Cooktown
Marita3
Mark & Helen Syrett
Mon 10 Sep 2012 07:02
A brisk sail from Low Islets leaving at 0600 and arriving at about 1615. The pilot book described the Cooktown anchorage in heavy trade winds as ''an anchored craft will sail around her anchor, heel to gusts, jerk upright to lulls and at all times be a danger to herself and other boats when conditions are crowded''. That is exactly what happened added to which Camelot grounded in the night and left at 0600 in disgust after having some difficulty in getting off the sand bank even though it was about high water. We were in slightly deeper water and after some detailed calculations and discussion we reckoned that we would have sufficient water at 1100 when the tide would be lowest. We decided to stay so that we could go ashore and see Cooktown. At 1000 we bumped the bottom so we quickly moved to deeper water and anchored in the main channel in the buoyed off large ship turning area---we reckoned that as it was Sunday we would not be asked to move.
Cooktown is where Captain James Cook bought the Endeavour in 1770 to be beached for repairs after she hit a reef (now called Endeavour Reef)and was holed in the middle of the night. The town was later a gold rush town in the late nineteen eighties, with wide streets, a population of about 30,000 with 94 licensed purveyors of booze and 163 brothels and an active harbour. It is now a rather sad place, house and buildings demolished and people gone. Even the railway was removed in the 1950's and the public wharf rotted away in the 1970's and was never replaced. It's claim to fame, and name, is because of James Cook and there is a memorial statue and a museum. The museum is on the site of the old Cathedral (3 pastors) which later became a convent and now after major reconstruction a museum---opened by the Queen in 1970. The Endeavour was beached below the town where there are now signs saying ''Danger--Crocodiles''.
An interesting place but not somewhere to linger at anchor!
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