Gladstone/Pancake Creek

[Kyle]We left Long Beach at Keppel Island way before anyone else. Thunderstorms were passing through the area, with lots of rain and lightning. We knew it wasn’t going to stop completely, so we left at the first lull, when the rain reduced to a drizzle.

Our sail was not ideal. Mostly, I sat out in the rain getting drenched while Maryanne hunkered down in the dry cabin. This was my fault. She offered to take over, but I saw no point in both of us getting soaked, so I stayed at the helm taking the brunt of it.

Another hitchhiker aboard for the passage,
we were anchored well before sunset at Gladstone North

After a whole day of this, we finally pulled into the "North Gladstone" anchorage in the lee of Rat Island. This place may have been more interesting had we gone ashore to the little village, but the weather wasn’t great and we were planning on leaving early in the morning, so we just used it as a brief rest stop.

We had the anchor up the next morning in the darkness before 4am. I was very careful to stay dead center on the range markings as we exited at low tide. Once the depth sounder started reading double-digits, we turned southeast through the Gladstone ship anchorage.

Passing through the 'parked' bigger ships

Due to COVID, the place is busier than usual as ship after ship runs out their quarantine clock before being allowed to unload. Each one made for a nice indicator of our progress as we left them behind – way better than some landmarks on the barely visible shore in the distance.

Once the ships had receded to a few ship bridges poking over the horizon, we arrived at Pancake Creek. This is one of our favorite spots along this coast. Last time we were here, though, the place was sparsely populated. Now, all of the mooring balls were full and most of the remaining anchoring space was taken. We picked our way as far as we dared into the shallow water beyond all of them and found a relatively private spot.

It rained and blew hard for the next two days, which effectively kept us aboard. During the height of one storm, I made a point of going out on deck to enjoy it. The cold rain was a shock initially as I soaped up, but I was soon enjoying the torrent as it rinsed me squeaky clean and then some. All of the salt and dirty footprints were washed from the decks. All of the rigging aloft finally got the good fresh water rinse our rigger told us to do each time we take the boat out. It was marvelous. I re-entered the cabin with pruny skin that squeaked when I rubbed it.

We stayed aboard during some miserable weather

After the weather cleared up a bit, Maryanne and I headed ashore for the hike to the Bustard Head Lighthouse and beyond. Last time we visited (in May of 2020), the place was closed due to COVID, but now, we could finally get the tour.

We arrived early enough that we decided to let the caretakers have some more time, so we continued on to Jenny Lind Creek. We had stopped short of descending all of the way back to sea level last time, but this time, we made the trek. It was beautiful down there, with undulating sand flats and lots of multi-colored rock formations on which to climb.

The walk from Pancake Creek to the beautiful meandering Jenny Lind Creek

When we arrived back at the lighthouse complex, we were given a tour of the old caretaker’s cottage and allowed up to the top of the lighthouse where we enjoyed the views from the railing just below the lens. Then a big tour group arrived on one of the amphibious tourist transports and we took our leave for the walk back to the dinghy.

Finally Inside the lighthouse and museum!
All presented with a great sense of humor (e.g. A bookshelf includes the kama-sutra among serious boating tomes, ladies underwear is ready to be ironed, and little discoveries await throughout)

The amphibious LARC does tours from the nearby town of 1770
We saw them coming and squeezed in our tour just before the group made it to the lighthouse

And back to enjoy Pancake creek at low tide

Great Keppel Island

[Kyle]From Pearl Bay, we had a long sail down the coast to Great Keppel Island (Known as GKI). After almost a week of strong south-easterlies, there was supposed to finally be enough north in the wind that we could do the bulk of the trip without having to tack. It worked out that way, for the most part, but the wind was still twenty to thirty degrees more ahead of us than the forecasts predicted. This meant that instead of sailing the direct course on a fast beam reach, we ended up close hauled, riding every wind shift and pinching as hard as we could into the wind to get around every point. It was a real nail-biter. We knew that if we had to tack, we would probably lose half an hour, which our ETA was looking like we couldn’t really afford.

There was a LOT of algae patches in the water that we've been seeing for weeks along this stretch of coast. At first I'd thought it was coral spawn, but since it's been around so long, that is clearly not the case

The wind shifted just enough to get us around the point, then the next, then the next. We made it to the big bay at Long Beach with just enough time to tidy Begonia up and have dinner before the falling darkness and our early start made our eyelids too heavy to keep open.

By the next sunrise, we’d had a full night’s sleep and were hankering for a bit of walking around. The last time we were here (back in May of 2020, we were on the completely opposite side of the island at Svendson's Beach. This time we were able to spend a whole day going up and down the island’s trails without intersecting any of the one’s we had done last time. Thus, it seemed like we were visiting a whole new island.

The COVID pandemic was in its second month back when we last visited and all of the commercial interests on the island were then shut tight. Now, things in Queensland are pretty much back to normal, so we actually had a choice of places in which to spend our lunch money. We had lunch at the resort, which was good, but it was also really busy. Most of the crowd seemed to be going for a douchey Jersey Shore vibe, which killed any motivation to linger over dessert. Instead, we went to the ‘other’ place for ice cream bars. It had a much more laid-back Polynesian atmosphere. We both immediately wished that we had held out and eaten there. Oh, Well.

Aside from finding the trash dump of the island, the walk was pleasant and with plenty of great views

A few more ups and downs got us back to Long Beach, while helping us to work off our lunch. On the way, we got a text from Jan and Richard aboard Morpheus, saying they were anchored right behind us. We have known them for years, but we always seem to be leapfrogging each other. Rare have been the days when we actually get to see each other in person. They said they were leaving tomorrow, so we decided not to risk going home and instead headed straight to Morpheus from the beach for a catch-up. Their long-term plans have changed and now they are looking at importing Morpheus to Australia so that they can either sell it or possibly just use it as a southern hemisphere vacation home (they are British).

When Jan was telling the story, I couldn’t help but notice that there was something familiar about the boat behind her. I thought about it for a minute and then realized what it was: It was the Screamers! There was not actually any screaming going on at the moment, which was strange (good). How did they get here? Keppel is several days of sailing from Keswick and the weather most of the time has not been nearly as good as it was the night they headed off at sunset to find a better anchorage. There’s NO way I would have imagined them getting this far. Perhaps the non-screaming was coming from the new owners on their new boat, enjoying their delivery cruise home. The mystery deepens…

Pearl Bay – Again!

[Kyle]Darren had done an amazing job (progressing with the estate management) in exhausting and frustrating conditions, and finished all he could in Arizona . He was finally returning home to California, so we figured it was safe for us to be away from the internet ourselves for a few days. We had one day of light northerlies before reinforced trade winds were supposed to park over the area for a week. It was a good time to leave Marble Island and head as far south as we could in daylight, which in this case, turned out to be Pearl Bay on the mainland .

Light wind sailing to Pearl Bay

We had anchored here before last year on the way north (back in May of 2020). Pearl Bay is very pretty, with the eastern end of the bay protected by the pine-topped Hervey Islands. However, it also has crocs and murky water, so swimming is out. All of the adjacent land is a military training area, so going ashore is not permitted, and sometimes even anchoring there is not allowed as they practice blowing things up. There is also no cellular service, so there really is nothing to do but enjoy the view and wait for the weather. There are lots of big turtles in the bay, though. They would regularly surface right next to the boat to have a look at us. As soon as we would move, they would always startle and dive away.

We beat the approaching weather there. When we arrived, there was one monohull already anchored. They were just lifting their dinghy in preparation for the coming winds. Two hours later, the wind started gusting and the increasing swell was coming around the point. We started to roll around a lot, but that poor monohull was all over the place. At first light the next morning, they put out a second anchor to hold them bow to the swell, which made them more stable than we were.

Once they finished re-anchoring, a solo sailor on a beat-up looking trimaran appeared. It took us a while to figure out what he was doing as he seemed to be sailing by, tacking with just his jib into big winds and seas. Why on earth would anyone want to be going that direction in this weather? For a while, he seemed to be having trouble avoiding the rocks at the entrance. Then he tacked and headed straight at the monohull, occasionally stalling when blanketed by the cliffs. We guessed he had no engine.

He rounded up next to the monohull. We thought he was going to drop his anchor there, but a gust caught him and he sped for us, just keeping a boat width from the beach. Before he got that far, another lull stopped him, so he decided to roll up the jib and throw out the anchor. We were relieved. We didn’t trust him not to drag and he didn’t look like he had insurance.

During low tide at Pearl Bay, the swell subdues to a gentle roll. We all came out on deck for a bit to enjoy it and gave each other a wave. When the water came back up, we were all getting thrown around quite a bit, even the monohull with their bridle.

When the morning high tide rolled us out of bed, so to speak, I went outside and saw the tri heading north, back the way he came when he arrived. Perhaps he was trying to make his way down the coast, thought this bay would be more protected, realized it wasn’t and then retreated a bit. Perhaps we’ll see him out there again when the weather improves and all of the boats start going south again.

On our last full day in Pearl Bay, we lowered the dinghy and had an extended tour of the Hervey Islands. There was still a fairly big swell outside of the islands. When combined with the fast currents, it made for some alarmingly rough seas on both their windward sides and in the channels in between. There would be no circumnavigations today. We stuck to poking around the inlets on the protected side.

A dinghy tour around the Hervey Islands

When we were done, we landed the dinghy on the beach and walked as far as we could below the high tide line. Going ashore according to our cruising guide is not allowed, but everyone told us it is tolerated as long as you stick to the beach. Closer inspection of the ‘No Entry’ signs for the military area verified our interpretation that we would be allowed ashore as long as we stayed on the beach and didn’t go inland. It was good to get off of the boat and stretch our legs a bit.

A walk at low tide

Back at Begonia, preparing for the next morning’s departure, we were out turtle spotting. Maryanne noticed that one of our turtles was especially big and gray and smooth. She'd spotted a dugong! Then we saw the calf swimming next to her. Our first Australian dugongs!