Sharks! - Horseshoe Bay, Magnetic Island, Queensland, Australia
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Sat 29 May 2010 07:32
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19:06.752S 146:51.453E
I thought that might get your attention. No,
we didn't get attacked by one, nor did we hear about anyone else losing a limb
to one, but we did catch two on our way from Cape Upstart to Magnetic
Island on Thursday (5/27/2010). The upsetting thing is that we were really
hoping for a mahi-mahi. That, and we lost two precious fake squid
lures and the fancy, heavy-duty double hooks hidden within them. One of
the fake squid lures was Don's favorite - a white one that brought in a number
of triple-flip, double-twisting Pacific mahi-mahi last season. Very
sad. The trouble was, Don had no desire to stick his hand into the giant
mouths of the sharks to extricate the hooks and lures firmly lodged in
there. So, two, three-foot, unidentified shark objects are now swimming
around the North Queensland coast with quite attractive fake squid lures
sticking out of their mouths. Can't be too comfortable for
them. However, all of their shark friends might be jealous, thinking that
their buddies have started a new piercing trend. Why not? They've
seen humans showing off jewels in their belly buttons, eyebrows and other
unmentionable parts, so why not a shark with a fake squid piercing in its
cheek? Quite fashionable, really.
Picture 1 - Shark #2. If I could attach an audio file to this picture I
would. The music I have in mind is from the movie Jaws so you can at least
hum a few bars while you gaze upon the mass of this creature. Actually,
this picture makes the shark look a whole lot more impressive than it really was
(as you'll see in picture #2).
Picture 2 - Same shark, different angle.
Still impressive, but not as impressive as above. It's a good view of its
new fake squid piercing though. We had a good internet signal in our
Magnetic Island anchorage so I tried to determine what type of shark this is,
but to no avail. Definitely a smaller shark, with only a few teeth.
Maybe a baby shark? Or teenage shark? If so, at least their
parents will understand the piercings and just chalk them up to the rebellion
stage all teenagers go through.
Picture 3 - Cape Cleveland.
Another lovely cape on the mainland. This time with another sailboat
in view doing the motorsailing thing, just as we were doing at the
time. Thursday was a beautiful day, but had very little useful
wind. We sailed for only about one hour out of
the 12 it took us to get from Cape Upstart to Magnetic Island,
a 70 mile trip. We motorsailed with the main up, the main and
mizzen, the main, mizzen and head sail, the main, mizzen, head sail and mizzen
staysail, and various other combinations of the same four sails. At most
we gained a pitiful knot and a half over using the engine alone, so as the Brits
would say, it was a lot of mucking about for little gain. Oh well, it's
not like we had a lot of other things to do while plowing through flat water on
a beautiful day.
Picture 4 - We arrived in Horseshoe Bay on
Magnetic Island just as the sun was setting at 6pm and the full moon was
rising. There were quite a few boats there as you can see. Magnetic
Island is only a short ten miles away from Townsville on the mainland, which is
the second largest city in Queensland, so the island gets a lot of boat
traffic.
Picture 5 - Annette enjoying a spot in the shade
during a walk on Magnetic Island. Half of Magnetic Island is a national
park with several walking trails throughout. Australia really does a nice
job with their national parks. Certainly from a boater's point of view,
the national park islands are marvelous since they are usually uninhabited, but
filled with lots of wildlife and good walking trails. Yesterday (Friday,
5/28), while Don toiled half bent over in the engine room sorting out the fresh
water pump and various other exciting engine room related tasks, the rest of us
(John, Sue, Annette, Tony and I) went on a semi-strenuous walk to the next
bay and back, and followed that up with a giant Mexican lunch complete with
margaritas and tequila-lime tart at one of the small restaurants in the tiny
town at the head of Horseshoe Bay. A good trade-off, I
think. A day in the engine room for Don and a walk with extended lunch for
me.
Picture 6 - Ahhh....the elusive kookaburra.
Finally, a decent picture. Isn't it cute??
We stayed a pleasant two nights at Magnetic Island
and are now headed 35 miles further north to Orpheus, another national park
island. Technically we are island hopping again, but with more of a
purpose and not so much lollygagging as we did in the Whitsundays. We plan
to reach Cairns, the next major milestone and last major town on our
quest to Darwin, next Thursday or Friday, but still have a good 140 miles to go
to get there. Onward and upward we go. The good news is we can now
see the big dipper in the northern sky at night. We've spent a long time
staring at the southern cross, so seeing the trusty 'ole big dipper hanging up
there to the north is very comforting for us northern hemisphere folks. It
won't be too much longer before we are crossing back over that big, bold, red
line and into the land of the northern hemisphere where everyone stands
right side up and the water twirls down the toilet in the proper
direction.
Anne
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