JULY 31, 2005

July 31-Pancake Creek Aug22- "River Rats" Page 1 Page 2 Page 3

July 16 - 24, 2005

From Bundaberg, we travelled about 50 miles up the coast to Bustard Head, at which point we followed a couple of boats into a protected anchorage called Pancake Creek. This anchorage is not difficult to get into as long as a boat goes in on a rising tide. We joined several other boats at anchor. The next day, the weather forecast called for strong winds out of the southeast and these were predicted for several days. As we have no deadlines, we decided to wait out the strong winds at Pancake Creek before we continued to travel north. Although the sailing would have been magnificent, the swells were 2-3 metres high, and Mary did not want to willingly place herself in a seasick situation unless necessary. So, we sat at Pancake Creek for 8 days and enjoyed our stay.

This picture makes it look colder than it actually is. It's winter here and the days are short. We are still mostly wearing summer clothes with sweaters added when needed. Now that we are nearing the Tropics, the weather is getting warmer.

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The problem with fishing is that the fisher doesn't get to choose what will bite on his hook. One night, Paul set a night line with a simple hook baited with a 3 inch mullet. When he awoke in the middle of the night to attend to nature's call, he checked the line only to see his heaviest, strongest rod bent like a willow branch and the line as taut as a piano string. No matter what he did, he was unable to reel the line in. He assumed it was snagged on the bottom and so, there he left it to be tended to in the morning. He then went back to bed. A little while later he could hear the line spooling out of the reel. Again, he got out of bed and tried to reel the line in. Again, it would not budge an inch. He gave up. After all, it was three in the morning. During the next three hours he was awakened at least three more times. Each time, he could hear the line spooling out. He assumed it was due to the tidal current which is quite strong here, moving the boat further way from where the line was snagged. He knew that he would have a difficult time getting back any of the line in the morning from this monster snag. When he awoke at dawn, 6:30, he could see the problem was worse than he thought because the line was wrapped around the anchor chain and one of the rudders. He donned his wet suit and snorkel and went into the water for a brisk morning swim to untangle the mess and see if he could retrieve most of the line. It wasn't very difficult, after all, to untangle the wraps that the line had on the chain and rudder. He was soon out of the water with rod in hand, trying to use brute force to pull the hook out of the snag. That's when the snag started to move. He could see the line, under tremendous tension, gradually rising to the surface some 200 metres away. It was only then, when he saw something break the surface, that he knew that he had a "fish on". And what a fish! It went back to the bottom and there it stayed for the next half hour while Paul tried and tried to pull it to the boat with little progress. Paul was sure that he was moving our 9 ton boat toward the fish more than he was moving the fish toward the boat. In the meantime, Mary was working on preparing breakfast and showed little interest in retrieving such a big fish. She likes us to catch little fish. They taste better, she says. Just as she was saying, "breakfast is ready", the fish finally released its hold on the bottom and slowly this log of a fish started to move toward the boat. When it finally broke the surface near the boat we could see that Paul had unfortunately hooked a manta ray. We quickly checked our fishing guide to see if rays were edible. Though legal to catch, their meat is not very tasty. The issue was how to get this 50 pound fish (that's Paul's conservative estimate) with a stinger tail ready to unload on Paul for all the grief that he had brought on him, free and alive to tell the story to his ray friends. Because, the ray's mouth is on its under side, it rolled onto its back when Paul attempted to lift it to the surface of the water. In this position, on its back, it provided us with a good view of where the hook was imbedded in the lip of its mouth. With a sharp knife, Paul quickly cut away the piece of skin that was holding the hook fast. At that point, the hook went flying wildly into the air due to the sudden release of tension. We were lucky not to have been caught by the flying hook. As for the ray, it swam away about as fast as any fish could swim. Will it survive? We hope so. Will we stop fishing? No. Our fishing is for food, not for sport.

    On this very same day, we went for a hike. Our destination was a beach on the ocean side of the peninsula within which we are anchored. The tidal range here is a mere 8 feet (we say mere, because the tidal range further north is 8 metres). When one leaves the dinghy on shore, one has to be very careful in planning where it might or might not be when you get back. The tide was near low so we had to leave it quite a distance from the high water mark. We knew quite well that if we were gone from it for too long, we would have to wade or swim out to it. When we first got out of the dinghy, we were greeted by millions - no exaggeration - millions of tiny blue soldier crabs ranging in size from a tiny pea to the diameter of a quarter. There are so many of them on the beach that you can actually hear the sound of their marching feet as they scurry away from you. It's a little intimidating at first because if they were to turn on you, it would seem like a horror movie. We are glad that they don't know what power they have collectively as a group. What's really neat is the way they dig themselves into the moist sand when you get close to them. They spiral themselves into the sand just like a wood screw might be turned into a piece of wood. After crossing over a small sand hill we then crossed a tidal flat that only floods during spring tides ("Spring tides" are the extra high and extra low tides which occur at full moon and new moon). As we crossed this tidal flat it reminded us of something out of the movie "Lord of the Rings". It was a very spooky place with the stark remnants of old, dead, gray, tree trunks in the middle of this moist, gray, sand area 100 metres wide. To make things even spookier, we could see hand sized animal tracks with a 5 to 6 foot span in between steps imbedded deeply into the muddy sand. At the time we had no idea what made these tracks, so we kept a watchful eye out for anything unusual. We have since learned that these tracks are made by a large bird called a Jabiru. We have no idea what they look like. They sure must be big to make such big, deep tracks. After crossing this barren tidal flat, we followed a trail over a hill and through the woods. After 45 minutes we came out to one spectacular view. You have heard us say this before, and we will probably have to say it again, but the words that we will use to describe this view and the presence of the moment, fail to do it justice. We stepped out onto a huge, flat, pristine beach with gentle waves curling into a horseshoe bay ringed by jagged rocks at each end. It was a perfectly clear sunny day and the ocean water shown like a jewel. We sat alone, in the middle of the middle of this giant beach, and watched the tide come in as we ate our lunch, mostly in silence, enjoying the spectacular view. Grateful that we are able to share these wonderful experiences together.

July 25 - July 31, 2005

After Pancake Creek, we traveled another 50 miles to Cape Capricorn. This puts us almost at the Tropic of Capricorn, which means that we are almost in the Tropics. How exciting to be here. We spent one night at the Cape and then, at rising tide on July 26, we conned our way into a beautiful lagoon-like anchorage called Yellow Patch.

   This is such a beautiful setting that we decided to spend a few days here before moving on. As well, we have met two wonderful Australian cruising couples and are enjoying their company. Yesterday, we went on a walk up to the Cape Capricorn lighthouse and had another picnic lunch. The view was spectacular.

"River Rats"