we kept, some of which we threw back in the interests of preserving worldwide fishy-ness. I'll have to share my dumb fish-smart fish theory another time...

Michaelmas Cay

After a calm night nestled inside the U-shaped reef we sailed to Vlassoff Cay and were privileged enough to see a shark feeding frenzy en route. The sharks weren't big but the birds zipping in and out to pick up scraps were brave. Vlassoff Cay was stunning although our night anchored off wasn't the best. Despite being much more used to rocking and rolling than we were three months ago, we spent a rolly night at Vlassoff Cay, rocked by swell bending around the reef. Shane and I both woke up early as a result and decided to move to Michaelmas Cay before breakfast. It is impossible to see reef unless the sun is shining down from overhead and on the way into Michaelmas at 7am or so we were surprised to see the depth of water under us drop from 25 metres to less than 2 metres in the wink of an eye. It was around the same time that we both saw snorkelers in the water 50m in front of us, a giveaway that there is reef ahead. A quick u-turn took us back out to deeper water where we anchored, ate bacon and eggs and waited for the sun to get overhead so we could see what was under us. After moving into the sand cay, the swimming and snorkeling at Michaelmas were fantastic - the beach not so. The reef is huge but the sand cay is only 400m or so long and more than three-quarters of that is dedicated to sooty terns and other sea birds who nest there. The birds own the island, and people aren't allowed ashore at all, between 3pm and 9.30am. 40,000 birds aren't quiet but it was a noise that faded into the background after a while. Amazing to see but you would have hated it, Mum!

Beers, pink lemonades and chips
at the Port Douglas Yacht Club

After three fantastic days on the reef, we arrived in Port Douglas and started our tour of the town with a few beers at the Port Douglas Yacht Club. So far I'm impressed - it isn't as upmarket as I expected (I don't quite know why I expected upmarket) but is relaxed and has everything we need, other than a willing and able sail maker (we need some work done on our mainsail - it never ends!). Sunday was act-like-a-tourist day; we visited markets, had a ride on the "Ballyhooley", a stinking, filthy steam train that the kids enjoyed, and had a very average lunch at the Central Hotel.

The plan from here is the Low Isles, Daintree River, Endeavour Reef (which Cook bumped into in the the middle of the night), Agincourt Reef perhaps then Cooktown followed by Lizard Island where, sadly, we'll rip on the handbrake and do a u-turn.

Coral Cays

Arlington Reef

Haydee loves tuna!

Vlassoff Cay

Sunset fishing

It's been a few days since we visited Fitzroy Island and I have to admit that the islands and resorts are starting to blend together. From memory, Fitzroy was quite good. After a decent lunch at the tavern, we completed two scenic walks - one to a secret garden that was a little bit of over-promising and under-delivering in my view and another along the island's coast to Nudey Beach. Everyone was clothed!

From Fitzroy, we sailed into Cairns Marlin Marina where we spent a busy few days restocking, maintaining and cleaning. The kids enjoyed Cairns' lagoon which we visited a few times despite some dreary weather.

We are currently exploring the reef as we make our way slowly from Cairns to Port Douglas. Green Island was inundated with day trippers, so while it was nice it was not our favourite spot. Our next stop was Arlington Reef. We did some fishing and saw a black tipped reef shark take a fish right near us. After moving to our anchorage we did some great snorkeling and had a comfortable night sheltered amongst the coral.

As we sailed from Arlington Reef today, we had a strike on one of the lures and landed a 72cm, 4.1kg tuna. At least three feeds in that one. Soon after, we saw a feeding frenzy (bait fish, medium fish and sharks) beside us and then at the back of the boat. We continue to catch more sharks than fish, with Heather landing one last night and Cameron catching another one tonight. We definitely stay out of the water around dawn and dusk!

We spent this afternoon anchored in amongst the coral at Vlassoff Cay. The water is warm and spectacularly clear. Life is good.

After visiting Michaelmas Cay, we will head back to the mainland to restock at Port Douglas for a trip up the Daintree River where the kids hope they'll round out their wildlife experience with wild crocodiles. But not too close up, of course.

Hinchinbrook to Fitzroy Island

Going up Hinchinbrook's
Number Six Creek

The Ramsay Bay Boardwalk

Haydee at Ramsay Bay

We finished our Hinchinbrook Island tour with a trip around Missionary Bay's shallows to a deep-ish water channel into Number Seven Creek, the seventh of eight numbered, not named, mangrove creeks at the northern end of the island. Swimming in the murky brown water isn't an option (I'm sure I saw some glowing green eyes looking out at me from the water!) and there are very few places to go ashore in the creek complex, but fortunately for us some lovely person has built a jetty and boardwalk that takes you across the mangroves to Ramsay Bay, where we all had a swim. We spent the night anchored in the creek with a few thousand mozzies. When we had enough tide to cross the shallows again the next day, we made our way back out of the creek and made for Dunk Island, stopping in for a swim at Hudson Island, a beautiful deserted island we found on the way to Dunk. We had some anchor excitement as we left Hudson Island - our bow was pulling down rather than our anchor coming up as I operated the anchor winch and no manoeuvering would free us. Shane went diving and untangled our anchor chain from a large rock it was wrapped around and away we went.

Sadly, Dunk Island was badly damaged by Cyclone Yasi and remains closed and, it appears, uninhabited other than some work crews dismantling damaged buildings. We didn't go ashore and continued north the next day to Mourilyan Harbour, stopping on the way for yet another swim at yet another beautiful bay. Mourilyan provides safe harbour but little else, its focus being bulk sugar loading rather than tourism. From Mourilyan it was north once again to Fitzroy Island, 15 miles south-east of Cairns. I have to admit to being a little sick of our recent sail-anchor-sail routine, especially after yesterday's 40-plus miles, and managed to convince Shane to spend today at Fitzroy Island before heading in to Cairns tomorrow. I can currently hear lots of splashing as Shane scrubs the hull and squealing as the kids "help" him; and we'll go ashore to the resort a little later today.