When you’re cruising, some places can be ‘sticky’. You get attached to them for a whole bunch of different reasons. They might be marinas with all of life’s little luxuries just steps away, or they might be places that delight your soul or leave you awestruck with their beauty.
And you just don’t want to leave.
Middle Percy Island
Middle Percy, of the Percy Island group, has long been one of our favourite stopping over points. We went there for the first time ten years ago and we were happy to see that on the surface nothing had changed much. West Beach is a stunning white-sand beach fringed with coconut palms, backed with gently rising hills, thick with bush. In the early 1960s, one of the leaseholders (Andy Martin) built a basic two-storey A-frame hut on the palm-lined West Beach.
It is a meeting place for cruisers, home of the Percy Island Yacht Club, and a sort of shrine of remembrance to past visitors. Many cruisers leave behind a plaque, memento, message-in-a-bottle or some sort of calling card with their boat details and the year they visited. There are items that date back sixty years. There’s a prosthetic leg, shell mobiles, carvings, mooring buoys, fenders, flags, posters, clothing, bark paintings, professional laser-cut plaques and hand-drawn scraps, but nearly everyone leaves something.
Ten years ago, we left behind a small painting we did of our boat, Echo II. We tacked it to an upright at the top of the ladder. We knew exactly where we had put it, but it wasn’t there. Cyclones have done their damage over the years. One even took the roof off some years back and a lot of stuff disappeared, or was recovered and placed somewhere else.
We were anchored in amongst twelve other boats by 1530, and were soon visited by our new friends from Bush Spirit. They invited us to Happy Hour at the A-frame at sundown. Half a beer later we had an unexpected boarder – a slightly familiar-looking character called Don with long white hair, a long yellowing beard, battered straw hat shading clear blue eyes, and calloused bare feet. A self-proclaimed hippy from way back. He is a current semi-permanent resident of the island, and wanted to welcome us.
Over on the shore, we met a bunch of people, including Cate (one of the leaseholders), and a lovely couple from cruising yacht, Ruff n Tumble. They also are cruising north so we hope to see more of them along the way. We soon made the discovery that our new hippy mate was none other than Don from the trimaran Silvergull – one of the boats who had joined us on the rally to the Louisiades four years ago. I thought he’d looked familiar…
Middle Percy is another ‘sticky’ place, and, with a burning sunset, a beautiful fire sending orange sparks into the starry sky, and lots of friendly banter, it was hard to tear ourselves away.
Early the next morning, Graeme enjoyed watching a pod of whales cruise amongst the anchored boats. One young fellow was fortunate enough to have time to throw on his snorkelling gear and jump in the water with his Go-Pro. A whale swam right under him. I slept through the whole thing 😦
Bush Spirit and Ruff n Tumble departed. We returned to shore and climbed the (roughly) 4km sandy track up to the Homestead. It’s a bit of a slog through soft sand much of the way, (and it was hot) but it has its rewards.
Not far up the track you can take a detour to reach a rock platform with spectacular views and phone reception.
Graeme managed to get a call through to his big brother. Further on, there’s Andy’s Lookout, named for the longest serving leaseholder, Andy Martin. The track is interspersed with bric-a-brac hanging from branches, and poems, urging you to slow down and enjoy the journey.
The walk was made prettier with the presence of hundreds of butterflies, some that even posed for photos.
We eventually reached the Homestead. John, the leaseholder, welcomed us with the offer of tea and a pot already set to boil on the stove. The Homestead (1887) has a deep covered veranda shaded by ancient mango trees, with soothing views across the trees to the distant sea and the islet where the lighthouse once stood.
John gave us a little of the history of the place over a cup of tea sweetened with Percy Island honey, and talked about the battle with sections of the government, who would like to see the island come fully under National Parks and be returned to nature, including razing the A-frame hut. The leaseholders and other residents won a legal battle about seven years ago to remain occupiers of the land, but John thinks the war isn’t over. After our cup of tea, we took the short track back to the beach, which turned out to be not that much shorter owing to its rocky steepness, which meant Jamie needed assistance at times and we all had to be careful of our footing.
Back aboard the dinghy, we discovered John Barleycorn had anchored in the bay. It was great to see them again, and we were thrilled when they gave us a couple of litres of UHT milk to see us through the next few days. It was the only essential thing we were getting really low on, and they had spare. This meant we didn’t have to rush to Mackay to restock.
We enjoyed a swim on our return to the boat. Discovered the loaf of bread we’d left to rise had fortunately not consumed the whole boat (I had imagined it oozing out the hatches) even though it had been left to rise for way too long. Lots of boats had left that morning, and there didn’t seem to be many new ones replacing them. We met up with the guys from John Barleycorn on the beach for sundowners, and installed a new Symphony plaque with sturdy cable ties. For the second night in a row, Jamie loved (endlessly) ringing the various ships’ bells.
We were awoken gently in the early hours of 1 September by whale song coming through the hull of the boat. We lay awake for about an hour, and listened to the eerie, beautiful sounds of whales singing. How do I describe something so otherworldly, so moving and awe-inspiring? It was a most unusual and magical start to my birthday. Unforgettable.
Another perfect day dawned. We left Middle Percy after a leisurely breakfast, heading for a little-known island called Digby, in the Northumberland Group, only 22 nautical miles away. We’d been to Digby before, and recorded an extremely detailed entry in our Curtis Coast book:
Good.
With such a great recommendation from ourselves, how could we resist? (We couldn’t really recall the spot but it is a good mid-way point between the Percy’s and Mackay.)
Along the way, we saw a whale teaching its calf how to fin-slap, and watched a family of five turtles (some tiny) paddle by.
Digby Island
Digby had a surprise in store for us – a newly wrecked boat on the low tide point of the rocky beach.
We went for a walk to wonder over the wreck and look over the remnants of someone’s life aboard. We assumed it had washed up there after the recent cyclone. The wreckage was strewn from one end of the beach to the other.
Many items from the boat had been dumped by someone in piles beyond the high tide line, but much remained around the boat and amongst the rocks, or just buried in the sand; a laptop with its keyboard caked in wet sand, CDs stripped clear, a rusting potato peeler caught between two rocks, broken crockery, dentures still in their plastic box, spectacle frames half buried in the sand, books – flayed open and yellow, all manner of tools and parts succumbing to the twice daily immersion, clothing being slowly swallowed by the sand… There was something terribly sad about seeing someone’s life scattered so arbitrarily, and we couldn’t help but wonder what had become of the owner.
Graeme went spearfishing and caught a beautiful coral trout for dinner – our first ever coral trout.
We made birthday cake and I managed to scrounge enough ingredients to make Jamie a pizza. Whales visited the anchorage. We baked the fish in foil. We ate yummy cake. We watched the sun set and turn the water gold. We settled back and watched the movie, La La Land. I could not be more grateful to my boys for such an interesting and unforgettable day.
2nd September – Happy 50th Wedding Anniversary to Mum and Dad. By the time they read this, they will probably be back from their cruise to PNG.
Unable to unstick ourselves from Digby, we enjoyed a great day whale watching and snorkelling. There are good patches of coral to the east (towards Keelan Island) and west (at the rocky outcrops) of the anchorage. We saw hard and soft corals, a huge stingray hiding in the sand with just his eyes and the tip of his tail showing, three different kinds of anemone fish, including the tiniest cutest little clown fish. There were colourful Christmas tree worms too. Graeme speared another two coral trout (he’s getting good at this!), so we made a big korma curry with coconut rice. So, so good.
Mackay
After a couple of days at the wonderful (very sticky!) Mackay Marina, doing all the things you do, as well as celebrating recent birthdays and Fathers’ Day, we were ready to head further north.
The Whitsunday’s were so close now, and they were calling…
Symphony in Sea 