Waiting for Wind - Second Beach, Great Keppel Island, Queensland, Australia
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Thu 6 May 2010 12:11
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23:09.560S 150:57.188E
April 29th we escaped the rolly Hummocky Island bay
and motorsailed (again with the light wind!) twenty miles northwest to Great
Keppel Island. Tired of watching dollars wash overboard with our
engine exhaust (diesel fuel is a hefty $1.35/liter in Australia - over
$5/gallon!), we elected to stay at Great Keppel for two nights
until sufficient wind blowing from the proper direction was predicted to
arrive. Storyteller, on the other hand, opted for the no wind
situation (who needs wind on a trawler with a 275 hp John Deere engine?)
and moved on ahead of us to Island Head Creek on the mainland 65 miles to the
northwest.
Picture 1 - Leeke's Beach. Correction - huge
Leeke's Beach. Huge because it's very long, and huge because the tidal
range is over twelve feet, so a walk at low tide means a beach that stretches on
forever before it reaches the water's edge. The little sand clumps in the
foreground are created by sand crabs when they dig their holes. From
a distance, the piles of sand clumps look like giant, lacey snow
flakes stretching down the beach on the mid-tide
line.
Pictures 2 and 3 - The enchanted eucalyptus
forest. Great Keppel Island has very few inhabitants, but quite a few
walking tracks and a couple of past-their-prime one-lane roads. We went
for a walk twice, both times through the same stretch of eucalyptus forest, and
both times were completely surrounded by hundreds of
butterflies. As we walked through the forest, groups of
butterflies would lift off from their perches on tree limbs and flutter across
our path a few feet in front of us. It was like our arrival was being
announced to the rest of forest by the waves of butterflies floating just in
front of our eyes. There were two varieties, one with wings like blue
stained-glass windows (picture 3), the other less lovely with large white spots
on each black wing. Given that the average life span of a butterfly is
only two weeks, we figure we were pretty lucky to see the
show.
Picture 4 - Our first tropical island sunset of the
season.
Anne
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