Silica Beach on Hidden Island (The Kimberley)

[Kyle]Our next westbound stop was at Silica Beach on Hidden Island. We found it just fine. The shoreline here is studded with boulders and canted spires between small sandy beaches.

At the next low tide, we took the dinghy out to see more of it. As we approached the small bay to the west, we could see through the clear water that the bottom was almost 100% live coral until it gave way to rocks and sand barely deep enough to float our dinghy. We dropped the anchor at the water’s edge and got out for a little walk.

This many-fingered bay almost completely dries out at low tide, leaving large areas of sand to explore, which are punctuated by boulders and separated by rivulets. As Maryanne was trying to get a photo of an Osprey that our arrival had annoyed, she noticed that the boulder she was standing next to was opaque. Once we started seeing it, we noticed that most of them were. This whole end of the island is primarily made up of really pure quartz, The rough rock surface is opaque, but in places where the crystals were protected from erosion, we could see that they were almost as clear as glass.

We left the bay before the tide marooned us and headed around the corner to the next. We were just eying up potential landing spots on the beach when a big croc surfaced between us and it. It submerged again. We reversed course far enough away that we were hoping it would see chasing us as not worth the trouble. We didn’t see any suspicious wakes or underwater shadows sneaking up behind us.

Exploring at Silica Bay beaches and inlets at low tide

We then decided to land at Silica Beach, the one right next to Begonia. For some reason that we can’t figure out because we found the same quartz boulders all along the shoreline, Silica Beach seems to be the only one in the area with sand that is made up of hexagonal quartz crystals. The others seem to be the usual tan, crushed rock and seashell sand, but Silica Beach stands out even from Begonia as being much whiter than the ones adjacent. It has all of the other characteristics as well, like squeaky sand that can be formed into balls. That’s always fun.

[Maryanne]Thinking of visiting the Kimberley with your own boat? – Check out our Cruising the Kimberley Tips