Marble Island (Duke Islands)

[Kyle]The hundred miles or so between the mainland cities of Mackay and Yeppoon are generally without cellular service. Paperwork and communications from the lawyer (for Mom's estate) had been coming in at a trickle, rather than the torrent we had expected. My brother Darren really needed us to stay in close contact with him later than any of us had originally anticipated. To help stay in touch, we decided to change our plan from eight day-sails to one big leap down to the Keppel Islands, just off of the coast from Yepoon.

That was the plan anyway. As we were sailing about five miles north of the Duke Islands, Maryanne got a phone signal and suggested we turn right and check it out at the anchorages there. If we lost the signal again, we could carry on as before, having lost only about thirty minutes.

We lost the signal going through the Lolo-Mantes Passage between Hunter and Marble Islands, but it soon returned once we had line-of-sight views of the mainland. Our timing turned out to be pretty good. We were right at high tide, so we saw neither the five to seven knot currents nor the big standing waves that happen in the channel during maximum flow. We tucked into the bay on the western side of Marble Island and settled in to stay for the remainder of Darren’s time at Mom’s before he went back home to California.

The weather didn’t calm enough for us to consider going ashore until the third day, which we did when Darren finally fell asleep in his time zone. The Duke Islands are privately owned. Maryanne found the number for the caretakers and asked if it would be okay if we came ashore to stretch our legs a bit.

Caretakers Dave and his wife, Kerry, couldn’t have been nicer. They said we were certainly welcome and to pop over for a cup of tea when we land. With them to greet us was Lindal, one of the owners. Not only did they have tea, they had also baked us a cake! They were very thankful that we called and asked to come on the island, instead of just landing ashore like a many of the boaties. They may be planning fires to clear the brush on the day you visit, the island is an active cattle ranch, and they frequently host hunters in order to keep the deer population in check. Spooking a bull or rustling through the bushes on the next ridge from some enthusiastic hunter with a shotgun could both be bad.

As there were currently no hunters on the island, they said we were safe from that. Dave said he’d recently disposed of most of the ornery bulls. Otherwise, keep the herd on one side of you. That will keep any protective parent from head-butting you into the sea if you get between them and one of their calves. After our tea, cake and welcoming chat, Dave gave us directions to the trail, “Walk down the runway (grass) and take a left. You can’t miss it.”

We made it about twenty paces from the Caretaker’s cottage, when our first obstacle stymied us: a bush gate. At the fence, I saw the piece of wire holding the gate closed and disconnected it. Instead of opening a gap that Maryanne and I could walk through, the whole fence collapsed into a heap at our feet. We tried to put it back together the way we found it, but the jumble of parts didn’t look like they would fit together in any way that looked like it did before I touched the thing. I could see the wire hook I had undone, but it wouldn’t even reach where I had detached it. Oh, I wish I had been paying more attention to how it was all put together before I opened it.

After a few minutes, we had to call Dave over and admit we just broke the fence we were now trying to hold up. He then came over and gave us a lesson on how to open and close a bush gate. It’s really very simple. The thing I hadn’t noticed was the free-floating horizontal post at the top. We were trying to put the fence back together with that piece vertical, which made the whole thing fall down. Well, now we know. He told us we were going the wrong way anyway. The path to the runway was over there.

As soon as we got on the airstrip, we encountered the whole herd of cattle marching towards us with purpose. They did not look like they were planning on giving way to us. They seemed to not be bothered by us and were heading on their merry way until they got right next to us. Then they all stopped and turned to stare. We assumed it was just the usual country cow stare, but it also looked like they might be getting ready for a face-off. They definitely looked like they wouldn’t like it if we went over to try to pet one of them. Fair enough. We’ll keep walking.

We got the hang of the 'bush gates' after a quick lesson from Dave, and the cattle were clearly wondering what we were doing ashore

Coming along with us was Lindal’s dog. I guess she decided that what we were doing looked like a whole lot more fun than sitting under a tree at the cabin. That dog was good to have around. If the cattle came too close, she would herd them away. She seemed to know where we were going and charged ahead of us. Finding the trail was as easy as finding the dog.

We enjoyed our exercise, the stunning views, and the great company of the dog that was temporarily on the island

She was in absolute heaven. When she would get too far ahead of us, she would turn and gallop back, taking side trips for anything that moved; she chased butterflies, she chased grasshoppers. Her favorite thing, though, was chasing rats. We saw the first one after she spent some time snuffling in the undergrowth. Then a rat popped up and jumped ten feet before hitting the ground again. I had no idea they could leap that far. That one managed to find the safety of another hidey-hole.

We loved exploring the trails and kept discovering new vistas to linger over

The next rat wasn’t so lucky. A mad chase ensued where the dog plunged through thickets with no apparent regard for her own face. Then there were a few seconds of high-pitched screaming and we knew the rat had lost the battle for its life. The dog bounded proudly towards us with the corpse in her mouth, but before she got to us, something else rustled and she dropped her catch in pursuit of new prey.

She must have covered twenty times the distance Maryanne and I did, almost all of it at a full run. Like all dogs, she wasn’t good at pacing herself. By the time Maryanne and I flopped down at the conveniently placed picnic table at the viewpoint at the top, she was looking pretty sorry for herself. She immediately plunked down in the rectangle of shade beneath the table. We tried several times along the way to give her some of the drinks that we had brought, but they were flavored water, which she didn’t seem to like. By the time we made it to the top, she sounded like a steam train under that table. Then Maryanne was able to persuade her to drink out of her cupped hands.

We stayed enjoying the view until the dog’s panting morphed back into regular breathing. As soon as we started moving, she was off again, chasing anything that moved in the blazing heat. During lulls in the action, she would return to us and then plop down on the trail in what was clearly some kind of “carry me” message. No can do, buddy. We’re hot too and someone drank all of our water.

We crested the last ridge and the dog took off again, making a high-speed beeline for one of the cattle’s watering holes. She returned a minute later, dripping, with bits of dirt and grass stuck to her. Suddenly, she was a brand-new dog again that was SO excited about going on a long walk with us, as if she hadn’t just been running at full speed for the last two hours. She then disappeared into the bushes in a blur. Wow. That dog is having the best time!

All of the boats that had been anchored in the bay when we arrived were now gone, apart from one powerboat that had moved across to Hunter Island to anchor there. In the afternoon, a dinghy appeared from around the corner and sped right toward us. Aboard was a couple from the powerboat. We invited them aboard for some tea.

They were a pair of Russians who met in Japan and immigrated separately to Australia. Andrey was an engineer, who designed their boat, Pobeda (meaning ‘Victory’ in Russian). Tania did VIP tours all over the world and has been to more countries than any of the rest of us. We talked about travel and Australia and what we all did during COVID. We also talked about boats, of course. When Andrey said they had three freezers, Maryanne quipped that they must have ice cream aboard. Andrey bellowed out a big laugh. “I never get craving for ice cream, but TODAY, I want ice cream!”

They left to go retrieve Pobeda, saying the anchorage at Hunter Island was too rolly for them. No sooner was their anchor set than they sped over in the tender. When they approached, Tania handed over a box containing two ice cream bars! Maryanne ate hers right away, but I stuck mine in the fridge for tomorrow.

It was great fun to share the anchorage with generous owners of Pobeda (Andrey and Tania) - who delivered ICE CREAM to us aboard Begonia (so appreciated!)

The next day, we received a text from David, saying that three coconuts had fallen from one of the trees overnight. This was in response to Maryanne saying earlier that she was really missing snacking on scavenged coconuts. He also asked if she cut my hair. His was overdue for one and he was hoping Maryanne could give Kerry some pointers. “Not really”, she said, “Kyle does his own, but we can bring our kit and offer plenty of moral support.”

Dave and Kerry (the current caretakers, and ex cruisers themselves) were excellent company

On the way to the beach, we were planning on swinging by Pobeda to say hi, but they were just pulling up anchor to go to the Percy Islands. When they saw us approaching, they stopped what they were doing and invited us aboard. As soon as our feet hit the deck, Tania offered us cappuccinos. Why, don’t mind if I do.

Pobeda is beautiful with lots of light and air and space. It was like a little miniature Mediterranean villa. Andrey showed me around the helm, which has full control of the boat’s integrated systems. He took me through the various screens, which reminded me of the pictorial systems pages on next generation Boeings. Touch the screen here and this bilge pump will run. Touch it there and that valve will close. He then took me down to the engine room, which is bigger than our whole boat. I didn’t have to duck once. Everything was laid out immaculately and so well thought out, with lots of redundancy for each system. Tania said Andrey could go on all day, but we were eager to get ashore before it got too late and they were supposed to already be gone, so we gave them each a big hug and wished them Bon Voyage.

After more tea and cake ashore and a few words of encouragement, we were given directions to the highest point on the island (with 360 degree views). While we were gone, Kerry took a whack at Dave’s hairdo.

By then it was the hottest part of the day. As soon as Maryanne and I left sea level for the climb to the top, our walk became a slow trudge. The dog stayed behind today.

When we finally crested the last rise, we were pleased to find yet another picnic table, upon which we could admire the view while resting our weary bones (and proving just how much we needed the exercise!).

It was a privilege to be welcomed ashore and to explore the island trails

We took a chance and found a shortcut back, which had the added benefit of being shadier and making a loop of our trail. We got back just as Kerry was finishing up Dave’s hair. It looked pretty good. We would never have guessed it was a first attempt. There followed more tea, and some wine, and plenty of sailing stories. I had not mentioned it before, but Dave and Kerry had previously lived aboard a ketch that they had recently sold. They have sailed this coast and parts of Asia for many years.

When it finally got late enough that I was worried about getting home by dark, we reluctantly pulled ourselves away. Dave took us to the coconuts, which turned out to already be too dry to eat. Undaunted, he grabbed a big pole with a hook on the end and he and I went about harvesting a few direct from the tree that were in a better stage of ripeness. While we were doing that, Kerry gave Maryanne the garden and freezer tour, which ended up with Maryanne standing in the middle of a big, generous pile of food. Added to my coconuts were veggies from their garden, lemons the size of grapefruits, a dozen fresh free-range eggs (we’d met the chickens earlier, they were very cute) and a week's worth of frozen beef from the island’s own cattle. Jeez, all we brought them was a packet of biscuits to share with a cup of tea, and we found those tucked in the bottom of the bag on our return home.

Back in the USA, delays ensued, Darren continued working all hours getting Mom's house emptied and cleaned ready for sale. But on his last business day of his planned stay in Arizona, he literally got everything done in the last fifteen minutes before the close of business. He got it ALL done, though. Then he finally even got a few minutes to grab a very late breakfast and take it back to Mom’s empty house. When he was done eating, all he had to do was put everything that was left in the bed of his truck and pack it for the drive back to California. It is going to be so relaxing for him to go back to working full time. Maryanne had been spending all her spare time at the computer too, but Darren did so much physical work, AND had the stress of all the delays and surprises - we are SO grateful to him.

Curlew Island

[Kyle]After almost a week of having a cellular signal that seemed to get worse with each passing day (that’s how they get ya!), we decided to risk trying to head further south in the hope that we may be able to pick up something along the way. With the wind still strong out of the north, our only real option within day sailing distance was Curlew Island.

Kyle loved the conditions
and the fact that he finally beat (trounced) me at Yatzy!

We had another lovely spinnaker sail on a broad reach. Most of the other boats that had been in the anchorage with us at Keswick also departed, but gradually diverged towards the Percy Isles. By the time we got to Curlew, we were the only one there. There was one AIS target that also seemed to be heading to the same place. It looked like they would get there about an hour after we did.

We actually managed to maintain a pretty good phone signal until we were tucked pretty far into the bay on the southeastern side of the island, then the high ground surrounding us blocked it out. Oh, well. We tried.

A couple of other boats had added community edits about the bay on our various cruising apps. They agreed the anchorage could only take a few boats and mentioned a bottom of patchy sand. The locations for these were plotted in the middle of what appeared to be a sandy patch on the satellite imagery.

We arrived right at the top of a four-and-a-half-meter tide and slowly eased toward the previous boat’s coordinates. Before we even got that far, it was looking bad. After our depth sounder started climbing from the teens, we could clearly see a thick barrier of coral between us and the enticing patch of sand beyond. The bottom shot upwards in the same manner as it had back at Keswick to depths that we knew would ground us at low tide, so we beat a hasty retreat back to deeper water.

The visibility through the water was not great. Since the place reminded us of both Tinsmith and that coral-strewn anchorage on the south end of St. Bees, we decided to send me down to look at the bottom before dropping the anchor. Even more so than at Tinsmith, I found mostly live coral with a few small patches of sand. That left us the choice to stay or to continue on overnight to somewhere much further south. We decided to try to make it work like we would sometimes have to do in French Polynesia. Since the visibility was not good enough to see the bottom from the surface, nor the boat from the bottom, Maryanne sent me down holding onto the anchor with the idea that I could maneuver it to a good landing spot at the end. Then we let out the rest of our scope, Pardey-style, in a big pile next to it with the hopes that the light winds forecast over the night would mean that we wouldn’t actually need to pull on it.

Once I was back aboard, the other boat arrived, saw us in the deep water way in the back and headed for the sand in front, apparently unaware that we had already tried that. They got almost to the sand, as we had, then gave up and started reversing like mad. They backed up about a boat length and then dropped their anchor on what just had to be coral.

They stayed in that spot for a bit, and then apparently decided they didn’t like it and moved a few meters to re-anchor. That one also didn’t work for them, so they did it again.

Another boat arrived from another direction that looked like it was the same make. They went halfway to the other boat and then came back to anchor almost on top of us. Before I had to say anything, they pulled their gear back up with difficulty, presumably because it was fouled on coral, and started milling around nearby for another spot.

Watching all of this was making me increasingly nervous about our chain. I decided to go back overboard to have a look at it again and to attach a trip line and float to our anchor. This was less to aid us in its retrieval than to help us see from the boat if its position was changing at all relative to Begonia. The float ended up about where the second other boat had anchored, which I think they may have taken as a hint to shove off. Not really, but I didn’t want them too close to either us or our ground tackle, so it worked out for us anyway. I was still a little distressed that neither of the other two boats were seeming to be worrying too much about the coral. The reasoning seems to be that if you can’t see it, it’s not coral.

There was some sort of plankton bloom going on just then, which I was worried might include Irukandji. I got stung mildly several times, but so far am still alive, so I guess it was just regular jellies. Still, I’m not going back in there again if I don’t have to.

Back aboard and dried off for a second time, I noticed the first other boat already had their dinghy in the water and were heading for the beach. They got about halfway, came back and then started milling around the front of their boat about where the anchor would have been. Then we saw swimmers, then the dinghy returned to the bow.

We heard chain coming over their windlass, but before they got far, there was a lot of banging and crunching and shaking coming from over there, alternating with what was clearly full power on both engines. The tide was now going down fast and we were pretty sure they were soon going to be calling for help on the radio when they realized they were stuck.

They didn’t, and somehow managed to free themselves. They moved to where they should stay afloat for the whole tide cycle and then dropped the anchor there. Again, I am certain they were over coral. We had been over the exact same spot at high tide and backed off for just that reason. Once they were settled, we thought they would be spending their time diving, looking at the damage. Instead, they headed over to their sister boat for sundowners.

Around then, we saw a big ketch sailing by. We forgot about it until almost an hour later, when a set of lights and a dim outline of a ketch arrived into the bay and started milling around. They anchored in three or four different places before settling on one just to leeward of Begonia. They were just enough further out to be caught in the currents streaming by, which had a few overfalls at maximum. By the behavior of their lights, it looked like they were having a pretty boisterous night. I got up at around 11pm to investigate a noise and saw that they were much more stable. Another check at 3am found them nowhere to be seen. By then, the rolling would have started again, no doubt accompanied by the sound of grinding coral telegraphing up the chain, so they clearly decided to just get up and leave.

We were holding pretty steady relative to our trip line float, so we decided to chance another night of calms before moving on. The boat that grounded left. The other stayed, but then more arrived to anchor in random places as if it were all sand down there.

That is one of the problems with crowd-sourced info. Once one boat goes there and leaves a comment, others follow, figuring it’s fine. Based on where the anchor icons were located over the sandy patch on the satellite photos, Maryanne conjectured that the comments were made by tinnies or possibly jet skis stopping for lunch at high tide. For the record, both spots were about a meter above the edge of the water at low tide. Just in case some search engine digs up this entry, the anchorage here is NOT suitable for anything bigger than a tinnie, unless you are prepared to send a diver first to find sand. Most of the coral here is alive, not dead, and there would be almost no way to anchor without killing more of it. If you’re not worried about the coral, be worried about damaging your boat and ground tackle. It is cheaper and safer to stay at sea for the night in deep water.

At the next high tide, we made a quick trip to the beach with the aim of climbing a hill to search for a phone signal. We got stymied by thick undergrowth before we could gain enough elevation to get any, so we beat a hasty retreat to Begonia to do some more fretting about our swing. At least this side of Curlew is very pretty with lots of high, multi-colored rock surrounding us.

Ashore at Curlew Island - we tried to climb a hill but only found ourselves blocked from any phone signal by another hill

Another lovely stopover - and the island lived up to its name when we spotted beach curlew (a species of bird) on the beach

Since we had no signal and since we were kinda freaking out about all of the coral, we were up early to get the hell out of there.

St. Bees & Keswick Islands

[Kyle]Next on our push south was St Bees Island, which we could see on the horizon from our anchorage at Brampton.

Again, we had another glorious spinnaker sail. It started with barely enough wind to hold the thing up, but slowly progressed to where Begonia was screaming along with hissing wakes.

We picked up a public mooring at Homestead Bay at the southern end of the channel separating St. Bees from Keswick Island. Our spot was exposed to the wind and swell for the first evening, but we were hoping our line-of-sight to Mackay (on the mainland) would at least give us a pretty good cellular signal.

We did end up having a signal that ranged from terrible to non-existent. The current against the wind made for a lot of shenanigans with the hard plastic mooring banging against the hulls. The mooring also turned out to be pretty far from shore, particularly when adding in the extra distance that would be required to fight the strong currents.

We toughed it out there for one night and then decided we had to try to move somewhere with better protection. We picked the cove just over the island from us to the south,

When we arrived, the depths in the bay turned out to be five to ten meters more than indicated on the chart – around seventeen meters. Getting closer in to shallower spots where others had reported dropping anchor, we could clearly see that the bottom was almost entirely live coral. Dropping an anchor there is not only uncool it’s illegal. We milled around for a bit, looking for anywhere in the deep, sandy section where we could also get a signal, but we couldn’t find anything suitable that wasn’t endangering the coral. We decided to move on to Plan B.

We headed back north. This time we went past the mooring balls at Homestead Bay to Victor Bay on the south side of Keswick Island. There, we found a big patch of clean sand, protection from several days of forecast north winds AND we had just a smidge of 4G. Well, there you go. We’re done!

In the morning, we took the dinghy to the biggest of the beaches in Victor Bay. As soon as we set foot in the sandy shallows, Maryanne noticed that the big patch of weed to our right was moving and guessed it was actually a big school of fish, keeping tightly packed together as they milled around. Then some sort of much bigger fish arrived that looked like it may have been a Dorado. It dove into the school. The whole ball parted as the big fish went through and then recombined behind as if they were droplets of oil in a pan and the Dorado was a splash of soap. It made half a dozen passes, presumably eating its fill, and then streaked off to deeper water. After poking around the beach for a bit, we found no trails to the interior, but we did find plenty of picturesque rocks upon which to scramble.

It was a lot of fun just watching the fish move about in a tight group

Victor Bay on Keswick Island - Isn't it beautiful?

The rocks were full of exquisite patterns waiting to be discovered

When we were done with that, I had a swim on our anchor as an excuse to cool off from the row in the baking sun. Again, like back at Brampton, the coral was mostly overgrown with weed. I did find a few little spots of color that were still holding on, though. In the zone between there and shore, there was a lovely forest of weed waving in the current that seemed to be acting as a nursery for several different types of fishes.

I was feeling much cooler after that, which made it much easier to enjoy an afternoon on the boat lounging in the tropical heat.

We had a few more days at Keswick, where our primary activities were struggling with sporadic internet and watching the daily arrival and departure of the constant stream of southbound boats. Every day, it was the same thing: The first boat would arrive, see us at anchor, decide that out of the whole sweep of the bay, Begonia must be THE anchorage and make a beeline for us. Then, once they got right next to us, they seemed to all decide we were way too far back over the sand at our depth of ten meters. We must be idiots, so they were going to go forward and anchor in the sand at four meters. Except that there is no sand at four meters, just coral. When steaming towards it, the depth sounder goes: 10, 10, 10, 9.6, 4, 2.2, 1.3. Aah!!

There would then follow a bunch of engine noise as the boats are slammed into full reverse to try to keep from hitting. Sometimes, this would be accompanied by shouting from the person at the bow. They would try a few more spots, decide they didn’t like any of them, and then finally resign themselves to anchoring in the ‘back’ with us.

Again, instead of picking any number of sandy spots along half a mile of bay, where the depth is ten meters, they would drop their anchor practically on top of ours, put out half of the scope we had, and then shut down the engine without backing down.

At this point, it was difficult for me to resist the urge to go on deck and yell, “Hey, what the hell‽”, but I was learning that it wasn’t usually necessary. Within a few minutes, the person at the barbecue at the back would usually notice we were getting a little too close to them (yeah, ‘cause we’re moving!) and say something to the skipper, who would stare at us for a while, then reluctantly put down his drink so he could move the boat to a different spot, which was invariably only about twenty meters to the side. That way, we’d still be able to eavesdrop on their dinner.

When the second boat arrived, they would go through the whole same process as the first until the very end part, where they would try their hardest to anchor so that they were halfway between us and the first boat. It usually took until there were five or six boats anchored before new arrivals would risk trying to anchor away from the group. One morning, shortly after everyone but us had left, a big monohull came in and did the big monohull version of the above, which is the same, but they have deeper keels so the whole dance is offset slightly towards deeper water. The only difference was that they kept their distance and actually anchored where our respective swinging circles would not intersect. Well, that was refreshing.

What was strange about them was that they seemed to have a TV blaring the whole time. It wasn’t until they were setting anchor that I realized it wasn’t the TV. The noise was the skipper. She was SCREAMING the whole time at the other person, who was presumably her husband. Occasionally, I would hear a low syllable or two from him in response, but 98% of the sound was coming from her. I gathered she was NOT happy with anything about him or the bloody damn boat trip they were on.

The thing was, though, that this tremendously unhappy woman had a very particular voice. It was high and loud and raspy and sounded exactly like every male British skit comedian when they are dressed up in drag and playing a woman, shouting their lines in exaggerated falsetto. Her dressing down of the poor chap sounded just like Eric Idle doing a bit. I knew I shouldn’t, but it was hard not to chuckle at each note.

Okay, we’ve all had good days and bad. When we were out exploring in the dinghy later, they passed us just beyond conversational distance in theirs. They weren’t bickering and we all exchanged waves that were friendly enough to say hi, but not so much to be an invitation to alter course. They followed the edge of the coral around the bay and then headed back to their boat. Since the direct path would have taken them right past Begonia, we prepared ourselves for a possible visit, but they ended up taking a semi-circular route that kept them well out of range. Then they upped anchor and left in the big boat. Well, I suppose that’s one less uncomfortable moment for all of us.

Two nights later, the weather was starting to get a little sloppy and the bay was full of boats who had come to avoid the worst of it for the night. As I went forward to check our anchor bridle, I heard a familiar sound and felt an involuntary chuckle rise within me.

The Screamer was back. Because they were one of the last boats to arrive and because they were a monohull, they were anchored way in the back out of the protection of the point forming the bay. We were pretty miserable where we were, but we’ve seen worse and conditions were supposed to improve in a few hours. We felt for the monohulls, some of the smaller of which were rolling back and forth through twenty degrees in the swell. The Screamers weren’t moving around that much, but it was still clearly way too much for her. It looks like the romantic sailing vacation was not going as planned. I couldn’t make out everything she was yelling because she was a bit too far away, but one particularly loud bit I did understand was, “I AM NOT STAYING IN THIS ANCHORAGE TONIGHT!!!!”

Surely, she’s just blowing off some steam, I thought. There’s nowhere to go. I looked at my watch. The sun was setting in seven and a half minutes.

Nope! Five minutes later, while the rest of us were all standing on our decks to watch the last rays of the sun disappear, they pulled up anchor and pointed out to sea. Their engine could not be heard over her shrieking. At first, I thought they would just try to tuck in as much as they could in the same bay, but then they headed at Mackay. It would take them about three hours to motor there, but the marina should be nice and protected and she could leave him there with the boat and stomp off to a hotel if she liked.

Then I saw them head around the corner. Oh no! That bay wasn’t nearly as smooth and the only other thing beyond was the moorings at St. Bees, which even Maryanne and I couldn’t take on a nicer day than this. I imagine that boat is going to be coming up for sale really soon.

Brampton Island

[Kyle]We had a marvelous sail from Tinsmith to Brampton Island. The winds were out of the north-northwest at about seven knots. It was perfect conditions for raising the spinnaker and gliding along under a clear, blue sky.

After just an hour, we rounded the southwestern corner of Brampton Island and headed into Dinghy Bay. There were already two other boats anchored there, well back from the beach.

Dinghy Bay is another one of those areas where the shallow, sandy beach is protected by a wide swath of coral. All of the real estate for anchoring is in 10-14 meters in the deep water beyond. Fortunately, there is plenty of space for everyone to swing in their own hundred-meter circle.

Feeling a bit paranoid about the bottom conditions, I was quick to go in and swim on our anchor. This time, we deployed it with a trip line and float, so all I had to do was swim over there and then follow the line to the anchor.

Unlike Tinsmith, when I finally got deep enough to see the seabed, all there was down there was clean, unobstructed sand, crisscrossed with the imprints of the anchor chains of previous boats that had used that spot. Since I was already in the water, I decided to swim over to the reef to see what it was like. As I did, a few more boats arrived and a few seemed to be taking a keen interest in the ‘mooring’ in front of us, passing by it several times before giving up and finding another spot.

The coral zone was pretty disappointing. There were a very few widely scattered heads, but most of the area was silted over, covered with algae and dead. I checked several different areas with the same result. I reported to Maryanne when I got home that while she might want to go swimming to cool down, the trip to the reef was not worth it.

Since the beach was just a little too far to row, especially against a strong wind with our less-than-trustworthy (new) oarlocks, and since the fringe of dead coral would be havoc on our prop, we decided Brampton would be just a nice view to enjoy from a lazy day aboard.

Tinsmith Island

[Kyle]After Long Island, our next leg was to be a longish one to the south side of Goldsmith Island. To make sure we had plenty of time for what should have been a slow and steady trip on a beam reach, we had the anchor up as soon as it was light enough to see.

What we found instead of our anticipated beam reach was a whole lot of flat calm. This was interspersed with two-minute bursts of winds coming from exactly the opposite direction from the six different forecasts I had checked during the wee hours before our departure. Grr! Each time I started to wind down the engine, I would just be reaching for the stop handle when the wind would disappear and I’d have to bring it back up to power.

A calm day at sea

We finally made it to the northern edge of the Smith Islands, most of which have Smith in the names: Blacksmith, Ladysmith, Anchorsmith, Locksmith. They also have Goldsmith, Silversmith, Coppersmith and Tinsmith. There, the predicted wind finally filled in and at long last, the engine was able to rest.

We had a boost from the flooding tide, which was good. The bad part was that it was also setting us westward, which meant we weren’t able to hold our course while close-hauled on the port tack. I was determined not to resort again to the engine, so we started a series of disappointing tacks.

Each starboard tack turned us into the current, which mostly slowed us way down, but also set us sideways towards our last line. That made our course over the ground a series of one hundred and sixty-degree turns. It was hard to be patient when sailing almost exactly away from where we wanted to go.

The third time that we passed Coppersmith Rock, the wind backed enough to send us going back toward Long Island. That was good. We tacked and now were not only able to crab into the current enough to clear Locksmith Island, we could even let out the sails just a little, which boosted our speed dramatically.

Our plan was to then go into the strait between Linne Island (just plain Linne, no Smith) and Goldsmith Island to a small anchorage on Goldsmith’s south side. That anchorage was reputed to only have room for a few boats. We could already see one there on AIS, plus at least another two that were going to beat us there. There were also two or three more that didn’t have AIS that seemed to be heading for the same spot as well. Rather than try to wedge ourselves in amongst them, we changed plans and headed for Tinsmith Island, four miles further along.

The rocky bowl of the bay there on the southeastern side was empty when we arrived. We crossed the line marking the edge of the fast tidal stream churning by and then very gingerly sounded the bay (The chart is very vague). The depths we liked were way too close to the rocks. The distance we like was pretty deep. Since there was no pub ashore and since a lot of the bays around here are filled with coral, we opted to set our anchor in the deep part at the middle of the bay, where the bottom would hopefully be clear of any coral. We then let out our whole length of chain. The water was pretty murky, so we set the anchor and hoped.

Anchored off Tinsmith Island

As soon as we were secure, I pulled myself down the chain. The first thing to emerge out of the murk was a big bommie, made out of brain and elkhorn coral. Uh, oh! Before I got there, the chain curved away and touched the bottom in gravel and sand. I pulled myself a few meters further before I had to let go and surface again. The bottom was mostly coarse sand, but there was a scattering of coral heads here and there that I didn’t like.

I went down a second time, found the chain and followed it another ten meters or so along sand with widely-spaced bommies before I had to go up again. On my third and fourth attempts, I couldn’t even find the chain. I changed tactics and swam to the beach. As soon as it was shallow enough, a bottom made up almost entirely of coral rose into view. Oh, that ain’t good…

Swimming back towards Begonia, I picked three or four places to dive down and follow the coral as the bottom fell away. Each one eventually leveled off to an area that was mostly sand, but still had a few coral heads here and there. I had gone from urban to rural, coral-wise. Since Begonia was holding well at the same distance as our rode length (thus no knots or wraps), and since we had dropped it at the same depth as the mainly sandy area (about twelve meters), we hoped everything was okay down there.

Of course, I didn’t sleep well, imagining that our anchor was wedged in a hole surrounded by walls of coral. Instead of sleeping in, which is what I really wanted to do, I was up early to catch the lowest of the low tides that we would have here. I had formulated a plan.

With the shallower depth, I took a long line with a ball fender on one end and a Wichard hook on the other, pulled myself down and then along the chain as far as I could, hooked the float to the chain there and then returned to the surface.

Once I caught my breath, I would pull myself back down the line, unhook it from the chain, and then pull myself another ten meters or so along the chain before reattaching the line and heading for the surface. In this way, after several repeats, I was finally able to find our anchor sitting half-buried in the coarse sand. I left the buoy there to mark its location.

We got really lucky. There is still a lot of coral down there, all of which needs humanity to pay special attention to its welfare. I would say the chance of not hitting a bommie with the anchor at Tinsmith is maybe 60%. Not laying the chain down on some of it would decrease that to about 10%. Knowing what I know now, I would not anchor here again or recommend anybody do so without sending a swimmer down with the anchor to make sure it hits a sandy spot, and then watching where the chain goes as it’s paid out slowly.

With that done, and since it was low tide anyway, Maryanne and I set out to explore the shallows ringing the bay. While much of the coral was silted up, we found several sections where the water clarity improved, revealing colorful heads rich with diversity of types and hosting several different species of darting fishes.

Our favorite spot was on the east wall. Swimming in opposite directions through a crevice between boulders, we came across a bait ball of little silver fish. They whirled around trying to confuse us as the ball spun. Then they realized that they had no choice. They split up and headed at each of us in two flashing streams. I could actually hear the turbulence as they zoomed past my ears. It sounded like a babbling brook. By the time we returned to that same spot on our homeward pass, they were back in their hiding place again so we got to do the whole thing twice.

It just occurred to me that when fish do that, it should be called a swimpede.

Snorkelling the shallows AND among the crowds of fish

Knowing that our anchor and chain were not fouled made the rest of the stay in our private little cove at Tinsmith downright relaxing. We had just enough internet to do some work, without feeling like we had to do the whole set. We wrote and watched the wavelets and eddies in the current as it streamed past the bay. Inside, we enjoyed the antics of the chattering birds, jumping fish and surfacing turtles. At sunset, it was a perfect place to enjoy the solitude over a glass of wine.