RJP BOF: Galiwinku to Goulburn Islands

If the blog sounds a bit different it is because the Mustang has taken over the words. She can’t bear to see one more incorrectly placed comma or, those ‘infuriating’ and so on’s… she says…. Control: that’s what it’s about… She is still writing from my perspective???

I, however can still mess with it editorially as it gets posted. Sub headings and picture captions are my domain… hahahahahaha

18^th August 2013

Galiwinku to North West Crocodile Island 11^o 42.1878S 135^o 8.920E

Last night a bush fire (started by black lightning) on the side of the hill facing us (which had been put out by the fire crews during the afternoon) started up again when the wind changed. It took almost two hours before the fire crews turned up again and then spent their time lighting up the rest of the hill to burn off all the undergrowth so it didn’t endanger any of the properties. It made for an interesting light show at night. Bush fires seem pretty common here – we saw three the day before and two yesterday, but none of them offered us the show this one did.

Fire on the hillside

Night-time fireworks at Galiwinku

Went ashore first thing this morning to get enough ice to fill the fridge – it seems to be the best place to keep things cold even though it isn’t working. The eski I bought is a waste of time – the ice in it was all melted within six or eight hours, so now we’re just keeping our long life milk in there as we use it.

There are several small blue dragonflies around these islands. One came to visit us on the boat and hung around for a while.

Blue dragonfly hitches a ride

Left Galiwinku about nine o’clock on the outgoing tide and motor-sailed to here in about seven hours. On the way we saw a ship on the horizon – probably the barge that services the communities we left behind on its’ way to Gove. Remember that…

Gove vegies have to arrive before Tuesday

The wind was only 7 to 8 knots so it didn’t help us much, and we got here just on high tide which was a pain because we couldn’t see the rocks that are all along the shoreline here. We ended up anchoring about 500m out near the south end of the island just to be safe. We’re stopping here for tonight and going to leave in the early hours and head for King River. There are supposed to be 20 plus knot winds coming in on Tuesday so, we want to get there before then.

Took Merv to the island for a walk around.

The Mustang just loves climbing sand hills.

There were other footprints here (boot prints even), so somebody has been here recently. We found dozens of turtle nests along the shore, and even one where the babies had come out as recently as last night or this morning. There weren’t any crocodile tracks so the name is a misnomer, but it is just one of a set of islands called crocodile.

Turtle nests

Baby turtle tracks

19^th August 2013

North West Crocodile Island to Arrala Bay 11^o 48.093S 133^o 39.520E

A long day… 20hours of motor sailing to cover 90nm. Pretty slow going. CAUTION: Navionics shows two very small islets due north of Guion Point here but they’re not there – they’re under water. We strongly recommend you pass to the north of both of them. We didn’t go directly over them as we showed three metres just outside of the northern one, so we turned north to go around them. We anchored in the middle of the bay as it was the only place to get some reasonable shelter from the wind and waves. We tried to get in to the first creek around Guion point which Navionics says has 3.6m of water over it, but even though we arrived just before high tide our depth sounder told us there was only 2.6m and this was still some distance out from the shore. So we turned west and slowly went across the bay until we found 4m and anchored there. We stayed a good 500m or more from the shore as there are supposed to be rocks along here. It all looks like sandy beaches, but we didn’t want to take any chances. Losing one anchor along the trip makes you pretty cautious. We didn’t go ashore here as we were both worn out but we could see more turtle tracks and nests there.

The batteries are fully charged at last, although the solar panel controller looks like it has died. There’s power going into it from the solar panels, but nothing going to the batteries. Also the cockpit light has died. Seems everything does go at once. There’s some serious electrical re-wiring to be done on this vessel before we tackle another big trip like this one.

After we had anchored and turned off the motor (ahhh – peace and quiet at last) we kept hearing a sound from outside the boat in the water that we can’t identify. Call us crazy but it sounds just like someone farting. I started off blaming the Mustang and she swore it wasn’t her and that it must be me, but it was definitely outside the boat and in the water. If anyone knows what it is that makes this sound, please leave a comment and let us know – it’s driving us crazy trying to figure it out.

We’re having an early night tonight – high tide is at 6:30AM tomorrow at King River and we want to get there just after that at slack tide so we can get in, so it will be a relatively early start in the morning.

20^th August 2013

Arrala Bay to King River 11^o 52.776S 133^o 30.876E

Left early like we planned and managed to time our arrival at King River quite well. We must caution anyone coming here that there are A LOT of hidden sandbanks in this river. We had to motor slowly and watch the depth gauge to ensure we didn’t hit bottom, and bear in mind this is at high tide. We got quite far down the river to our current position, which is about 6nm from the river entrance, but it was tricky. Dropped Merv in the water to go for a trawl, intending to go to the beach area at the river entrance to get some live bait. Checked out a few creeks along the way trying to find some ideal locations for our crab pots, but frankly there are so many areas you can just about throw them overboard anywhere and you’re likely to get something. The place is absolutely full of mangroves with very few landing areas, and almost no sandy bits.

King river mangroves.

The Mustang caught another grunter on the way, a bit bigger than the last one but not much. A bit further on she hooked and brought in a spotted mackerel that gave her a bit of grief. Once in the boat it jumped and managed to share the lure with her hand. Damned fish. But at least she’s now added two more species to her list – spotted mackerel and homo sapiens.

Fish revenge

The fish was well hooked with two hooks, so it took a bit of careful handling to get both hooks out of it without adding more to her. Then it was just a matter of cutting the hook from the lure with a seriously rusty pair of pliers – tetanus anyone? We decided to continue on to the beach area to actually remove the hook (so we weren’t in a moving boat) as it was a lot closer than Charisma, but that didn’t work out well either. The sandbank at the beach area (this is the one on the east side of the river) extends for a couple hundred metres, making it impossible to get even close to even in Merv. So we headed across the river mouth to the other side, which has some sandy areas a bit easier to get into, but quite muddy.

King River Doctor’s Surgery waiting room

A nearby tree provided a good surgery table.

cut off the hook

Cut off the barb and then pull out the hook

The Mustang extracts her revenge with the pliers. She was a brave little soldier so I gave her a lollie as she was leaving the surgery.

We took a walk along the mangroves here, just to have a walk and stretch our legs a bit, then headed back to the boat for some basic first aid supplies like antiseptic, betadine and a light painkiller (double shot of rum of course). On the way back to Charisma we caught another spotted mackerel – a bit bigger this time – but we let it go as we had plenty of crab bait. Fishing with the leftovers off the back of the boat in the evening we lost bait, hook, leader and about half a metre of line to something out there. A quick pull on the line and then gone – the lot. There’s big fish out here!

21^st August

King river sunrise

A bit of late start today. The Mustang needed a day off so she stayed on the boat. I went and did then hunter gatherer thing so here it is in pictures…

First check the crab pots. The first two were empty with the baits and cages missing. The third one had ...

...two sharks and three crabs!

The biggest shark was about 3 foot long and was curled around the net. He was cut up for bait to replace the two empty nets. I parked Merve on a mud back and caught some live bait then took 2 Deadly for some trolling up the western creek. It’s a bit of a fisho’s paradise. A pic of each species…

Mangrove Jack. I was tempted to keep this one to eat but it’s crabs already tonight.

Fingermark Perch (another yummy species)

The Grunter are desperate. Two fish on the one lure!

This little cod was very ambitious trying to eat 2 Deadly. Unless he was trying to do something else? Tell him he’s dreaming…

Back to check the crabs nets…

One shark and six crabs this time. A much better ratio.

Prepare the days catch for the kitchen…

It is really good to have the right tools available for the job.

Dinner at sunset and float the live baits out the back for the turn of the tide.

sunset dinner

22^nd August

Sunrise. Time to go fishing again…

A 60’ cruiser came in the day after us and I met the guys out fishing. They turned up this morning with three 20L blocks of ice! Big thanks to Timmy, Kenny and BJ. Disappointingly their boat wasn’t called the good ship ‘South Park ‘
The Mustang went trolling for a couple of hours and she added to her species list.

Grunter. She’s learnt to hold the fish out for the pose to make it look bigger

Cod. This arm’s length stuff may be going a bit far now.

Trevally. That’s a more honest photo.

Only an average session this morning with a lost lure and nothing really for dinner so I threw out a live bait at low tide and caught us dinner.

Self sufficiency.

23^rd August 2013

King River to Mullet Bay – North Goulburn Island 11^o 31.651S 133^o 23.395E

We got attacked by sandflies yesterday so it was time to get out of the mangroves and head out into some blue water. There is a community on South Goulburn Island so we are in the southernmost bay of the North Island. It is good sand but you have to park a fair way out to avoid the reefs that are exposed at low tide.

The obvious anchorage is in front of the telecom tower (complete with eagle’s nest of course). Ashore there is a goat farm. Well there is a shed with some goats hanging around it. We stayed on the beach and didn’t bother going for a look. Plenty of things for the kids to do.

It don’t mean a thing if it ‘aint got that swing...

At the southernmost point, which we named…

Last tree point…

there is another shack with some beach buggies…

Pic 28 that are a bit bogged at the moment and someone has been here cooking turtle recently…

Turtle soup bowl.

The lizards here have left an impression

sand tracks.

The mustang hasn’t been feeling well. She may have ahd a bit of a reaction to the insect bites or more likely, overindulged in mud crabs at King River. We are going to have a pjamie day tomorrow while she recovers and let the wind blows itself out.