Port Keats to Wyndham

Sunday 15^th June 2014 – Port Keats to Munda Beach – 14°8’ 158” S  129°28’ 798” E

Got up early so we could make a start around the island today.  Took off at 8:00AM to catch the newly outgoing tide, and made about five knots until we turned the corner around the island, when the tide was against us and we slowed down to 4 knots.  Took us five hours to get around the island to an anchorage point near enough land to get ashore.  The Mustang put some scones in the oven for our visitors, but the oven has decided it doesn’t want to stay lit now, so the scones went to feed the local fish.  Must put fixing that on the list.

Monday 16^th June 2014 – Munda Beach to Yelche Beach – 14° 18’ 529” S  129° 23’ 520” E

Turns out the anchorage we had at Munda Beach is really rolly and crap, so we took off as soon as the wind died down enough (otherwise we would have been going into the wind and across the current – not fun).  There are some nice sand dunes here, but lots of smoke from black lightning fires.  Still, we’ll stay here for a day or two until we have ideal conditions on Wednesday to get to the head of the Victoria River.

 The smoke from all the fires make for some interesting shades at sunset…

Tuesday 17^th June 2014 – Yelche Beach still

Took the Mustang and Buffy the Barra Slayer to the beach today for a few hours – we’ve all been stuck on Charisma for three days and we all need some exercise and a walk on solid ground.  Buffy went schizo again – must have run about 20 kms around in circles and chasing her ball.  There’s no shade here, so we just laid in the sun, gathered some firewood (there’s lots of that) and started a fire.  We brought potato, onion, sweet potato, corn on the cob and pork steaks to cook on the fire (wrapped in foil of course).  What a great dinner!  Buffy the Barra Slayer had the leftovers – she even eats sweet potato!

Beach barbecue

Wednesday 18^th June 2014 – Yelche Beach to Entrance Island (Victoria River entrance)

15° 8’ 344” S  129° 40’ 282” E

Took off from Yelche Beach at turn of the tide this morning so we could time our entrance into the harbour to coincide with the current of the incoming tide.  This meant leaving at 4AM, but fortunately I don’t need as much beauty sleep as the Mustang.  Set everything up and had a nanna nap for an hour before we got into the harbour and I had to start watching for shallow sections.  This area seems to be really well marked and mapped out in Navionics.  Going with the current we got up to seven knots at one stage, but about an hour after coming into the river entrance the current turned against us again so we slowed right back to under 3 knots.  Frustratingly, it seems the current markers on Navionics are a bit out.  We’re going to time the change tonight to see if we can calculate the difference – we really need to be with the current for the next bit going into the river.  after we rounded the point south of Yelche Beach the water turned a lovely brown colour – reminiscent of the river in Roald Dahl’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  Further into the river entrance this changes to a milky tea colour, but the water is still brown, so full of suspended solids with the heavy tide movements.

 Goodbye Blue water and welcome to the south of the Bonaparte Gulf.  Milo anyone?

It took us nearly 12 hours to get here, but we made it.  Great sunset tonight, and leftovers for dinner (crab of course) along with a fresh loaf of Beer bread.  Still have to fix that oven, but made it work for the half hour we needed for the bread.

 Charisma in the Victoria River

Thursday 19^th June 2014 – Entrance Island to Goobaierl Bay – 15° 12’ 313” S 129° 48’ 497” E

Well the tide change brought us out at 8:30 this morning, at which time our depth gauge said we were in 5.0m of water.  The tide moved so fast that it was up to 8.0m by 9:30, and 11.0m at 11:30.  It was a bit rocky for a while as the speed picked up, but we don’t have the gauge set up to tell us how fast the water was moving.  Suffice to say that the bait we had in the water was pulling so hard we had to tighten the drag up several times.  It finally peaked at 11.5m around 12:30, so we gave it another half an hour and started our journey into the river proper.  We estimated that we had about two hours to get somewhere worth anchoring before the tide turned again, so we motored all the way.  With the tide movement we averaged about 7 knots coming in, until we got towards 3:00, when it slowed down.  The water in this river is up to 60m deep in some places, but down to under six metres in other places.  This is why we waited until high tide to come in.  We have anchored in what looks like Goobaierl Bay, at the southern end of it.  There’s rock in front of us and mangroves on the port side.  We’re hoping that when the tide moves it will miss us a bit as we are off centre to the river’s normal course.

While we are underway we usually have lures trolling.  This is Buffy monitoring the lines.  She’s a mad keen fisho… 

Once we were sure the anchor was set we put Merv in the water and I went out to set some crab pots.  There are mangroves and small creeks around us, so I took the reel with 2 deadly as well.  May as well see if there’s anything living in this water.  If not then it will be spaghetti for dinner tonight. 

Picturesque Goobaierl Bay.

Friday 20^th June 2014 – Goobaierl Bay to Black Point

We had a sleep in this morning, and surfaced when we turned around at 9:30.  The timings we have done the last three days seems to confirm that the tide times here are three hours behind those at Pelican Island (which is the nearest tide marker on Navionics).  After a couple of cups of coffee we took off in Merv for a trawl of the creek to see if there are any fish about.  Also wanted to show the Mustang the crocs I saw there yesterday, and we needed to grab the crab pots I had put out. 

The Hunter…

The trawling was unsuccessful – one bite that immediately spat out my lure, and nothing else.  Even the crocs had disappeared, although one of them was back in place when we came back out.  Unfortunately this was where I had left the crab pots.  He was obviously hungry because he had had a go at the float and at the pots, one of which is going to need some repairs before it can be used again.  Bloody crocs.

This is the best picture that the mustang took of the croc.  I think it looks like a stick…  In fact I’m sure it’s a stick… [Mustang: Yes, well, if someone who was driving Merv at the time was able to go in a straight line and not around in perpetually smaller circles, I might have got a decent photo - then it was "Grab the pot, grab the pot!"  So I grabbed the crab pot and gave up on the pictures.  I've only got two hands]

Back on Charisma we decided to go a bit further upriver and took off at 12:15 for a place called Black Point.  There’s a shallow section shown on Navionics (all blue) that we have to get across, so we have to do this now at high tide.  After raising the anchor we were doing over 5 knots with just the current moving us!  Only took us an hour to get to Black Point, but neither one of us liked the look of it as an anchorage.  On Navionics it looks like there’s a point you can sneak around behind to get away from the influence of the tide, but it’s really not there.  The mangroves have grown out too far and it doesn’t look sheltered at all, so we turned around and travelled across the river to a spot that would do until the tide turns and we can go back to where we were.

Saturday 21^st June    Holdfast Reach… Victoria River

Had a bit of a scout around today at low tide trying to get live bait. The mullet were too small for the throw net and my old net eventually disintegrated. 

 low tide bait casting… while the Mustang takes up basket weaving…

Seriously this plate holder has to last another 5 months.

So by the end of today I’m down a crab pot and a throw net.  I’ve managed to repair one of the crab pots that got chewed but another one has just disappeared.  The crocs really have an attitude problem here.  I eventually settled for bait fishing in a hole at the western end of this reach.  I had a 12 foot croc float up and stop about 30m from Merv and I.  He was sort of sizing up Merv.  Both about the same size so I started the motor and zipped around a bit and then the croc continued on floating downstream with the current. The only result for the morning was this gook gook. 

Beggars can’t be choosers so a couple of fillets and some fresh baits. 

The water is cold here (16^o) so it’s not surprising that there are not any Barra about.  They’ll be all upstream in the pools by now.  In fact the fishing has been disappointing.  This section of the Vic is big, wide and has very little structure.  There are very few places to land and that is at high tide only so we will start making our way out tomorrow at high tide.  It is about 3 hours behind the closest prediction at Pelican Island so I’ll be up at 6:00 to get underway.  Almost civilized…

 Holdfast Reach anchorage at high tide.

 

22^nd to 23rd June 2014 – Holdfast Reach Victoria River to Cape Domett  – 14° 49.710 S  128° 23.336’ E

no wind today…

In the end we just kept on going after getting out of the Victoria River and got in here just after 2am.  I’ve been here before so had a good idea of where to anchor.  Absolutely no wind at all the whole day so motored for just over 20 hours…

We had a bit of a break here…

Beach bbq

Climbed a few rocks…

turtle tracks…

Caught a few threadfin.  Nothing really big but just enough for a taste.  I’ve started using my lathe 20’ throw net.  You don’t have to see the bait. I just throw it and usually catch something every throw.  I’m calling it the Blitzkrieg technique.  Hardly seems fair…

Makes you want to just pensively scratch your sagacious chin…

 Buffy and the The Mustang pose for a cliché photo…

The anchorage here is good holding mud but is susceptible to the easterlies when they blow up.  We motored around to the other side one morning to escape it but by the time we got around there the wind had changed so we turned around and came back.  There are a lot of these guys washed up on the beach…

 I wonder what happened?

Other more earth shattering things have happened.  The Mustang has discovered …

  “Fairy Floss Blaster” flavoured icy poles.

 

25th June 2014 –Cape Domett  to Still Bay– 15° 12.303’ S   128° 27.058’ E

Well it was blowing it’s guts out this morning so our planned breakfast on the beach was a fizzer.  Ended up having a lie in and got up when the tide turned at 12:30.  It all became a bit of rush then to get going.  When I put the genoa up The Mustang asked what I was doing.  I replied that “Charisma is a sail boat”. We have been motoring so much I had to remind myself as well.    Here’s a local fishing boat with a really cool paint job that passed us today…

 Acrylic or Enamel Dentistry?

The gulf is very similar to the entrance to Victoria River with clearly defined current  lines except it is bigger. It will take us two tides to get down to Wyndham and the Mustang picked this place as our stop over.  It’s called Still Bay and it is really quite still.  A bit of a back water from the tidal current and some quite spectacular hills to surround us.

The Mustang hasn’t been well enough to enjoy it today.  She finally had her first blow out after not having a cigarette for a couple of weeks and is feeling quite nauseous.  Which is quite surprising considering how still it is…  Did I mention how still this anchorage is?  We actually had a good laugh about how we are going to be the world’s worst ever reformed smokers… We’ve been practicing our haughty cough and smokey sneers…

 Still Bay is actually quite…

Probably the best anchorage we’ve had so far.  Slight breeze, flat calm, a little current, no moon and a gazillion stars…

Thursday 26th June 2014 - Still Bay to Wyndham - 15° 27' 974" S   128° 05' 687"E

We had to wait till 2PM for the tide to be right before we could head further south to Wyndham.  Fortunately the tide times at the nearby locations are actually right.  Still Bay lived up to its name although we did rock around a bit at each tide change.  And when we lifted the anchor it was covered in heavy mud.  We left it hanging in the water for the trip to Wyndham to clean it off, although it'll be just as bad when we leave here again as we're in the mangroves here too.  The trip down was uneventful, although we did see a smaller version of the tooth boat heading out this morning.

At the Wyndham anchorage there is wind over tide which makes it look uncomfortable, but it's not actually too bad just now.  Not sure what it would be like if the wind picks up though.  Have to wait and see.  Tomorrow we'll go ashore and check out the town.  Want to see if we can hire a car here so we can go to Kununurra to pick up some things.  A Google search for that was unsuccessful, but we'll ask around town and see how we go.  Also need to get some more lollies!

Darwin to Port Keats

Monday 2^nd June, 2014

Great surprise this morning – Buffy has learned where to perform her ablutions…  Now she just goes up there whenever she needs to go and the Mustang goes up to clean up after her (well, it is her dog).  Not much chance of The Mustang training me that easily…

We had a relatively relaxing day today.  Went into town to pick up Captain Backburn for his last day in Darwin, did some banking business and picked up some new crab nets to replace the ones that were taken. We ended up just buying four new nets – we’ll donate the old ones to the sailors around here.

We fitted some fold-away wheels to Merv today, then discovered at low tide that it’s better not to load him up before you try to move him – he’s just too heavy.  If we get stuck in some heavy mud at any point later on we may have to remove the motor then wheel him to the water and carry the motor down, but at least he’s easier to maneuver now.  Certainly beats dragging him across the sand.

Had our first shower on board tonight – needed to check and make sure the hot water heater works. Turns out the water is so hot we both use cold water only.  Also had to turn on the motor again to charge up the batteries.  Even though we have the two new ones it seems the old ones might be a bit run down.  Of course, it turns out we’re not sure how many amp hours they all are, so our battery monitor (which is set for 200 amp hours) is probably under-reading our power on board.  The two new batteries are both 100 amp hours each, and we think the old ones are as well, but the battery monitor seems to keep re-setting itself to a total of 200 amp hours instead of leaving it at 400.  We keep changing the settings, but it looks like we’re missing a step somewhere.  Time to RTFM.

A volcano erupted in Indonesia over the weekend, and the skies in Darwin have been affected – we’ve had some great sunsets ...

 Fannie Bay sunset after a volcano

 

Tuesday 3^rd June, 2014 – Fannie Bay, Darwin N.T.

We had another relatively lazy day today.  We took our hire car back to the shops to get our absolutely last bits of shopping – fresh salad for the trip.  We’ll be lucky if it lasts two weeks, but salad is something we always miss when we’re away so we made sure we have enough for a binge to start with. 

The last of the laundry was done today too. It has made a big difference getting ready this year having an extra pair of hands around...

 

The Mustang and Buffy the Barra Slayer helping out with the last of the laundry.

 

 

 

Charisma at Fannie Bay... we are the third boat from the left

Big day planned, so an early night was in order, and we skipped everything including dinner so we could get some sleep. More sleep in the case of The Mustang and Buffy the Barra Slayer…

Wednesday, 4^th June, 2014 – Darwin to Raft Point (12° 38’ 603” S, 130° 33’ 262” E)

We got an early start today and took the hire car back when the agency opened.  Stopped to get some chicken necks for crab bait and then took the bus back to Fannie Bay.  Back at Charisma we put Merv up and headed to Cullen Bay for our fuelling stop.   But first I had to get the anchor up, and while I was reaching for the anchor rope I managed to lose my first pair of glasses over the side…  the first of many I suspect…

The fuel dock is all automatic, so there is nobody there to help tie up.   Unfortunately there were passengers boarding a charter boat for some sort of day trip, so we had to make sure we didn’t kill anyone pulling in.  Amazingly it all went like a charm and the folks on shore were convinced we have been doing this for years.  As far as they’re concerned now, Charisma’s crew are experts.  Seriously, we were both impressed with how smoothly it went including getting out again.  Buffy the Barra Slayer even jumped out of the boat to make a few new friends – have to say that we surprised a lot of folks by having a dog on board.

At the flash fuel dock at Cullen Bay

The fuel pumps are automatic here: insert credit card and pump fuel.  We put an extra 400 litres of diesel into the main tank, and filled four 25-litre jerry cans with unleaded for Merv.  We also filled our water tank and gave Charisma a bit of a wash-down with the hose to admire our freshly painted deck for the last time.  At last. Across the harbour and on our way…

so long Darwin...and thanks for all the fish...

Our first heading was directly towards the western point of the harbour entrance, which meant we went straight across the shipping lane.  A couple of large container and cargo ships went around us and gave us a bit of wake to ride, but we had no trouble.  The Mustang was a bit nervous as this is the first time she has been on board around a working port.  Buffy the Barra Slayer took all this in her stride, and spent most of the day leaning over the side watching the water and waves go by. I wonder if she’ll ever get bored with that?  She even felt at home enough to have some play time...

Tug of war... notice the poor splice...

We had a bit of wind to start with this morning, so we put out the genoa and managed to get up to just over 6 knots, but by about 2PM the wind died on us, so we had to motor the rest of the way.  We had anticipated arriving around 3:30, but with no wind and fighting against an outgoing tide we were lucky to get four knots, so we didn’t actually arrive here until almost 6PM.  Just in time to get a good sunset photo and to have a couple of Charisma specials…

Mandatory Sunset photo at Raft Point

Tomorrow we might hang around here for a bit  - there’s a phone tower nearby and lots of pearl culture lines, so we might go ashore and see if we can find any signs of life to say hello to.  The Mustang has a granddaughter turning two tomorrow, so she may be able to phone her (Happy Birthday Shae-Lee!).

Thursday, 5^th June, 2014 –Raft Point to Tower Beach (12° 34’ 717” S, 130° 33’ 828” E)

We were having a bit of a lie in recovering after our first night celebrations when the wind picked up and we found ourselves dragging with the wind against tide.  We headed back to here (Tower Beach) and found a nice spot just out from the beach shacks that was protected from the wind.

A trip to the beach was in order for a walk and to catch some bait…

The Mustang  does the beach thing.

 The view from the beach shacks.  

There is no one about here, but it is mid-week.  Not a bad little spot and probably worth exploring some more.  We did get an interrupted Telstra signal last night when we sailed past but it is gone today. There is definitely no tower or coverage at Tower Beach.

The bait was easy to obtain but any quality fish has been a bit harder to locate.  Mostly sharks…

 “Just another shark” – Buffy the Barra Slayer shows her disappointment. 

We don’t need ratchets or bells on our rods anymore to let us know when we’ve caught something. Buffy the Barra Slayer is always on the job when we have a line out.  She has much better hearing than us although she does tend to want to get too close to the action down on the croc sundeck… She also growls whenever she hears dolphins coming up to breathe...

We had our first call on the sat phone from The Navigator tonight.  It was a little disappointing and dropped out twice forcing him to ring back before we gave up.   I’m sure we’ll figure it out along the way.  More disappointing is the new boat rod (purchased in Darwin) that broke after the first fish was landed. Superglue and gaffa tape at the ready…

Friday, 6^th June, 2014 –Tower Beach to Point Blaze (12° 55’ 124” S, 130° 09’ 261” E)

We had a long day getting here with just under 60 nautical miles on the track.  On the way we were about as far north as we were going to get and the tide was going out, so we decided to throw Captain Backburn’s bottle overboard.  It has a note in it with a phone number so whoever finds it to ring and tell us where it washes up. 

The bottle - captain would never throw even an empty Backburn bottle overboard

The Mustang takes her shirt off to throw the bottle overboard – just for you Dennis!

We had planned to anchor off Dundee Beach (how cheesy is the name?) and have a look around there but couldn’t get close enough as it a pretty featureless long sandy beach with no shelter from the wind, tides or current.  The only way would have been to go in and sit on the keels when the tide went out. 

Instead we came down to the bottom end of Fog Bay (should be called smog bay with all the fires) and intended to anchor off the northern end of the point.

The chart showed clear water but there are a lot of rocks in this section.  We ground into them and upset a turtle who came up to have a look at who was causing all the fuss.  This turtle looked totally pissed off if I can anthropomorphize a turtle (Beat the Mustang to use that one…).  Speaking of The Mustang…she wasn’t very happy about her first grounding.  I’m sure she’ll have something to say…  

[Mustang: “Happy?!? We were doing over 5 knots when we hit a rock that was big enough to stop us dead in our tracks! And the noise was dreadful!  Sounded like we had grounded our keels down! Just as well we didn’t spring a leak – this surprised me, but didn’t make me any happier when we hit the next rock as we were backing off the first one!  Some drivers!!” end of rant, but I still get nervous as we go into an anchorage! Probably take me a week or two to get over it, depending on how many more rocks he hits in the meantime!] She also likes to use exclamation marks!!!!

Watch out for those rocks!… looks perfectly fine to me...

With the sun setting, we ended up here which looks like a clear patch.  The Mustang wouldn’t let me go in any closer than this but we are in a sandy 7 meters with a good holding. It is supposed to be strong winds tomorrow so glad to have found somewhere.

There are plenty of local fishermen coming out here and bottom bouncing on the reefs.  I couldn’t be bothered so all we caught were Sharks…

The wind has been blowing up here during the day (25+ knots) so we decided to have a couple of slow down days while we wait for the high to move out the bight and the wind to temper.  We’ve moved in closer to shore and have good sand over mud holding.

 This life raft made it ashore here

 Buffy runs to the next bit if shade and then waits for us to catch up.  She still manages to do 15 times more distance than us.

The beach at Point Blaze. There is sand to anchor in the middle of the bay...and no rocks...

I went in to gather some bait for the sharks the second day and a couple of 4WD vehicles came up.  Had a bit of chat and then was asked if I had a permit to land as it was his land.  I said that the chart says that this was not shown as Aboriginal land but said I would move on.  The young guy doing the talking was a bit evasive of how I obtain a permit and whose land it was.  He sort of hinted at a cash settlement but I ignored him and went back out to the boat.  A double check of the chart shows Aboriginal land in Fog Bay but not where we were.  Hmm… perhaps there were sharks on land as well.

 “Just another shark. (Their skin is Ruff)”

We managed to swamp Merv when we went for a walk so used his wheels for the first time.

 Waiting for Merv to drain.

The lack of eating fish has led us to a regular diet of tinned food. Tonight we had Spam and Spam sandwiches.

 Spamalot!

Spam sandwich...proof that I'll eat anything...

And Buffy got to finish the left overs including the baked beans....

 She sleeps outside…  She has started taking things for granted…

She even wants a Charisma special but this bottle is empty.
The smoke from the fires does help with the sunsets...

 

Tuesday, 10^th June, 2014 –Point Blaze to South Peron Island(13° 13’ 247” S, 130° 05’ 579” E)

We got up this morning all keen to start out for South Peron Island only to find that the batteries had drained over the last three days.  Oops – forgot I was supposed to run the motor for an hour each day.  The problem is having two fridges running full tilt all the time.  Never mind.  Turned the wind generator on and with the solar panels we were only delayed by a couple of hours before we got going.  Reasonably good sail down here apart from bashing through the wind over current through the channel – kept burying the nose in the water.  By working our way down here to go to the Victoria River we’ve had the wind pretty well on the nose, or close to it the whole way. I can see why most yachts head straight across the gulf to the Berkley. It will definitely be easier going back the other way.

... wolf herring. Can’t seem to attract anything decent to the trolling lures.

But we made good time and got here about an hour earlier than we had expected even though we had our delayed start this morning.

 South Peron Island anchorage

The anchorage here is very small and only really suitable for very shallow draft vessels (we have 1.5m), but we’re in!  At low tide tonight we estimate we’ll have a metre of water under us.  Took Buffy the Barra Slayer and the Mustang to the beach for a walk.  Buffy the Barra Slayer went schizo and covered at least 15 times more ground than we did.  She had such a good time that as we were leaving she jumped out of the dinghy to head back to shore, so she’s in the bad books tonight.  Grateful we hadn’t actually taken off at that time, and also that her life jacket has a convenient handle with which to pick her up out of the water!

 

Ball Buffy?-

Who writes the blog?...The truth is out there... 

Wednesday, 11^th June, 2014 –South Peron Island to Dooley Point (13° 48’ 108” S, 130° 45’ 066” E)

Ended up having to leave the anchorage at South Peron when the wind started out of the south blowing us back and forth over the anchor.  It made the anchorage a close lee shore so I gave in and fired up the cast iron spinnaker at 1:00 in the morning to find somewhere safer.

We ended up motor sailing for another eleven hours (glad I filled up the diesel tank) into a 20 knot headwind to get to this place.  We are anchored a fair way out from shore as we are approaching spring tides.  Just after we got here the wind finally died off to a zephyr from the opposite direction…Typical.

I took Merv for a patrol around a nearby reef with some reasonable results. 2 deadly came through at last… Fresh fish for dinner.

 Dooley Point filleting table

There is a tidal creek just North of us and the sandy plain we are anchored on is literally carpeted with small fish fingerlings.  They are so prolific we have seen them nibbling on any leaves or sticks floating past in the tide. The Buffmiester spent the evening growling at the dolphins circling us. A nice spot, but we will probably head off to Port Keats tomorrow.

Thursday, 12^th June, 2014 –Dooley Point to Port Keats, Sandfly Creek (13° 48’ 108” S, 130° 45’ 066” E)

We woke up to dead calm conditions this morning - a flat sea and absolutely no breeze whatsoever except that coming from the dog (shouldn't really feed her fish I guess).  We motored all the way here as conditions didn't change for sailing.  It made for a nice quiet day, if you don't count the noise of the motor running at 2500 rpms.  Stopped for a few hours at Dorcherty Island to wait for a higher tide so we could get into the creek.  Buffy the Barra Slayer had another crazy run around and we even threw the ball for her a few times.  Then we took off up the creek to our overnight camping spot.  Passed the Wadeye barge coming out along the way.

 

Wadeye / Port Keats Barge

This is a nice spot…  There is even Telstra coverage and internet up the creek. The Mustang has been able to get her Facebook fix, and the rest of you can catch up on the blog.  Put a few crab nets out and went to pull them in just on dusk - that was a mistake - this place isn't called Sandfly Creek for nothing.  We did get some dinner though - three mud crabs.  One of them was a very red colour and didn't taste as nice as the others (a bit bitter), so naturally the Mustang let me eat that one. 

The beach on Dorcherty Island

 Dinner

Buffy has some dolphins to growl at so she’s happy…

Noisy buggers these dolphins

We will head back out to the entrance tomorrow.  We’ve found a shady tree on the beach at Dorcherty Island that will do for a couple of days…  There are still mangroves there so we can get more crabs, but fewer sandflies as its a bit more open.

Sunset up Sandfly Creek