Pancake Creek

[Kyle]At 10pm, we pulled up the anchor for the last of what we hope is a long time and finally left Bundaberg with no intent of returning – at least not this year. {Maryanne: Bundaberg is a delight to visit, but we had definitely done all we could while waiting 6 weeks on our mail - especially since most of it was closed for Covid19 and we were doing our best to avoid human contact}

We had a long, slow, spinnaker-only sail to Pancake Creek, which is on the mainland at just about the same latitude as Lady Musgrave. We arrived just after high tide, when the place looks like any other big, wide river. As the water drops, the beaches grow and giant sand flats emerge from the river. The sand is sculpted into meandering waves by the water flow, leaving finger lakes and rivulets in the shallows.

Soldier Crabs and the beautiful sand flats - even more spectacular at sunset

Marching along these sands are armies of Soldier Crabs. Maryanne says they look like antelope on a mini Serengeti. Soldier Crabs are adorable. Their little, round bodies are cream and sky colored and are about the size of a cherry. Their first impulse when we approach is to run. If that doesn't work, they find a spot of soft sand and then corkscrew their way down until they are hidden. Their third choice is to ball up and freeze and hope we don't see them. If we do and pick one up, they are perfectly well behaved. They wait patiently to be put back down and seem to not even realize their little pincers could be used for defense.

On the next day's high tide, we went ashore and did the walk up to the Bustard Head lighthouse. It was nice as lighthouses go, gleaming white and sitting up on a picturesque clearing with a view of the coast.

The walk from the anchorage starts through some interesting lowland

The lighthouse, and the current volunteer caretakers (Denise & Terry)

We passed Terry and Denise, the volunteer caretakers. Since all tours had been suspended due to Covid-19, they were heading to the beach to fish for their dinner. They told us as much as they could about the lighthouse and it's colorful history without us actually being there to see what they were talking about. They also gave us the fantastic tip of continuing our walk past the lighthouse along the trail to the viewpoint on the other side.

From up there, we got incredible views of Jenny Lind Creek, a sandscape even more amazing than the one on the anchorage side. There's no way to get our boat in there, so this is how we get to see it.

Views of Jenny Lind Creek

The other cool thing was that the Blue Tiger butterflies were being especially abundant lately. Blue Tigers are thought to be the world's longest living butterfly genus. They are beautiful, but hard to get a good look at. When they are going, they are on a mission and don't stop for anything.

We finally got up close to some of the migrating Butterflies
The Blue Tiger (Tirumala hamata)

Well, it turns out they do actually stop at night. On our walk back to the boat, we finally got to get a good get a good look at them as hundreds covered the branches of their chosen trees, which seem to be the dry or dead ones. The effect was is if the forest had decided not to do autumn after all and just put the leaves back, except instead of green, they were pale blue.

We loved Pancake Creek and all our time there - ashore and on the flats

We spent another couple of days there, just for good measure. Low tide was coinciding nicely with sunset, so we were able to enjoy some rewarding walks on the flats under pink skies.

Bundaberg... Again!

[Kyle]Auugghh! Still no mail!

We decided to splurge on a couple of days in the marina. Mostly, it was for Maryanne's benefit. While we were hauled out the month before, we had replaced the foam on our mattress. After only a few weeks, it was compressed worse than the former, years-old one. Maryanne called the upholstery guy, who was really nice about it and said he would happily exchange it for a chunk of much better grade foam for free. The only thing was that she had to bring it in, hence the marina; managing the mattress in the dinghy seemed like a little too much to take on. {Maryanne: My husband is just so kind to me, so very considerate! ;-) }

While she was off doing that, I gave Begonia a good wash and then filled all of her tanks to the tippy top, just in case. We still weren't sure we would not be told to sail back to the U.S via a whole bunch of other countries that won't let us in.

It was the beginning of the new mail week. We went into the marina office and OH MY GOD, there was a package for us! This one was full of engine parts and a few other goodies. After leaving my mother's house in Arizona, that box took forty days and forty nights on it's epic journey to Bundaberg. It's been a long time since we have been so glad to see mail. We still have one more piece coming – a measly little letter from Florida, I would love to ditch it, but it has our new credit cards inside. It was sent even before Mom's. {The main parcel was sent five day delivery and took about 6.5 weeks to arrive, the envelope was worse, and for some reason went from Florida to Puerto Rico where it hung out for a while, then back to Miami and then Los Angeles for another vacation before it even got to Australia - following the tracking was painful!}

We also found out that day that our change of visa had been approved. It expires in five months, rather than the ten we applied for, but at least we know we won't get told to leave on short notice.

We couldn't take another week anchored off of the marina, so we decided to go up the river to the downtown area for a change of scenery. The bug situation there is a bit milder and there is much more to look at there, with all of the bridges and the buildings and such.

We spent a couple of rainy days aboard and then went ashore to run some errands. Our timing was not so good. The government had just eased a few of the Covid-19 restrictions about going out. This seems to have made everybody decide that the crisis is over now and we can all go back to the way it was before. Traffic was terrible and there was no possible way to keep a meter and a half away from anybody in the grocery stores.

On the plus side, we did find a decent Mexican restaurant, where we were able to get takeout in celebration of Cinco de Mayo.

We also got to visit the shop that refurbished one of our alternators while we were in the yard. The alternator worked beautifully two times and then went back to its old ways. I removed it and took it in. The Manager bench tested it and determined that it was working great. Well, that's good, I suppose, but now we apparently have some sort of other problem. This guy knew his stuff, though, and talked me through everything I needed to know to trace down the problem. The rest of the day on the boat was grubby, frustrating and time consuming, but I'm sure the guy's advice made it less than half as bad as it would have been, chasing one annoying dead end after another.

Still there were kangaroos to entertain us on our regular walks
And we were impressed to see the recent change to all the pedestrian cross-walk signals.

Before the week ran out, we returned to the marina to do a load of laundry and have one last check on the mail. The tracking said it had fallen down a well in Sydney, so we weren't expecting much. Imagine our shock and amazement when it turned out to be there! Whoo hoo!! We are outa here!

Return to Lady Musgrave

[Kyle]When Friday came and we realized there would be no more mail until the next Tuesday, we decided to get a change of scenery for a few days. We left at 2am for the long sail back to Lady Musgrave Island.

{Maryanne: On our last visit we hadn't gone ashore at the island (we'd anchored much further out). It was time to fill in those gaps!}

This time, we picked up a mooring much closer to the island so that we would be able to go ashore instead of just snorkeling. The very tail end of the turtle hatching season was still happening and we were hoping we would get to see a few of the little hatchlings making their first trip to the sea.

We went ashore, where we found lots of birds and a few overgrown park signs, but no sign of turtle hatchlings other than a few fresh tracks in the sand {we were right at the very end of the season, and hoping for a few stragglers}. Knowing they preferred to make the dangerous trip under cover of darkness, we went ashore for the pre-dawn high tide. No luck.

Ashore at Lady Musgrave Island. The last two pictures are mutton bird nests (some still had large chicks) and baby turtle tracks

We went back for a nap and spent the remainder of the day snorkeling, where we found lots of adult turtles, including a few who even followed us around and let us rub their shells.

Snorkelling - we hit 3 different areas that we hadn't snorkelled on our previous visit

We went back to the beach again at sunset and stayed until well after the end of astronomical twilight. We sat on the sand in the area where we had seen the most tracks and watched the stars come out. Even after the birds had long stopped their nightly chatter, there was still no sign of any turtles. We must have missed the season.

Holding out hope to see turtles - and enjoying sunsets and sunrises

Still, it was great to be the only two people on the island, sitting on the beach watching the stars and not being bitten.

That bug thing really made a difference. Snorkeling was nice, walking on the beach looking at the antics of the birds was nice, but knowing we would not be getting any itchy bites to screw up our sleep was amazing! We left the hatches and doors open the whole time we were there, except for a few brief rain showers, just because we could. No bugs is really one of my favorite things about being way out to sea. They can just ruin a nice spot.

There were PLENTY of birds to see on the island too

We snorkeled, walked on the beach, aired the boat out and gave her several good cleans. Then the wind shifted to the north, which would be our only hope of getting back to Bundaberg in one day, so off we went, back to the land of bugs and (hopefully) mail.

Thinking of going yourself? We found the following useful to research and download beforehand (no internet/cell phone signal at the island)

• Coordinates and details regarding the public mooring balls are available at GBRMPA - note - Note Lady Musgrave is part of the Capricorn/Bunker Group of islands)
• Dive site maps and info available at LadyMusgraveExperience.com.au
• Dive sites may also be listed at WannaDive.Net