Hexham Island and The Percys

We set sail under spinnaker for Hexham Island and Stargate was also going there.  Wayne took the great photos of Maripi taken on the 14 nautical mile sail from Cape Townsend.  We saw whales in the distance as we headed for the bay on the northern side of the Island.  It is beautiful, although, with the residual swell was not a wonderful anchorage.  We walked up the hill to the ridge top where we could see The Duke group of Islands, The Percy Islands and back to Cape Townsend. 

Maripi under Spinnaker taken from Stargate

Hexham Island

Hexham Island Anchorage

The next day we moved on to the Middle Percy Island.  We experimented with the tides – who can figure them out in this area – leaving just before first light.  We motor sailed again and the short 23 mile trip only took a few hours.  There was still some swell running so we decided to go into “the Boat Harbour” at West Beach. Like Leekes Lagoon on Great Keppel Island, we dried out two hours after high tide. A comfortable night sleep.

Middle Percy Boat Harbour at half tide

Middle Percy Boat Harbour at low tide

 Middle Percy is a gathering spot for cruising yachties.  Middle Percy is a National Park, except for 15% of the Island which is leased.  The lessee and volunteer yachties have built an ‘A’ frame building which houses memorabilia from passing yachts.  The BBQ was put to good use when the word was circulated that there would be an evening BBQ at the ‘A’ frame at 1700.  17 yachties, one local and a baby goat called “Bob” attended.  Like many other islands, goats were put on Middle Percy to provide food for ship-wrecked sailors.  Without natural predators the goat population exploded and overgrazing damages or destroys vegetation and the land degrades.  There were Notices to Mariners a few months ago to say there would be goat culls on a couple of the Islands in the Whitsundays that have unsustainable feral goat populations.  Despite his fascination with the fire, Bob was destined to be a pet.  Two yachties had brought in their guitars and we sang along to a range of music, dominated by Australian folk music. 

Middle Percy tree house

Bob the goat

Middle Percy A Frame building

Bob

Bob loves the fire

Boats at anchor at Middle Percy

We walked up to the homestead by the track through the mangroves.  Robyn has developed the technique of walking in the footprints that Chris makes so that if it gets soft underfoot, Chris has already compacted the mud/sand for her.  Named by Captain James Cook, Middle Percy Island has a long and colourful history with escaped convicts from Tasmania probably being the first European residents.  

Robyn walking to the Middle Percy homestead

Robyn and Bronte who adopted us

Entrance to Middle Percy boat harbour at sunset

In the Lagoon, we saw Robyn’s Coast Guard team mate, Jeremy who was in the crew delivering Pure Adrenaline from Cairns to Brisbane. It’s a small world.  

This was as far north as we were going.  Our furtherest north was 21 degrees, 36.939 minutes as we rounded the northern most point to Middle Percy.  Maripi’s pontoon in the Newport waterways is at 27 degrees 12.777 minutes latitude and 153 degrees 5.34 minutes longitude.  The furtherest west we got was 150 degrees 14.031 minutes as we came up the western side on Middle Percy to go into the Boat Harbour. 

We left the Boat Harbour on the turn of the tide on Saturday 4 August 2012.  We needed a high tide to get into and out of the Boat Harbour.  We had a fabulous motor sail around the northern, eastern and southern sides of Middle Percy en-route to North West Bay at South Percy.  The beach was beautiful and we enjoyed what turned out to be the last beach walk of the trip except for Fraser Island.  We saw some whales on this trip.  

South Percy

South Percy North West Bay beach

Maripi at anchor at South Percy. Middle Percy Island to the left.

Robyn and Mini Maripi on North West Bay beach

The next morning we were up early for a very pleasant motor sail to Cape Townsend.  After that, we planned to do the next leg to Pearl Bay and as we were making such good time close hauled (into and as close as we could sail to the direction that the wind was coming from) we pushed on to Freshwater.  

We had to tack so we travelled further than if we had motored in a straight line.  Freshwater is a beautiful anchorage and we got there too late to enjoy a stroll on that beach.  

We were pretty tired after the long days and early starts and we were making good progress towards home.  At Freshwater we received a phone call from Ray, Chris’ brother who we had seen in Yeppoon, to say that their mother Muriel was very unwell.  We continued on to Yeppoon the next day which was Wednesday 8 August. On Thursday we hitched a ride to Noosa with Carol from Nardu who was back travelling from Rosslyn Bay to catch up with her family at Tewantin. We then caught the Greyhound backpacker (not so) Express back to Brisbane  The next day we drove to Alstonville to find Muriel awake although weak.  Aged 93, Muriel Florence Mortimer passed away a week later.  Her older brother Don and twin sister, Winifred are both still alive.