It was an
early start out of the marina on Tuesday morning. We were bound for Port Clinton. The wind was square behind us – again! This time there was too much for the
spinnaker so we sailed with just the headsail and with the wind behind, it was
slow so we started a motor and motor sailed.
The seas were reasonably big at 2 metres, so Maripi was doing the diagonal jiggle that catamarans do so
well! We passed North Keppel Island, off
to seaward by about 10 miles, then Corio Bay, Five Rocks, Stockyard and finally
we were at Cape Manifold.
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| Cape Manifold |
It was the
eastern most point on the trip, so we had to get around it continue
northwards. Manifold Island lies off the
Cape and there is good water between it and the Cape. The water is very deep and in the restricted
passage, the seas are very confused. Once we got through there, the seas calmed
noticeably and the sail was really pleasant.
Soon after that we where off Cape Clinton and could turn into the huge
harbour that is Port Clinton.
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| Port Clinton at sunset |
The best
anchorage is on the eastern side of the waterway, under the hills that form the
eastern edge of Port Clinton. The
anchorage was adequate but the beaches nearby were rocky and not inviting. Instead of staying 2 nights as planned, we
moved on the next day.
Our tender
“Mini Maripi” is 2.4m long and is powered by a 3 hp outboard. It is small so that we can manage lifting it
up on the deck to be stowed for passages.
It is very reliable but the small size keeps us mindful of the
conditions (wind, tide and sea state) and determines how far we go from the big
boat.
We left Port
Clinton at 0900 and had the sails up before we were out of the sheltered
water. The weather was excellent and the
swells a mere 1.5m. We sailed past
Delcomyn Island and Pearl Bay and took the recommended track into Island Head
Creek. All went well. We caught up with Merv and Maggie on Ngkala again. They let us know that the mouth of the creek
was the only place we were likely to get phone/ email/Internet coverage. So we anchored near them and checked all
messages and let the families know that we were going out of range for who
knows how long!! Then we moved south
into a tributary of the creek and found a great spot with enough water and a
headland that gave us protection from winds from the south east to
northerlies. An isthmus about 0.5 miles
away protected us from the rest. We put
out a stern anchor to keep us in the hole we had found. Robyn read
about Island Head Creek some 30 years ago and a trip to it was on her “bucket
list”. It was beautiful. While it too had rocky headlands and
mangroves, there were also some really beautiful beaches. We had many dingy trips to the isthmus where
we could walk over to the sandy beaches.
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| Maripi and Stargate in Island Head Creek |
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| Stargate |
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| Stargate in Island Head Creek |
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| Maripi in Island Head Creek |
One morning a
dugong was grazing less than 5 metres from Maripi
. It came to the surface twice and
was not disturbed by our presence. We
saw it again a couple of days later but about 300 metres off from the
dingy. After 4 nights at that anchorage
we headed up to the end of the creek but stayed only one night. In a remarkable coincidence Mark who we had
met at Living Valley Spring Health Retreat in February 2011 was at Island Head
Creek with his family when we were there.
We were invited onboard Ashlynn to
meet the family and enjoyed fresh mud crab.
Later in the day we went with Mark and the kids and checked the crab pots. The mud crabs are HUGE there and we got 5
large ones. They gave us a cooked crab
that had only one claw. These are of no
use in their Japanese restaurant in Yeppoon.
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| Paddy, Ashlynn and Mark from Ashlynn |
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| Crab!!! |
We also traded a date loaf for several black bream, delivered over a few
days by our neighbours, Steve and Wayne on Stargate,
a 10 metres Rogers Cat. There is no sign of the Army’s activities at
Island Head Creek despite the creek being in the Military training area. At the next stop , Cape Townsend, there is a
sign that can be read from about a mile away saying ”Danger bombing range”,
although there were no signs of the
recent exercises in the area. The beach
is a long and punctuated with rocks.
There are many more rocks evident at low tide.
As we sailed
up from Island Head Creek we passed Strong Tide Pass. The tides here are huge, producing set and
drift of 2.5 to 3 knots. We were there
with spring tides (full moon) so the tidal range was extreme. The tidal flow in the less confined water
does not run according to the tide predictions.
One time we were over 1 hour before high tide and the water was going
out, not in!
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| Cape Townsend |
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| Cape Townsend sunset |
