Back to Paradise

Well, you’ve probably guessed by now we survived our Lady Musgrave to Bundaberg ordeal. If someone had said to me, ‘You’re going to have weeks and weeks in paradise and just one crappy day,’ I’d take it.  If doing this wasn’t a challenge at times, would it be worth doing? Would it be worth reading about? 

Bundaberg

The morning after we anchored in the Burnett River, we tootled into Bundaberg Port Marina.  There were strong winds forecast (the main reason we’d come back from Musgrave) so we were most pleased to be somewhere tied up and secure, with access to most of life’s little luxuries.

We spent three nights in Bundaberg, doing the washing, reprovisioning, and recharging.  In the early hours of Sunday, a cool change came through and, to our disgust, the temperature plummeted to about 12 degrees.  We caught the marina’s courtesy bus into town to the markets to kill a bit of time, waiting for a suitable weather window, and wishing we’d worn warmer clothes!  On the way, we met a couple who’d spent seven years building their beautiful catamaran, Bush Spirit.  They invited us to come and see their labour of love and we had an enjoyable time looking over their boat and getting to know them.

The Curse of Pancake Creek

We departed Port Bundy Marina at dawn on Monday morning headed for Pancake Creek.  This is one place you only ever enter in the daytime.  They don’t even bother lighting the channel markers.  Some people we know think the place is cursed, and for good reason.  Some friends in our club came in at night a number of years back (storm conditions, from memory).  They hit a reef and sunk their boat.

Last year, our friends on Mischief were in the process of re-anchoring.  Andrew put the boat into forward gear and … nothing happened.  They’d lost all propulsion.  They had somehow sheared the splines off the input drive on their V-drive.  They requested a tow out to the heads of the creek (Marine Rescue Gladstone) but ended up having to be towed all the way to Gladstone as there was not enough wind to sail.  They were then stuck in Gladstone for weeks and weeks, awaiting repairs.  On their return trip south, they ventured in once again.  Their plotter system mysteriously reset to factory settings, and they lost all way-points and routes.

Blackwattle, in Pancake Creek before us, had a bump in the night (0330) as another boat dragged onto them during strong winds.  During re-anchoring procedures, the other boat pulled up Blackwattle’s anchor as well as their own and they were both drifting towards disaster.  Christian managed to get things under control and it all ended well, although he didn’t get a scrap of sleep the rest of the night.

So, there we were, heading for the dreaded Pancake Creek.  However, the Creek has always been good to us, so we don’t put much chop in the Curse of Pancake Creek.  After a pleasant day of sailing, we had no problem getting into the creek – which involves playing the tide and doing a little crab-walking through the current to stay in the channel.  It was busy in the main anchorage, with not much space for anchoring.  Our old chart plotter showed we were anchored on a sandbank that dries at low water.  We didn’t have much depth and would have been in trouble if the wind had been stronger than the current and caused us to blow onto the sandbank.  Mysteriously, the water pump on our engine started leaking…  Nothing a few hundred dollars can’t fix.

After reuniting with Christian, we decided the following day was optimal for getting up to Great Keppel Island.  If we were travelling on our own we might have stayed a couple of days in Pancake Creek.  It is a lovely unspoilt sheltered creek with pretty beaches and wooded hills on either side, and a reportedly beautiful walk up to the lighthouse on Bustard Head.  But conditions were closing in, meaning we could get stuck for a few days.  And no one wants to tempt fate!  Oh. We had pancakes for dinner. Of course.

 

Great Keppel Island

Another very early morning, with enough of Dawn’s rosy glow to light the way for Blackwattle and Symphony to head out of Pancake Creek.  We had 66 nautical miles to cover, and figured we were going to arrive way after dark, so we travelled for the first half of the day at a leisurely pace.  With a good wind of 20 knots throughout the afternoon, we started hooting along.

We were hard on the wind and leaning at 30 degrees for quite a bit of that, but we now realised if we could keep this up, we’d arrive at Great Keppel before dark, and anchoring is always an order of magnitude easier with daylight.  It was a pretty wet ride, with spray shooting over the boat and water sluicing down the side decks, but we were averaging over 8 knots!  With the wind strengthening, (and some of the crew getting a bit over leaning at 30 degrees) we decided to put a reef in the main, then later, a second reef.  Even with two reefs in the main we continued cracking along, reaching the anchorage off Long Beach with the last of the daylight bleeding from the sky.

We spent four wonderful days at Great Keppel Island.

It is a beautiful tropical paradise with a contentious history, both distant and recent.  The main resort has languished, fenced off, stripped out and empty, since 2008.  Remember the old ads? – ‘Get Wrecked at Great Keppel’? It’s pretty sad.  Fifty million dollars spent on proposals later (allegedly), and the developer has not yet been able to get approval for his grandiose plans, which include a casino, golf course, marina, shopping precinct, hotel, villas and hundreds of residential dwellings. The place could well do with some kind of resort, but the general consensus is that the developer is simply reaching too high, and his plans don’t take into account the traditional caretakers of the land or the current residences’ wishes.  Anyway, the Rainbow Hut and the pizza restaurant are still open for business, as well as a few delightful back-packer-style accommodation possibilities.  The big shark is still there, although it could do with a coat of paint.  As could the Rainbow Hut.

 

Up the northern end of Main Beach is a slightly more up-market resort with a bar area that extends right out to the edge of the sand dunes.  The cyclone last year caused significant damage and erosion to the foundations of several buildings including the bar.  They’ve shored up the beach with a whole pod of whale-sized sand bags in the hope the whole thing doesn’t fall down the hill.

 

The whole place has a very laid-back feel.  You can walk into the bar with bare feet and sand between your toes.  There is quite a lot to do around Great Keppel.  It’s a ‘sticky’ sort of place; so lovely you get stuck there longer than you had planned.  We snorkelled, swam, paddled, walked, went on dinghy safaris to nearby islands and up into the lagoon at Leekes Beach, all the way up through mangroves in clear water to the old cattleyards.

 

We enjoyed coffee and sundowners with old and new friends, watched whales, and Graeme finally had a chance to try out the spear gun I got him for his birthday.  I wasn’t expecting him to have any success first time around, but he came back with a nice brown-spotted reef fish (yet to be identified but oh so yummy!) and a parrotfish (which was released).

 

We attempted to leave on 27 August at first light, after a rainy night.  We rocked and roll our way to North Keppel, but the rain, fog, unpleasant seas and lack of wind sent us back to our anchorage.  The sun soon came out and we had another gorgeous day at GKI.  Told you it was sticky!

Great Keppel to Island Head Creek

We tried again the next day, and found the conditions much more to our liking.  We spent the day having a lovely sail in calm seas, although we left Christian in Blackwattle behind, awaiting the arrival of some people he befriended in Bundaberg.  I’m sure we’ll meet up with him again soon.

We arrived at our planned destination, Island Head Creek, as the afternoon sun painted the surrounding cliffs a warm golden colour.  And once anchored, we had plenty of time to watch the sunset.

We spent the following day at Island Head Creek, known for its impressive backdrop of rugged mountains.  This is another unspoilt place, part of the Shoal Bay Armed Forces training grounds.  It is often closed to the public and was recently used for the Talisman Sabre exercises. Looking up at those sparsely wooded, boulder tumbled hills and windswept peaks, I can understand the appeal of the place for training soldiers.

We went on a dinghy safari, trolling fish and looking for crocs.  We caught not a single fish, sighted not a single croc, but the turtles were out in force.  I don’t think we’ve ever seen so many turtles, and the water was so clear you could see them scooting away with their powerful flippers.  (Took the wrong camera so the pics aren’t good enough to show, I’m afraid.)  We also saw a large dugong.  Jamie identified it as a ‘white whale’, so that might provide some clue of how big it was.

By 0620 the next morning, we had weighed anchor and were underway again, with our destination this time Middle Percy Island.  The seas were a little messy just outside the creek, but improved as the day went on.  We witnessed an impressive whale display on the way.  A mother was teaching her dolphin-sized newborn calf how to breach (well, we assume).  The little one would do a bit of a dolphin flip, then the mother would launch her bulk from the water and land with a ka-boom of white foam.  That’s how it’s done, sweetie.

I’ll leave you with the pics and a promise to do another instalment very soon.