weeks 34 35

Cape Talbot.  We’ve had to wait out a strong wind warning here for a few days.  The anchorage is not bad…

We are tucked in really close to the beach so we only have to deal with the wind.  There’s little wave and no swell.

The beach is good for scrounge by the Mustang 

.  She’s added about another kilo or two of collectables.

Been catching heaps of these …

… They are like blowies along the beach and have caught the odd one of these…

… trolling using a mini 2 deadly lure near the weed banks on either side of the anchorage at dusk.

The wind has blown so hard that it broke a blade off the wind generator…

… luckily there was a spare on board.  I only managed to drop one nut in the water during the repair.  Had a replacement handy so back up and running that afternoon.  Haven’t had to run the engine while we’ve been here.  The solar panels and wind gen have done the job (thankfully) saving us a bit of fuel.

The wind drops off at sunset each day for a while so we get to kick back at sundown…

… and check out the full moonrise…

On the last morning we had a visitor at dawn. 

… About three meters long and was having a chew on our anchor rope float.  The Mustang had a bit of slingshot practice.  He got tired of being shot at so he left and went up to the beach and waited by the driftwood tree stump I had used the previous night for filleting a fish…  Hmm…  not going ashore while he’s so close.

12^th  August 2014 –Cape Talbot to Governor Islands 13° 56.658S  126° 42.030E

Gave up waiting for the wind warning to clear so came over here this afternoon when the wind dropped down to 20 knots.  Lots of bad British accents and “Thanks Guv’” all the way here…

13^th  August 2014 –Governor Islands to Mission Bay 14° 6.426S  126° 42.852E

It was blowing 30 knots this morning and we started dragging anchor at Gov’na Islands so we headed over here.  Of course by the time we pounded our way here against the wind the breeze dropped, but not till we had dropped anchor. 

… This is the anchorage where we went for on shore to collect some bait.  The water is really clear here, it makes it really easy for the sharks to see our bait …

... and they are getting smaller in these bays...

We spent the afternoon catching up on some boat jobs…

The Mustang got rid of the salt build up and I found I had a spare one of these…

… which has been leaking since I got the boat.  Who would of guessed?

We went for a walked up Beauty Point to where we spotted a marker.  It turned out to be an avgas drum with a cairn on top that someone had put up there.  There are about half a dozen empty drums up there – can’t figure out why someone would go to the trouble of dragging them up there.

Beauty Point

 Not Beauty Point

Our LP gas usage has been a bit more this year.  We only have enough for 2 to 3 weeks left at the rate we have been using it.  The baking is the reason… 

… I hope we can get some more at Kalumburu.

We have started trying to beach cook a bit more  …

… which suits the Pyro but I can’t imagine not being able to boil water for our morning cuppas…

Trolled up a couple of new species…

Stripey Seaperch  and ...

PaddleTail (Red) Snapper.  Both a bit small but of interest. 

This is the entrance marker for the creek at Pago – note this is for the creek, not the entrance to the path for the old mission…

Just West of this is the landing for a walk to the Pago Mission ruins.  There’s a large gap in the mangroves to mark the spot to go ashore.  We went before low tide, so we had to anchor quite away out and walk in.

The driveway entrance feature includes Avgas drum and VB cans.  Buffy shows her appreciation…

On the way there is a community phone… 

…It’s free to call Australian land lines.  How many people do we know that have a landline? Only one.

… Found it.  Probably the first time we have gone on one of these jaunts and actually found what we were looking for where we expected to find it

 …well, well, well…

The old oven complete with rusty barrow.

The fresh water creek that the ruins sit beside.

… Camping fees or fine?

Buffy the Barra Slayer was covered in burrs by the time we got back to the boat. A clean up turned into a hair cut…

…I don’t think she minded…

The end result however was not what she expected….   She looks like a Gremlin that’s been fed after midnight.  Never mind…There is only two weeks between a bad haircut...

15^th  August 2014 –Mission Bay to Honeymoon Bay  14° 6.061S  126° 40.896E

 

 

… Honeymoon Bay anchorage. There is a pay phone here but, the bad news is there may not be gas available.  The water is not that bad for bore water so we have done some washing and used their amenities…

…  A nice relaxed bunch of campers, lots of really friendly and helpful people.  We’ve been offered lifts into Kalumburu next week with the school run.

The guys even drop off fish for us on the way back in…

… Fresh fish home delivered.

22^nd August 2014  Honeymoon Bay

We were going to make our second trip into Kalumburu to collect medications that have been flown in for us and to top up with fresh vegies, but the Mission nurse came out to camp last night and dropped off the drugs, so we didn’t need to collect those any more.  However, we did still want to get some more vegies, so I went into town with the blokes who were going in to get some fuel.

Unfortunately there is definitely no gas available either here or at Kalumburu but we were able to convince one of the campers here who was leaving to swap his half-filled gas bottle for our empty one.  They’ll refill the empty at Drysdale when they stop for the night there.  If we are careful we will be able to make it through with what we have now. We now also have a kettle that we picked up at Kalumburu shop for $30 …

… that we can use when the motor is running.  At least we can have our morning cuppa now without having to go ashore to boil water.  No one has died without smoking in the last months but there would be mutiny without tea or coffee.   It will just be better to do more cooking onshore.  It has been colder of the mornings lately… 

.

We have gone and got our own fish as well…

 Anyone know what this is?

Two at once.

 The Mustang adds another species to her list of catches.

We have really enjoyed the anchorage here and have had dinner most nights with like-minded campers.  We gave away our muffin mixes so that we wouldn’t be tempted to use up our gas.  They cooked them for us and served them up complete with whipped cream…

Saturday 23^rd August 2014 – Honeymoon Bay still

Had a quiet day today, not much happening. 

The Mustang spent $40 on the Community phone card to ring the kids this morning to make sure everyone is still alive, then came back to the boat and changed the fuel in Merv.  We ran some methylated spirit through the tank to clear out the blockage he was suffering from and he ran fine, but then we put some more fuel back in and stuffed it up again.  We’ve thrown out the bad batch of fuel now, but he still runs rough as guts for the first hour or so until he gets well warmed up, so we’ll have to see if we can get some more metho somewhere so we can run it through again.  The kiwis camped on the beach here went to town and got us some fresh fuel yesterday (thanks guys!).

We've been adopted by the travelling families at the camp and I was talked into  being a Grandad today – took one of the young blokes out to fish for some squid.  Cheeky bugger caught all of them himself.  Maybe I should ask for some lessons….

Went back ashore late this afternoon to have dinner with the families who have been giving us a lift into Kalumburu tonight.  Lots of rum later – a good time was had by all!

Sunday 24^th August 2014 – Honeymoon Bay... still...still...

Went out fishing this morning but I only managed to catch a couple of ugly baby cod (the Mustang reckons I caught the same one twice) while the Mustang caught a mackerel that we’ll use for bait somewhere.  It’s too small to bother filleting.  Our mates that drive us into town came out to Charisma for a visit this afternoon and had a coffee with us.  Wanted to see how the other half live.  I reckon we’ve given them some ideas about how they can keep travelling for a while (really folks, anyone can do this!).  Going to try to bake some bread tonight on the fire.  We don’t have a proper camp oven, but we’ll see how we go using our big crab pot.  Its got a glass lid, so we’ll put coals around it but not on top.  Should still work a bit like an oven right? 

We will post this on Monday for our last visit to town. We've made pretty slow progress but that's cruising.  We will head a little further west before heading back to Darwin next month...