Talbot Bay (The Kimberley)

[Kyle]The sail from Montgomery reef to Talbot Bay wasn’t actually that bad. The contrary winds and currents were all during the first watch, which was Maryanne’s. Her mandate was to sail the wrong way just fast enough under only the jib to maintain steerageway, then tack and keep the speed slow enough to arrive at the southern end of Melomys Island at 2am. The wind and seas were both slight, so the sail was an adrenaline-free stint sitting at the helm in a nice breeze. When she woke me for my turn at the helm, we were heading to the waypoint with an ETA of 1:56.

My watch was even easier. As the current shifted in our favor, I would roll up the jib a few turns to compensate. Eventually, we were going about two and a half knots through the water with no sail up at all, helped by a current of about the same. I did this for about three hours, with my only sailing jobs being to keep a lookout and point the boat in the right direction. Since it was my first time sitting a night watch for a while, I was worried that I would have trouble staying awake until morning with so little to keep myself occupied. It was such a beautiful clear night, with almost a full moon, that it turned out to be easy to keep entertained watching the sparkle of the moon on the water and the silhouettes of the islands sliding by.

The moon set about forty minutes before the beginning of astronomical twilight, giving me just a sliver of time to enjoy the full complement of stars in the night sky. It’s getting to the time of year when Orion is starting to come up just before the sun washes it out. I was on deck tidying up a couple of things when I saw the glint of a strange line out of the corner of my eye. It looked like the metal edge of our solar panel had caught the moonlight or something, but there was no moonlight and our solar panels aren’t that high. Maybe I somehow mistook Orion’s belt for a line.

Once I was finished with my little task, I took another look and saw that the thing I had seen was actually about twenty meteors streaming across the sky single file. Something pretty big had broken up and was burning up in the upper atmosphere. From its direction and speed, it didn’t seem like a satellite, but rather something the earth had plowed into as it moves along its orbital path. Most meteors that you see in the night sky are, on average, made up of meteoroids about the size of a grain of sand burning up over a few seconds in a fireball about a hundred meters across. The line I saw tonight must have been from a parent object quite a bit bigger, because I watched it for over a minute until it went over the horizon. The group didn’t spread apart and none of the elements seemed to burn out.

We arrived at the beginning of Talbot Bay’s unsurveyed section right at the beginning of civil twilight. Big cruise ships come into the bay, so we weren’t worried about finding a deep route in as much as being able to spot uncharted rocks along the way. There did turn out to be quite a few of those, but as long as we stayed in the middle and didn’t try to cut any corners, we were well away from them. The flood was starting just then and it helpfully doubled our speed for us while the eddies slewed us around.

Talbot Bay’s big draw is Horizontal Falls. Pretty much every private and commercial boat passing by makes the twelve-mile trip from the sea to the falls site. This is where a big part of the estuary fills and empty through two consecutive narrow gaps. Since this area has the second highest tide range in the world (behind the Bay of Fundy), a LOT of water pours through twice a day in each direction; at the biggest of the spring tides, the tidal range (height difference between low and high tide) can be 13m (that's over 42 feet). The water on either side of each gap, or fall, can have as much as a four-meter difference in height at peak flow. One enterprising company, Horizontal Falls Seaplane Adventures, has set up a moored complex of boats and pontoons as a center for tours of the area.

What wasn’t portrayed very well in our guides about Talbot Bay is that, apart from Horizontal Falls, it is the whole bay is just beautiful in its own right, The scenery is steep mountains and cliffs plunging into deep blue waters. It’s almost, but not exactly fjordlike. The trip in from Camden Sound had us each spinning around to take in one scene after another. When we got to the raft complex, we set anchor next to the tour boat who had passed us the night before on our way out of Montgomery Reef. Their trip had been two-and-a-half hours long. They slept here last night while we were sailing and their guests were just surfacing on deck after a hearty breakfast.

Once we were secure, I went for a nap to help take the edge off of my midnight wake-up. While I did that, Maryanne took the dinghy over to the complex to see what they had on offer. We’ve read mixed things about how accommodating this company can be. The gist of each seems to be that their paying package guests are understandably their priority, but they will be happy to include the boating crowd on an ala carte basis if they have any availability.

Visitors that fly in get to swim, feed the sharks, enjoy a meal and so much more at the friendly floating 'hotel' complex run by Horizontal Falls Adventures. We were extra lucky to be invited to join in some of that.

Well, they couldn’t have been nicer to Maryanne. She woke me with a bump as she arrived back at Begonia with the dinghy. Then she announced that I had just about enough time to get dressed before we were going back for lunch and a boat tour.

Not wanting to be late, we arrived fifteen minutes early and were folded into a shark feeding show for their guests. They even produced something for us to nibble on even though they don’t generally have surplus food flown in.

Ah, the flying. As you might have guessed from the Company’s name, Horizontal Falls Seaplane Adventures makes its living doing package tours from either Broome or the nearer town of Derby. Three times a day, a small fleet of floatplanes arrives with the next group. They have half-day, all day, and even a few overnight tours with accommodation in their floating hotel. As the planes arrived and departed again, it was tough not to feel a decent-sized pang of envy. It’s been a long time since I have been current in them, but my commercial license for both single, and multi-engine seaplanes is still valid. I have often told other pilots that training to fly seaplanes is just about the most fun you can get for your rating dollar. It really is a blast and I wish I had done a lot more of it. I’m sure most of their pilots are doing it more for their resumes than the pay, but I also have no doubt that when they are all flying Airbuses, they will remember their salad days flying to and from Horizontal Falls as the most fun of their careers. It seems like the perfect job for a guy like me, who doesn’t really need the a high paying gig, except that I’m not Australian, my visa is about to run out and, to be honest, after doing it for a glorious month, I’d probably want to quit and go sailing.

Boat Tour into Cyclone Creek with its amazing 'upthrust' geology showing beautiful layers in unusual angles - in this wonderfully protected creek.

Our boat tour started with a trip up Cyclone Creek, the main tributary to Talbot Bay and so named because it is walled in by a winding, steep gorge, which effectively protects from winds of every direction. If Horizontal Falls weren’t here, Cyclone Creek would be the area’s big draw. The Creek is long, with a narrow entrance, through which all of the water must flow. There are rapids, standing waves and eddies galore and the trip through feels like a flume ride. Cyclone Creek also has the most amazing geology, where the lifting and buckling of the multi-colored layers of rock make for some extremely rugged and sublimely beautiful terrain.

Then the boat took us to Horizontal Falls. Up until a bad accident a few weeks earlier, the boats used to go through the falls to the other side (to middle sea and inner sea). It is pretty well accepted that the event was just an unlucky one. The skipper of the boat was very experienced and the boats are purpose-built for the conditions. The one we were on had four 300hp outboard engines, which allowed the prop thrust to be directed anywhere the skipper wants. Nevertheless, their authorization to go through has been pulled by the relevant authorities for the time being. We had to settle for nosing into the flow and being buffeted around by the turbulence while the skipper gunned the engines here and there to keep us straight.

Things were quite lively up-close to the exiting water at the outer falls

The falls weren’t at maximum flow by then and I think all of us aboard were wishing he would just gun it and take us through. Perhaps the restriction is only for the narrower inner falls? No. It wasn’t. Still, it was impressive to see all of that water coming at us at twenty knots. The hardest thing was that all of the cruise ship operators have their own authorizations that still let them pass through. While we sat there in our 1200hp rocket, we watched several tour boat groups go through in big tinnies with single 50hp outboards. Just before we took our boat tour, Odyssey arrived and we made plans to meet up with some of the crew if the timing would work out. It turned out not to, but we were grateful for the offer.

Oh, if there was only something we could do to see past the gap of the falls. Maryanne sorted that out, too. The only way to get a ride on one of the company’s seaplanes is to buy the round-trip ticket to Broome, but they do sell helicopter tours. Since we had missed out doing this before in the Prince Regent and since we had that astronomical price in our heads as a benchmark, the rate we were given now seemed like a bargain we couldn’t afford NOT to take! After getting us all excited about it, they told us they couldn’t do it because the chopper needed the fuel it had to return paying guests to Derby later that day. Doh!

Twenty minutes later, they told us to be there at 9:30 the next morning for our flight. Woo hoo! Helicopters are even more fun than seaplanes.

Now I know what I said earlier about seaplanes being a blast to fly and all of that. That is still true. The problem is that while helicopters are at least twice as much fun to fly as seaplanes, learning to fly them costs at least four times as much. That is why I’ve experienced the challenge and enjoyment of flying them, but I am not rated, nor in any way competent in them. If I ever find myself with a whole lot of extra time and a whole, whole lot of extra money, helicopter school will be my first stop. I’ve already had lesson one: Be Nervous – helicopters are 100% moving parts.

Wonderful views from the Helicopter Tour

Our pilot, Mitch, was friendly as he gave us our safety briefing. I especially liked the part where he said to hold onto our phones and cameras firmly because THE DOORS HAVE BEEN REMOVED and if we drop them, we are never going to see them again. This just gets better and better!

Once we were strapped in, the raft complex dropped away and then fell behind us as we headed for Cyclone creek. Oh, we have got to get one of these! The rivers were at maximum flood and the turbulence was impressive to see. Then we followed the dry valley for a while before popping over the ridge high over Talbot Bay. Then we crossed over to Horizontal Falls. This was where it got good.

Only a fraction of Horizontal Fall Seaplane Adventure’s guests opt for the helicopter ride. Presumably because it’s an add-on, but I think mostly because they have all arrived by air and got to see the falls already when their flight did a circuit before landing.

It was so much better in the helicopter because Mitch could get right up to the falls, then get low and hover while Maryanne and I snapped away with nothing between our camera lenses and the falls but air (and maybe a few very tiny bugs). Magnificent! Ooh, we wanted to stay up there all day! As a consolation, Mitch took us over for a flyby of Begonia before returning to the helipad pontoon. We drew quite a crowd when we landed and I’m sure Maryanne’s and my smiling faces sold at least some of the flights we saw as we took Begonia down the bay for the night.

A night at one of the ancorages further out into the bay - so tranquil