Lizard Island

'Sarf & West mate, Sarf & West'
Pete Bernfeld
Fri 14 Jun 2013 10:09
Mrs Watson's Bay, Lizard Island
14:39.67S 145:27.16E
Arrived 09/06/13

This blog entry courtesy of Calypso

A very wet and windy trip up from Port Douglas. I pulled the anchor up at 0800 and motored upriver to the refuelling jetty. It was a bit restricted to manoeuvre into and I really felt the lack of the second engine for the first time but by using a combination of wind, tide and luck I wound up alongside with no damage or any really near 'near misses'.

By 0920 I was fuelled and watered plus fifty litres of fuel in cans and sixty-five litres of spare water, so away we went. Clear of the Port Douglas reef I set course for Lizard Island at 0950. The forecast was the usual 25-30kts of wind (don't forget those gusts which may be 40% stronger and most likely were!) with occasional showers. The wind bit was correct although I think the rest of the forecast should have said 'occasionally it will stop raining!' To add to the enjoyment Pertwee (the autohelm) couldn't cope with the conditions and shortly after lunch went into a 14 hour sulk, finally condescending to lend a hand at about 0430 the next morning. I can't say that conditions had markedly improved or that I had really changed the sail trim so I put it down to a form of electronic militancy. In the end I promised never to shout at him again and not take him for granted and that seemed to do the trick.

During daylight hours, up to abeam Hope Island (adjacent to Cairns reef), I was able to hug the coast and stay more or less out of the shipping lanes. I also though that I might enjoy some of the scenery mentioned in the Lucas cruising guide. Apparently the rain forested hills sweep majestically down to the sea. Well I saw the sea and I saw the rain. There was an occasional glimpse of forest but it was more misty than majestic. With night I had to move offshore and into the shipping lanes but luckily I only saw one other ship. There may have been others but I didn't hear any engines so they couldn't have been that close. Radar would have been nice but you all know what happened to that! The other little problem was the connections to the inverter fell apart. I had wired a cigarette-type socket direct to the battery (the inverter connection is the male part) and the solder gave up the ghost. I attempted to bodge a connection but no luck. This meant that I couldn't recharge the
IPad, my main navigation source. By looking at it every hour the battery was at 83% when I reached Lizard so that's worth knowing as well.

The wind dropped a little with the dawn so I was able to unfurl a bit more sail and away we went like a bloody rocket. Oh I forgot to say that during the first hour of the trip I averaged 8 knots, so I reefed down quite severely not wanting to arrive at Lizard Isle in the dark. So, come dawn come more sail and the speed went back up to 6.5-7kts. I arrived in the anchorage at 1005 unnoticed by the Calypsonians and caused some surprise by calling them on VHF and announcing I was anchored right in front of them.

This is a pleasant spot and finally the temperature more or less matches the latitude. The water is crystal clear but the Aussies anchored here, several boats and all of whom have ventured further north, all warn that this is the last safe place to swim. Paul Calypso thought that Salties were nocturnal hunters but he was firmly put right on that score. I attempted to resurrect the outboard with limited success. I stripped and cleaned the carb and it ran….for a bit. It's the same problem that manifested itself in Fiji. You need some choke to keep the engine running and after about ten minutes total running time the bloody thing stops. I think perhaps there must be some small debris in the fuel tank which gets into the fuel pipe. The carb itself was liberally sprayed with carb-cleaner so the jets should have been unblocked and in fact with ¼ choke I was getting full throttle response. Hmmm.

I cleaned some weed off the rudders, noting that one of them was missing a chunk or two. Either damage in the Brisbane river flood or John the GRP was having a bad day when he made that rudder. If it's safe to dry out in Fannie Bay (Darwin) I'll make a temporary repair. Other than that the hulls are in reasonable condition with the occasional barnacle and a sort of thin green slime. I had another go at the next day and most of it, it came off easily enough.

One of the nice things about being here is the 1630 gathering on the beach. Makes me feel like a 'real cruiser' again. Too many names to remember but one woman on being introduced to the three of us said 'ah, Peter, Paul and Maureen/Mary'. I remember your music'. We're now planning a series of revival concerts in Darwin to top up the cruising kitty.

At the moment the plan is to leave tomorrow (Thu 13th). Maureen has planned a series of roughly 40nm day sails up to Cape York, which is about 295nm further north. Say a week or just over and then maybe a direct shot to Darwin. We were told last night that an easier way to cross is to go via 'the hole in the wall', just north of Gove on the western side of the Bay of Carpentaria. That makes for about a 300nm trip and then it's more or less possible to day-sail to Darwin. In hindsight, it's lucky that Jim lent me his guide to cruising Arnhem Land.

Timing is looking good at the moment, if not positively early!