Beyond the Barrier Rally – Part 4

Flinders Reefs

Our trip to Flinders Reefs was a surreal passage, with a perfect play of light and colour on sleek-as-satin waters.  

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At times, it felt like we were inside a blue pearl. The sea merged with the sky and it seemed we were floating in nothing.  With very little wind, we motored all the way, enjoying the calmest passage of the trip. 

We caught a lovely schooling mackerel that was so silvery it appeared white.  We also caught another mackerel tuna – fun to catch but not to eat, so he went back in to fight another day.  Something big took our line for a run – zzzzzzzing! — and we lost it and the lure before we could wind the thing in. Many others reported over the radio their various catches, edible and not-so-edible, and tackle lost with big hits.

If the day was calm and faultless, the evening was even better.  With the lowering sun behind, the clouds turned pink and purple, edged in orange and gold.  The sea became a pale blue satin sheet reflecting the colours of the sky, rising and falling like someone turning in their sleep. 

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After an uneventful night, with the seas remaining flat and calm and the sky full of stars, the sun rose and we entered Flinders around 1000 as a conga line of boats. 

Flinders Reefs are 130NM North-east of Townsville, to give you some idea of where in the world we were.  Peter Sayre’s book describes the location as a horseshoe-shaped submerged atoll laying upon the Coral Sea plateau, covering an area of about 200 square miles.  We anchored at the southern end of the horseshoe, near Main Cay.  This is the closest we’ve been able to anchor to a sand cay this trip, in only about 8m of diamond-clear water. 

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Once anchored, we swam.  Graeme took some photos of the anchor for John, as Rocna is one of the rally partners, then we flew into the shore to get in a stroll and a chat before the predicted southerly got stronger. Jamie and I wandered up the shoreline to the (unmanned/unpersoned?) weather station with the guys from Passion.  Main Cay is a long but very narrow cay, and many birds vie for roosting space when the tide comes in and covers most of the cay. 

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Back on the boat, the southerly came in with ferocity, and we found ourselves rocking and rolling madly.  The grass always looks greener, and in this case, the anchorage looked calmer a little further east, so  after a few others moved and reported better conditions, we did the same thing.  We were glad we moved, even though we lost our lovely shallow spot close to the beach.  It was still a very bouncy night, but the other spot would have been worse as the swell curled in from the south-west, especially with the second high of the diurnal tides.

The following day, I snorkelled with the guys from Mischief and Indigo.  Disappointing in shore but we found a good bommie out the back of the anchorage, with a huge garden of anemone fish.  Hard to get good footage as I was only snorkelling and they were pretty deep…

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Together with the Walden’s (as we affectionately call them), we enjoyed drinks on Indigo and lamented the fact that the rally was coming to an end.  Later in the afternoon, we had our final coral cay sundowner event.  With our tribe the last to leave the beach, we discovered the tide was coming in fast and we had very little sand left, and the Walden’s needed some heavy duty bailing help as their dinghy had been swamped and wasn’t going anywhere.

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We experienced another rocky night, though not as bad as the previous night.  The next morning, Graeme went for an exploratory scuba dive with Peter and Michelle. He forgot to take the camera but ended up having one of the best dives of the trip, with a highlight being a pristine giant coral fan probably twice as big as the one pictured in the previous blog. Later, Michelle turned up with a leftover tub of ice-cream (which we managed to squeeze in the freezer) and before we knew it, we were preparing to leave.  Departure was a little different from all the other times.  Each time previous, we had set sail (allowing for visibility) mainly to ensure we reached our next destination in the right conditions for visually navigating the reef.  This time, we were heading for an anchorage that was clear of bommies and could be entered at any time.  In addition to this, Peter, our guide on Phoenix, was planning to lead us out of our anchorage on a route he had not taken before, so we were all to follow him.  At around 3pm, the boats started heading out, one falling in behind another, creating a conga line across a calm reef. 

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Once safely out of the reef, the line broke up as we adjusted to our own cruising speeds and plotted our own courses back to the mainland. Our last passage gifted us good conditions with a gentle rolling swell, and we motored on into the night.  We came in through Palm Passage and arrived in Horseshoe Bay, Magnetic Island, around 3pm the next day, so a 24-hour run for us.  We sailed all the way from Palm Passage, but on reflection, we probably should have been sailing through the night instead of motoring…

It felt a little strange to be back in civilisation.  The locals must have been shocked to see such a sudden influx of boats filling their pretty bay.  Once anchored securely, we flew in to shore to find ICE-CREAM.  (I know, I know, Michelle had already given us a tub only the day before!  What can I say?)  Well, we ended up at the local pub, the Marlin Bar, celebrating with all those who had arrived before us or around the same time.  (There were still quite a few boats out at sea, making their way in.)  We ended up getting dinner at the pub, and stumbling back to the boat quite a bit later than planned.

Our time at Magnetic Island was taken up with much socialising.  We spent some time on Phoenix the next day getting the ‘tour’, and Jamie got served up the promised bowl of ice-cream.  Yeah, there’s a theme here… and they have a HUGE freezer with endless supplies of ice-cream, it seems. 

That night we had a potluck dinner in the Horseshoe Bay Sailing Club (a shelter shed in the waterfront park) and most rally people turned up to share fish curries and other culinary delights, as the curlews cried their haunting, evocative cries in the shadows, and waves lapped the shore.

The next night it was PARTY NIGHT, with our final rally party at Sandi’s.  We had a band playing all the old songs that get you on your feet, and most people were up dancing and having a grand old time.  Photos from the rally scrolled by on big screens. I was asked to read my poem and the copies I’d printed were hot property. 

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The following evening, we were back in the shelter shed Sailing Club, and we were able to observe a huge barge with a house and 2 semi-trailers aboard.  They eventually brought the house in to shore and manoeuvred it onto land, then took it away to its final resting place.  It was quite an operation.  Unfortunately, the night didn’t end well for Lynne from Mischief, who tripped on a tree root in the dark and badly twisted her ankle.  (I can report that after all this time, she is ALMOST better.  She did a hellava job on it!)

We spent some time with the guys from Indigo, bussing around the island and checking out the sights.  We wandered around Nelly Bay, Alma Bay and Arcadia.  There is definitely a lot more to see there, and some walks we are saving for our trip south.

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By now, the rally was well and truly over.  Some people had already departed, heading north or south, onwards for more adventures, or homewards bound.  We found ourselves starting to say goodbye to new friends, as a chapter ended, and a new chapter of our cruising adventure began.