Escape River

Wildfox
Anthony Swanston
Sun 12 Jul 2015 04:27
No internet, so no 'photos.

I sail out of Cairns. My mail from the UK for the last four months is missing in the post. I head straight out through the Great Barrier Reef the idea being to get far enough north in open water so that I can do easy day sails to Thursday Island and avoid having to do any night sailing inside the coral strewn waters. The boat goes fast and carries good current and as I approach my re-entrance point I have to slow down to arrive in daylight. I have a small self steering malfunction, easy to fix in calm water, dangerous in rough. I hand steer to Raine Island and am once again inside the reef intending to anchor and do my repair in sheltered water.

There is a big Marine Parks boat anchored on the only bit of sand that Raine Island has to offer the rest of the island falling instantly into 300 metres of water. They launch a huge RIB and come to visit, presumably to invite me over for afternoon tea. No. To arrest me for coming into a Protection Zone. It isn't marked as such on the chart. After much charm by yours truly I sail off to a reef which has the highest category of protection - their fault for not offering me assistance. In the calm lee of Pearson Reef I fix my self steering. The fact that anchoring is banned is academic as the anchorage is untenable.

So now I am doing the very thing I wanted to avoid. Sailing inside the reef at night relying on waypoints from a cruising guide. The next three anchorages cannot be entered in the dark and so I just have to sail on weaving my way through shoal water and coral in the dark. And hoping for the best. I am missing my nice reef anchorages and day sails. By sunrise an exhausted me is close to the mainland again and I anchor in the complete calm of Escape River in time for the 0900 radio net when we all have a bit of a chin wag.

There are 50 boats in the rally but good friends have just dropped out due to a major engine problem. The inner reef which I now unnecessarily missed is full of rally boats having a lovely time. We are an interesting bunch of everything. From Werner on a 40 year old 30 footer which cost him US$ 10,800 to Stan and Val on a 68 foot alluminium thing costing many millions.

I am now just 20 miles from Cape York, the most northerly point of mainland Australia. Then a 20 mile hop into the strongest trade winds in the world to Thursday Island to clear out for Indonesia with 20 meeting places over a period of nearly four months. At three of our stops the villagers have never seen a cruising boat. It is an interesting country. 250 million people living on 16,000 islands and speaking 300 languages.

I get an onboard email from friends still in Cairns. My post arrived 2 hours after I left...

----------
radio email processed by SailMail
for information see: http://www.sailmail.com