25th August 2014 to 2nd
September, 2014 – Honeymoon Bay – Still
For reasons that will become apparent later The Mustang has completely taken over the Blog...
There’s a Tesltra radio phone here
so we were able to ring the kids and let them all know we are still alive. It comes complete with folding camp chair
that someone has donated.
Making phone calls from the only phone near the beach in the Kimberley.
Managed to do a bit of trolling
around the bay here, but haven’t caught anything significant. Here’s a little queenie that was about the
best we could do.
Little queenie... just because you want fish pics
While we were on the phone one
night one of the camp guests brought a small snake up to ask us what it was …
yes it’s a king brown. Measured 2.4
metres when they got around to measuring it.
It was found outside the toilet/shower block near the beach shack. They ended up putting it in a bag and taking
it out about 20kms from camp and letting it go again (although there had been
some talk of it being cooked up for someone’s dinner). The Captain’s reaction to the snake was worth
seeing – apart from the four letter words he moved very quickly to get away
from it. Wish we had that on video…
Just a little snake …
Its been easy and very comfortable
wasting sometime here … we’ve serviced the boat and finally gave up on the new
motor for Merv. It idles fine but won’t
rev. Pulled apart everything that can be
pulled apart here, and after two days of fighting with it the hypothesis/consensus
of everyone here is that there’s a hole in the crank case between the two
cylinders. Pretty bad after only four
months of use. The corrosion on all the
exposed metal parts – including the clamps that hold it on – is also pretty
bad. So bad in fact that I had to break
the clamps to take the motor off of Merv.
Nothing else we could do except drag out the spare motor from the
wardrobe. Now we’re down to three
horsepower and it sounds like a model airplane motor. Not only that, but when its running, Merv
vibrates like he’s going to come apart at the seams. The Mustang seems to enjoy it!
We’ve been sharing our time around
the different campers here, letting them loan us their fire each night for us
to cook our dinner on.
The Mustang has been kept busy
playing Grandma with all the kids here, including art classes. She even took an extra trip into town with
the boys by herself for some extra retail therapy Kalumburu style (don’t expect
much folks!).
Art classes
The water here is terrible (very
red/rusty) – although they did warn us it was only bore water – and we are
looking forward to emptying out our tanks and refilling with fresh water at our
next stop. They have put in a new
rainwater tank, and have also just begun digging a new bore as they found a
fresh water supply, but this won’t be ready for use before we leave. 
Sunset last night at
Honeymoon Bay
2nd September 2014 –
Honeymoon Bay to Freshwater Bay – 14°00’.832”S 126°11’.024”E
Finally we decided it was time to
move on from Honeymoon Bay, and we bade all our new friends a fond farewell
(those that were left anyway – it seems like the last week in August is when
most of the regulars take off and there weren’t many people left when we did
go). We departed at 6AM and headed
around to go past Middle Rock and possibly to Butcher’s Bay before moving on
down to Jar Island. The weather was calm
and there was very little wind, so we motored the whole way.
Find the horizon – very
calm conditions across Geranium Harbour
The trip was relatively
uneventful. The water was
extraordinarily calm, and there was no wind.
As we were travelling we went through whole clouds of giant purple
jellyfish. They seem to travel in packs.
Purple jellyfish
We used the two way points
mentioned in the Kimberley Cruising Club guide to get around Middle Rock. The way points are as follows:
1 – 13˚58′.906S 126˚20′.506E
2 – 13˚57′.203S 126˚21′.518E
This isn’t a single rock, but a
series that looks like a bit of a reef.
When we went past the tide at Jar Island was at 1.67 metres, so its easy
to see that they could be covered with water at higher tides.
There is a strong current through
this channel too, and we managed to hit 8.8 knots as we passed through.
Flying past Middle Rock
Once we got around the corner we
decided not to pull into Butchers Bay.
The water was so calm and it was still early, so we headed across Vansittart
Gulf straight into Freshwater Bay. This
is where we intended to empty our tanks and get some fresh water, as there are
some spring-fed freshwater creeks there.
As we pulled into Freshwater Bay
we spotted several boats from Paspaley Pearls.
There are pearl farms in all the bays around here and these guys
certainly keep busy. There were even two
separate float planes that flew in and out on our second day here. The pearl floats are easy to spot in daylight
and there are radar markers surrounding each set so you can get a fix on them
if you come in at night, but they do get moved around, so we recommend coming
in to any of these bays during daylight hours to avoid any costly mistakes.
Paspaley Pearls ship in
Freshwater Bay.
First order of business after
anchoring was to check out the freshwater creeks.
There seems to be plenty of fresh
water here (tastes great, just needs filtering for moss), so we’ll start collecting
some tomorrow.
There’s also a place called Boab
Beach in Freshwater Bay. There used to
be a giant boab tree here, but unfortunately it has since died, and there’s
nothing left but a pile of wood.
Boab Beach
This a pic of the giant boab that gave the beach its' name from 2007 (courtesy Kimberley Cruising Club Guide)
This is what it looks like now. It's basically rotted from the inside and the burst. Not even much good as firewood!
The waterfall isn’t much here, so
it’s a bit tricky trying to collect the water – certainly not as easy as it was
at the Berkeley.
Typically the
sunsets here have been marvelous.
Sunset
at Freshwater Bay
There was a small two or three
foot croc waiting for me at the creek when I first went there. He was basking in the fresh water pool where we collect the water. His big brother
hangs around here too – about a five or six footer, so swimming is out of the
question except in the shallow pools up the creeks.
4th September, 2014 –
Freshwater Bay still
[Mustang takes over writing the
blog for now]
Well the water collector has
injured himself – hopefully not seriously.
He slipped on the rocks while carrying two 20-litre jerry cans full of
water and has stretched or torn the tendons and/or ligaments in his left
ankle. When he returned to the boat he
was dead white, shaking and in shock. I
applied ice and strapped his ankle and elevated it. We had long discussions about whether we
should do a call for help, but he’s stubborn and wanted to give it a
day to see how he felt.
Injured water carrier
Ouch... One of these things is not like the other...
After about an hour he managed to
get himself down below and into bed, and I gave him some panadeine forte and
anti-inflammatories and told him to go to sleep.
Wasted water carrier –
isn’t it great having the right drugs!
In the meantime, I cleaned the
boat and spent some time watching a couple of lemon sharks and a couple of reef
sharks fighting over bait fish. There’s
a crocodile here – about a three metre one – who comes out in the mornings to
see who’s turned up during the night, but he doesn’t seem to bother anyone. Just fun watching him get around and chase
the fish.
6-foot lemon shark
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