Croc Alert? - Escape River, Queensland, Australia

Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Wed 21 Jul 2010 05:19
10:59.201S  142:39.718E
 
June 17th.  Sailing frenzy day 5.  10 hours, 75 miles  Perfect wind.  Flat water.  Sorry for the repetition, but we feel the need to duly record such marvelous sailing conditions since they don't happen often and rarely happen in succession. 
 
Picture 1 - Harmonie passing American boat Priscilla this time.  Still no racing going on, just a bit of speed on our part (and a longer waterline, which might have something to do with it).
 
We might have passed the English catamaran Camille as well, but just as we were pulling out more sail to squeeze past them at the entrance to the Escape River, one of Camille's lines jammed and they were forced to jibe to port in front of us in order to head back out to sea and sort out the line.  We veered to starboard and whizzed past them, but the thrill of the pseudo-race was gone by then.  Passing an impaired boat is like passing a 1983 VW diesel Rabbit going up a hill in a Porsche.  Where's the fun in that?
 
Picture 2 -  Harmonie anchored near the mangroves as seen from Storyteller's fly deck where John and Ray were relaxing at dusk.
Photo by Helen.
 
That night, anchored well up the river where the water was eerily still, we both saw the shadow of something big gliding by - water ripples radiating out from its bulk.  A croc!  Well, maybe.  We couldn't really tell.  The night was still and dark and we didn't have a flashlight handy to shine into the eyes of the creature.  If we did, we might have seen scary red croc eyes reflected back at us.  Still not sure what we did or didn't see, but not wanting to take any chances, I made Don put the screen panels in the companionway, and then stared intently at our hatches, deciding the stainless steel bars Don installed before we left home to keep thieves at bay would also make effective croc barriers.  The Australian saltwater crocodile is the largest reptile in the world, so the possibility of one sliding through a 6"x18" slot in one of our hatches is slim.  However, at the time, the thought of a croc boarding our boat using the stern stairs, like the sea lions in the Galapagos, did seem plausible.  As we watched our two allotted episodes of Sex and the City after dinner, we (mostly I) kept one ear tuned to abnormal  noises coming from the stern.  I'm not exactly sure what a croc boarding would sound like, but had it happened, I'm certain we would have known what it was in a jiffy.  In the end, we went to bed and woke up to another sunny day after a completely uneventful croc-free night.  Looking back at the whole episode now, after having seen several crocs in action in the wetlands south of Darwin, we realize that a croc would have to be one crazed and unusually flexible dude to get himself up on our boat.  So, as the Aussies love to say, 'no worries!' unplanned croc boarding shouldn't be an issue.
 
Picture 3 -  Captain Cook's long lost anchor.  If not his, then someone else's from a similar bygone era.  The thing wrapped itself up in our anchor chain and didn't want to let go.  Using a boat hook and line, Don wrestled with the critter-encrusted old-fashioned fisherman's anchor until it finally gave up with a sigh of putrid, rotting air and dropped back into the water where it was free to tangle itself into the next unsuspecting sailor's anchor chain.  We found out later that it attached itself to another boat's anchor chain the following week.  Maybe the rotting thing is just lonely and wants to make new boat friends?
 
Anne

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