Silver Gull Creek (The Kimberley)

[Kyle]Mostly on the advice of Brad and Rae from Ulysses Blue, we decided to make Silver Gull Creek our next stop. The big draw here is an encampment that was abandoned a few years ago. It was occupied (squatted according to one report) for several years by a cruising couple (the same ones who spent the wet season in Sampson Inlet) who seemed to have been setting it up as a resort. For a long time, sailors would rave about the warm welcome they always received when visiting. It also has some rare luxuries like showers and a tank used as a pool. Now, the site is slowly falling into dereliction, although it’s clear that a few regular visitors have been doing some maintenance.

The journey via Koonan Island and the narrow 'Canal' between the island and the mainland through to Yampi Sound. (with only a little bit of a mine to hinder the views).

In Silver Gull Creek, the camp is only accessible for larger boats at the top two-thirds of the tide. That was long gone by the time we arrived at the outer anchorage, where we found a veritable crowd (as in three other boats). We were nearest to Magnus and Wendy on Nutshell, their beautiful Ketch. They seemed very nice as we chatted to them over the rails about how much scope they had out and where they recommended we anchor. They told us they would meet us at the camp tomorrow and we would talk more then.

From anchor just outside Silver Gull Creek

The next day, we were the first to head up the creek. With the flood helping us, we meandered along, poking into every cove and tributary we could find. By the time we got to the camp, a tinny with a family of four had beaten us to it. Magnus was also there, already filling water jugs from a hose dangling from a rusty careening stand. We decided to give them all some time to themselves and proceeded up the river to the end on Magnus’ recommendation to see more of the rocky gorge. Unlike the rivers to the east, the sediment layers here are all steeply canted, which makes for some really rugged terrain. Travelling by boat would be the only way to go any distance in this country.

We arrived back at the camp just as the tinny family were packing up. While Maryanne filled buckets at the hose for some frontier-style laundering, I headed up to the camp for a soak. The very best thing here is an old water tank that is converted to a covered pool, complete with a window cut out at just the right height to make an infinity-pool style drain, where you can sit in the shade on plastic chairs and enjoy a beverage of your choice. The best part is that the tank and the hose below at the careening stand are fed from an artesian spring that dispenses beautiful, crystal-clear water. The tank inlet is run overland through black pipe, which heats the water before discharging it as a waterfall into the top of the tank.

Once I had oriented myself and found a dry place to put our stuff, I arrived dripping at the dinghy. Maryanne had just paddled over from the hose and was just starting the laundry. She thought I had come to help.

I had not. I came to take over while she checked out the tank. When I was done with the agitate and rinse cycles, I went back up to join her and relax a bit with my own beverage. We both thought that since there were so many boats in the anchorage, and since it was almost high tide, that the hot tub would be full, but it turned out to be just us.

Relaxing in the 'infinity pool' felt quite the luxury

As we were getting ready to return to Begonia to hang up our clean laundry, Nutshell arrived at the hose to fill their tank. The tide wasn’t quite high enough yet for them to tie up to the careening poles, so they invited us aboard for tea. We had just made it past introductions by the time the water was deep enough for them. Magnus had said that he was interested in Athenas, but Wendy had never seen one, so we invited them over for a tour later and left them to our task.

Once our laundry was flapping in the afternoon breeze, they came over to have a look. Without the pressure of worrying about the tide, we were able to have a better conversation. Since they have spent more time cruising the Kimberley than we have, we asked them about the thing that had really been weighing on our minds, resupplying in Broome.

Broome is supposed to be a favorite for tourists. It also has a reputation for being a huge hassle for boaters trying to provision. The fuel pier there is sharp and rusty, is intended for bigger ships and they apparently do not like little boats turning up asking for bathtub-toy sized quantities. The tides are big at the beach, which makes for either a long dinghy ride to shore or a short dinghy ride to the end of a long, muddy walk to the high tide line. Then it is still necessary to get a ride into town for whatever food, fuel or water you may need.

When we asked Wendy and Magnus about all of this, they effectively convinced us to do as little boating stuff as possible in Broome so that we could concentrate on the more fun tourist stuff. To that end, they convinced us we would have a much more pleasant time filling our water from the hose at the camp in Silver Gull Creek than we would schlepping water jugs back and forth to the beach in Broome before the falling tide strands us in the mud. Plus, they said, Silver Gull’s spring water tastes way better than Broome’s tap water. Good point. We decided to shift one of our Broome days and stay in Silver Gull tomorrow to fill up.

Getting water is an interesting challenge given the tides (the frame is submerged at very high tides); luckily we could drive Begonia right up to it at higher tides. Notice the high tide marks on the rocks high above the group gathering oysters at low-ish tide as a reference

Since we draw less than Nutshell, we were able to tie up to the careening stand earlier than Nutshell did. Arriving with us were two men from the barge in adjacent Dogleg Creek. They sell fuel there at a special remote locations markup, but after our conversation with Magnus and Wendy, they convinced us it was a bargain compared to the hassle of taking fuel jugs into town in Broome. The guys were filling their water cooler jugs there and they said we would be welcome anytime at the barge (We had read that you need to pre-arrange well in advance). Once they had their water and left, we gave Begonia’s decks a good rinse of all of the accumulated salt buildup from the last couple of months. Then we filled our tanks, plus all of our jugs and buckets. By the time we were on our last one, the tide was just coming to the highest of the spring tides for the month. The rusty careening stand was now getting so close to the water that our fenders were floating off. The wind was pushing us onto the stand and it was looking like a boathook wasn’t going to be enough to fend us off. I had to start the engines and work the gears to keep us away from the metal, but close enough to use the hose. Those last few minutes were a real nail-biter.

Once we had the water, we motored the short distance to Dogleg Creek, the next bay over, for some fuel. The guys from the water hose were there. They welcomed us warmly, treating us like we were already old friends.

The fuel they barge in each season is mostly for commercial fishing and the powerboat crowd, although they do sell quite a bit to Darwin-based sailboats who buy their return fuel at Dogleg rather than go the extra hundred miles to Broome. We normally carry two spare jerrycans in our cockpit locker next to our fuel tank. For the Kimberley, we had lashed three more on deck, knowing we would be motoring a lot. We now had four empties, two of which we needed filled to allow us to leave Broome as if we had topped up normally there. Relatively speaking, when I produced the two jerrycans for filling, they might as well have been Zippo lighters. I may have even heard a little chuckle.

About halfway through the last jug, Maryanne returned from the cabin saying that we didn’t have as much cash as we had thought (what’s cash?) and we needed to stop pumping. We had stopped in time, but Maryanne had previously prefaced her search for bills by saying that we wanted to make sure we had enough left over for a couple of ice creams, which we might not have done now. When I went in to pay the bill, I handed over our wad of cash. The guy counted it, peeled off a fiver and handed it back to me along with two ice cream bars. I never saw their price sheet for the ice cream bars, but I have a feeling he rounded way down on those. Unless, of course, their business model is to entice people in with super-cheap ice cream and then make it back on the hundreds of liters of fuel they sell when people realize they also need that, too.

A diversion to Dog Leg Creek to get some fuel (pricey but easy)

When we mentioned that we wanted to anchor in Dogleg Creek, rather than go back to the more picturesque Silver Gull so that we could make a quicker getaway in the morning, they offered us the use of one of their three empty barge moorings. We tried tying up to what looked like the best one, but it was high and rusty and there was no way to tie up to it without risking some kind of damage, so we left and anchored near the mouth of the creek. Then, just as Maryanne was starting to prepare dinner, the guys showed up in a skiff. They were on their way to the pub at Cockatoo Island, but they had brought us a Red Snapper they had just caught (and gutted, boned and filleted). What timing! That should bulk up our meal nicely. Thanks, guys!

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

Montgomery Reef (The Kimberley)

[Kyle]The tides in Camden Sound range from about four meters at neaps, near the first and last quarter moon, to eleven meters at full and new moon springs. Montgomery Reef, which covers an area of about seventy square miles, covers and uncovers with these huge tides twice a day. Every day at low tide, massive amounts of water stream off of the reef at the edges. Viewing this phenomenon is a pretty big tourist draw. Every cruise ship, big or small, that goes by makes a point of stopping in for a look.

We had had a bit of a faster than expected sail from Hall Point and arrived at the southeast corner of Montgomery Reef just after high tide. There wasn’t much to see then except for a few low islands in the middle distance and the cliffs of the mainland near the horizon. We anchored in an uncomfortable swell and waited.

About an hour later, two small cruise ships that we had seen before, Odyssey and Kimberley Pearl, showed up on our AIS approaching from the southeast. Their ETAs appeared to be about when we planned to start to get moving again.

By the time they both arrived, the wind was gone, the tide was dropping rapidly and the sea was calming down nicely. Odyssey arrived first, and then they anchored to load up their guests in Homer, their big tender. Kimberley Pearl continued on into The Gutter, a gap in the reef where the water cascading off of the top can be from both sides. That was nice for us because we could follow their AIS target along the chart, which inaccurately displays the edge of the reef and has the rest as a big blank area marked ‘unsurveyed’. Their track approximated the chart, but definitely crossed areas depicted as dry. It was good to know where the water really was.

The tides flow so fast and so much water is trying to move, that the levels are not the same everywhere and small waterfalls emerge to help with the flow between high and low tide

We followed them in by about half an hour, so they were just exiting the channel as we entered. With the day’s tide range only at about five meters, it wasn’t too dramatic. The reef is generally billed as a spectacle. Maryanne observed that it would probably be more accurate to call it a curiosity. The top of the reef was at just about eye level while sitting at our helm. Along the brown walls of the reef, there are regular low spots where the water on top collects and forms babbling brooks that pour into the channel. Along the banks, there were lots of shore birds picking their way along and in the gutter itself, we passed by too many turtles to count.

It's a remote but popular spot on the Kimberley circuit

By sunset, the reef had covered again and all of the tour boats were heading for the horizon. We got lucky because the forecast called for unusually light winds out of the west for the night. Typically, the anchorage here is untenable at high tide, but in light winds, the swell is tolerable. Because of that, we stayed as the only boat so that we could see the next day’s bigger seven-meter drop before moving on.

The evening high tide had just a gentle swell and the early morning low was flat as we had reef on one side and a protective sandbar on the other. Best of all, way out here there were no bugs. For the first time in a while, we slept with all of the doors and hatches open.

The morning wind arrived about the same time the sandbar in the same direction submerged. Then the motion shook us awake. Time for another day! Get up! Apart from being a little bouncy, it was nice to have enough time to take the rest of the morning slowly.

About an hour after the sandbar reappeared again, we lifted anchor for another trip inside The Gutter. This time, the wind was going to be too strong to stay anchored after we were done, so after visiting the Gutter, we started the overnight sail to Talbot Bay. This was a bit annoying because Talbot Bay isn’t that far away and could have easily been done as a day sail, but the timing of the winds and tides were all wrong for that. Instead, we were going to have to go really slowly so as not to arrive at Talbot Bay’s big unsurveyed zone before daylight.

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