Tag: Australia2011 Australia 2011

We are still at Eagle Island.  Yesterday the smoke from the fires on Lizard Island diminished and the boats that were with us either returned to Lizard Island, or continued north.  We were going to continue north today as well.  But I got on a Skype session with a professional colleague (we still have access to 3G from Lizard) about our research collaboration, and the day went by without us getting prepared. So we decided to stay here another day.

We were able to snorkel in three different places on the reef around Eagle Island and it was quite nice, although a bit on the cool side.  The highlight is the giant clams.  The biggest are 3 feet (1 meters) across and about 2 feet (0.6 meter) tall, and must weigh a couple of hundred pounds.  That is a lot of clam.  They are the largest bivalve mollusks in the world.  The color of their lips vary from clam to clam.  Below is a photo we took of a smallish one that was just below were we anchored the dinghy.

We are planning to leave for the Flinders Islands tomorrow (Saturday) morning at 0400.  It is about an 80 nautical mile sail.  There is no shortage of wind this week.  It is unlikely that we will have internet access for the next week, but we cannot know until we get there.  We will continue to day sail up the coast until we round Cape York and move away from the Great Barrier Reef.

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We were expecting to spend a few more days in Lizard Island, as were almost a dozen boats at anchor there, until two National Park Rangers came by the day before yesterday to tell us that they were going to start a controlled burn of brush and grass the next day and that we should strongly consider leaving.  That was a bolt out of the blue.  Yesterday morning early, quite a few boats left for the longish passage to the next secure anchorage, Flinders Island, about 75 miles away.  About 6 boats decided to stay and see how much smoke and ash there would be.

Sabbatical III left to try anchoring behind tiny Eagle Islet about 5 miles away.  We were prepared to sail on if we could not find secure anchorage there.  With Laura up in the mast to look for coral and rocks, we anchored fairly comfortably in uncharted waters.  This morning, the second days of fires at Lizard, five other boats came over to join us after we told them that Eagle Islet was a decent anchorage and the smoke and ash at Lizard became worse. At least we had the opportunity to hike the two best trails at Lizard.  The newly arrived boats did not hike at all and the trails are closed for 4 more days.

White is Scarborough, Yellow is Lizard Island, Red is Darwin

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We left Magnetic Island yesterday heading for Cairns via the Hinchinbrook Channel.  The Hinchinbrook Channel is a relatively narrow strait between the mainland and the high island of Hinchinbrook, which is a national park.  It took most of the day to get to the channel entrance where it is quite shallow at the entrance bar.  We anchored 10 miles up the channel in a beautiful sheltered spot.  Today we went up the remainder of the channel (about 20 miles) and then across to Dunk Island, where we are now anchored for the night.  Tomorrow we will continue north to Fitzroy Island and then arrive in Cairns the next day (Sunday).

We spent much of our last day in Magnetic Island with Mike and Lynn of “Wombat of Sydney.”  Wombat was with us at Huon and Chesterfield Reef last year, and we have known them since French Polynesia.  They are also heading to Darwin.  We will likely see them again in Cairns in a few days.

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We left Airlie Beach yesterday around midday for an overnight sail to Magnetic Island, just opposite Townsville.  We had good wind the whole way.  One-half of Magnetic Island is part of the Great Barrier Reef National Park.  The other half is a commercial tourist development with souvenir shops, jet ski rentals, and expensive eateries.

This map reflects our progress to date.  The white icon is Scarborough, where we started,  the yellow icon is Scawfell Island in the southern Whitsunday Islands where we hid from bad weather for five days, the red icon is Airlie Beach, and the green icon is Magnetic Island.  The dark patch off to the east of the icons is the Great Barrier Reef.  We still have a long way to go to get to Darwin.

The photo below is of the fishing harbor in Rosslyn Bay where we spent two nights.

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It is Tuesday evening in Australia.  Tomorrow morning we will finally start our trip up the east coast of Australia.  We have given up on visiting the coral atoll “Lady Musgrave” as the conditions are not right.  Instead, we will undertake a 340 nautical mile, two day passage to Great Keppel Island near Yeppoon.  It is supposed to have great swimming and walks, and a reasonably protected anchorage (unlike Lady Musgrave).  We will head to the outside of  Fraser Island and then inside the Great Barrier Reef at Lady Eliot.    The map below shows the area from Scarborough (yellow icon) to Great Keppel Island (red icon).

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