On
Friday afternoon we went to an anchorage near the mouth of the Burnett River
for a pre-dawn getaway next morning. Saturday was a somewhat rough 11 hour sail
to Lady Musgrave Island approx 51 nm to the northeast. This is a coral cay encircled
by a large reef lagoon — quite a beautiful spot. Being the next island along
from Lady Elliot it’s at the beginning of the southern end of the Great Barrier
Reef — though according to some sources the reef technically begins at Lord
Howe Island much further south.
Entry
into the lagoon was slightly nerve-racking as we travelled over the top of
coral bommies. Matey soon realised that from her post at the bow, looking
through a choppy surface she had to guestimate the depth of the bommies we were
running over, rather than gesticulate excitedly at every one. Those nearer the
surface had a greenish/yellow tinge, while those further down appeared brown.
Fortunately we had spoken to a yachtie at Bundaberg who had just returned from
Lady Musgrave and from the dim recesses of her agitated mind Matey recalled his
words that most of the bommies were several metres
below the surface on the way in. Therefore anxiety levels were moderate rather
than extreme.
Such
experiences fill the Matey with awe for the skill of Capt Cook and his crew who
successfully navigated the entire reef almost without mishap and almost blind, in effect — without the benefit of a crumpled chart let alone GPS, books
detailing anchorages, Google Maps, CMAPS, fellow travelers or the VMR. I guess
it’s called ‘experience’ — something the Matey is sorely lacking but slowly
acquiring.
Speaking
of the illustrious Captain (Cook, that is), we are now anchored near 1770, just
off Round Hill Head, which was apparently the site of his second landing in
Australia on 24 May 1770. Another very pretty spot.
Our
time at Lady Musgrave was truncated by strong winds, which made the anchorage
uncomfortable due to constant slapping against the hull (it was ocean on the
other side of the reef and at high tide there wasn’t much breaking it). With
wind strength forecast to increase it wasn’t going to get any more comfortable
any time soon. After two nights of this we tried anchoring outside the lagoon
on the north-west side of the island, but it wasn’t to be. This was
disappointing as we only managed to go snorkelling once and were looking
forward to more — it is easy to imagine the beauty we would have seen in calm
conditions, considering how good it was even with a choppy surface and poor visibility.
We saw several sleeping turtles, lots of fish, and needless to say
there was an abundance of coral.
Like
many of the nearby islands it seems, the ecology has been damaged by human activity
(e.g. introduced goats), but the attempt to return it to a relatively natural,
pre-colonial state is in process. It was interesting to see the Pisonia trees
and black noddies (some of which are trapped by the trees for nutrients –
fortunately we didn’t see any in this doomed state), as well as numerous other
birds.
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Water spout  |
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| At Round Hill Head |
 |
Captain hard at it |
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| Shack on Burnett River |
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| Lady Musgrave Island |
2 comments:
So that's what meant by "up the spout"!
David
Captains 2 bobs worth for interested sailors.
On the way back from Lady Musgrave to Round Hill Head (1770),Captain decided to see what TC was made of, with 20-30 knots on the beam and a very confused 2-3m swell. Full sail was hoisted and TC took off. It was a bit scary to see how this quite overloaded cat would handle surfing down these swells when wind and swell were both combined at once. She would take off, nose pointed at scary angle towards the bottom of the ocean, but at least straight down the swell. When she had had enough of pointing to the bottom of the ocean, her nose would rise up and continue to enjoy the ride. We only reached speeds of just under 11 knots, but that was enough at the moment. The designer boasted speeds in excess of 15 on a trip from USA to UK, but I"m sure you would have to considerably lighten the boat and have swells twice the size to achieve that.
Anyway it was an exciting ride to 1770, with a bit more confidence gained as to how TC would handle continuous strong conditions under full sail.
Captains enthusiasm and pride was dented tho , later that night when relieving himself over the stern at 11pm to find TC trying to be intimate with a trailor sailor, previously anchored a 100m away. "What, the mighty Rocna had dragged.. don't think so, he must of dragged onto us". But alas, with deflated ego Captain realised quickly that it was us that had dragged and were now only 10m from a court case and lots of paperwork.
The alarm was raised and the matey sprung into action to raise the little chain we had out in 3m of water, engine started , then the process of reanchoring in the dark. Thank god for chartplotters. 30 mins later we were back at anchor and crisis averted, with an iminent court of enquiry as to how the never fail Rocna could of dragged.
The findings were as follows:
1/ chain was dropped on top of the anchor , preventing it from setting properly and was not tested if set by going astern.
2/not enough chain was put out as questioned by the matey, the captain being too overconfident with the holding capabilities of the rocna, given some of the quite trying conditions we had already anchored in and never moved.
Any way the findings were noted for future referance when anchoring.
Another good learning experience as the matey quite rightly pointed out.
Next morning the captain went over to apologise to the trailor sailor for scaring the shit out of him, only to find that he had no idea what I was talking about and had slept through the whole show..
But the incident created a new friendship with the lone sailor on the trailor sailor. Euan, who is sailing up the coast single handed. Pretty good effort the capatain thinks.
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