Hello Dear Friends,Well after being out of contact for well over 2 months Rudy and I are back in Civilisation. Where have we been you may ask???
We left Cooktown 3rd September, the last bastion before heading into the never-never and to our goal of our journey this year to Princess Charlotte Bay.
With ‘Tiata’ stocked full of goodies we headed north. Our first stop was Cape Bedford and the coloured sands, after anchoring mid afternoon and went to explore the area, the sand ravines are spectacular, coloured bright orange, red, yellow and brilliant white, we walked deep into them until we were completely enclosed by walls of coloured sand patterns it was very dramatic especially with the blue sky overhead. After making our way back down we went for a stroll along the beach the sand so white and
the water so clear and full of life, beside us in the water we were accompanied by mud crabs walking just out of reach, Rudy did try many times and he nearly got one too – truly! We jumped into the tender for a closer look both of us standing to get a better look when next minute a 1 ½ meter shark shocked us both by swimming underneath us needless to say we both sat down very quickly. We left the next morning and headed north to Lizard Island for a couple of nights, a wonderful Island with water as clear as a glass of water. 
From there we had a brisk sail back to the coast to the windy wild Cape Melville, it’s very dramatic with huge house sized and bigger boulders piled several hundred meters into the air, it’s an old glacial deposit. We got there late afternoon and were treated to a near full moon rising over the boulders it was breathtaking. It is a very windy isolated place but we soon realised we were not alone, scattered along the far northern coast are numerous fishing camps full of crazy guys sleeping on crocodile visited beaches and going out in rough windy seas in small fishing boats.
After a blustery night we headed on to Princess Charlotte Bay and our destination for our first northward journey, the size of the bay is a massive 60km wide so all you can see is the distant cloud masses hugging the land. We arrived and decided to spend our first night in the
Normanby River we had to wait for the tide to allow us over the banks and sailed into the river late afternoon, it was a beautiful night with the full moon shining brightly down on us, it was so still and we felt like the only two people in the world. The next day we headed up into the bay off Bathurst Head, it was quiet shallow where we anchored and the water very murky, so murky we kept having turtles smash into our boat as they came up for air the noise was terrible and woke us up a few times, luckily both the turtles and Tiata came out of it unscathed. The crabbing there was awesome 9 crabs in one pot but the sound of the crash dummy turtles was too much so the next day we had a lovely sail across to the Flinders Island group.Unfortunately the winds picked up and were blowing 30knots+ (with 50knot gusts) and thus we were holed up for 2 weeks we spent most our time anchored off flinders’ Island which luckily had to huge water tanks set up by National Parks, so we were very lucky not to have to worry about running out of water but as for everything else things got pretty dim, we weren’t going to starve though the oyster’s where big and bountiful and we had plenty of rice, tuna and water so by the time we got back to civilisation we were both looking very fit and healthy. We were not alone Dudley, Jenny and David (who was supposed to have been back at work in Cairns) on ‘Tropical Cat’ kept us up-to-date with weather (they have HF radio – far range) and entertained with there huge library of DVD’s as well as their company.
After a week or so with Tropical Cat we decided on change of scenery so we headed back down to Bathurst Head for some crabbing and more close encounter’s with turtle’s, by this time David was already a few days late back from work and the weather was starting to abate so we decided to join them in there quest to head south across Bathurst Bay to the treacherous Cape Melville. We started out early and things were looking ok but then the winds and waves got too much for us. Dudley, Jenny and David powered on with Dudley reporting winds hitting 54knots across the deck our boat going nowhere fast so we decided to head back to Flinders Island and wait out a couple more days.
Finally a couple of days later we made the dash across Bathurst Bay we left after lunch (as it was supposed to quieten in the afternoon and we thought it would only take us a couple hours– huh..) again we started out beautifully but that Cape Melville is one windy wild and we eventually anchored at 7pm that night and I spent the night unable to get much sleep as the bullets (of wind) and the chunking on the anchor kept me awake. Finally dawn came and it was still wild though we decided we had to get away form there, and if I never see Cape Melville (except in passing) again it won’t be too soon.
We made a dash out of there and as soon as we rounded the corner very thing settled down immediately and we had our first windward journey which involves a lot more tacking (we can’t point straight into the wind you have to point either side of the wind – thus a longer journey) it is also quite a narrow passage as the reef’s are very close to the land so it felt like we were tacking all day dodging the reefs and dodging the coast but we made it to Howick Island before nightfall with a bit of a hold-up when the strap holding the main broke and Rudy had to do some on-going repairs.
There’s not much to Howick Island in the way of sight seeing so we pulled up anchor and headed back to Lizard Island we were due to meet up with friends, Chris and Pat on the 26th in Cooktown and being the 24th we were running short on time so we had one day in Lizard Island to recoup ourselves before heading back to restock the boat and prepare ourselves for there arrival.
Cooktown is as Rudy puts it “a phoenix waiting to rise from the ashes” were Captain Cook landed in June 1770 and stayed 7 weeks to make repairs on the Endeavour thus the name “Cooktown” it was also his first encounter with Aborigines and then in its gold rush heyday it boasted 90-odd pubs, 120 or so brothels, today it’s back to a sleepy seaside town that has only in recent years got a sealed road from the south.
Chris and Pat arrived on the 27th and after another day of grocery shopping and with about $1000 of food and $800 of grog we were ready to head back up to Lizard Island and chill out. We had a lovely sail up from Cooktown found ourselves a lovely spot on the corner of Watson Bay. We had a wonderful time spending our days snorkelling, walking the many tracks, swimming, generally relaxing the water at Lizard is awesome it is so clear you can see the sandy white bottom and
when Rudy bought dried cat food for the fish I thought he was crazy but after a couple of days we had a quiet a horde of fish that came and visited us every morning and afternoon, they included bat fish, dart, a huge groper, trevally, sweet lip, long tom (similar to a pike) just to name a few. 
Lizard Island is full of reefs and it was just a jump off the back of the boat and a paddle to the left or right and we were in the most beautiful coral reef the fish were abundant and so many colours every m
orning I would have a swim with the fish including a family of beautiful big parrot fish that I would meet up with every day they were so beautiful I just fell in love with the place you couldn’t get me out of my bikini or out of the water. We had a full moon while CJ and Pat were with us which means very high and low tides which on the low the boat sat in less then a meter of water so we were able to wade out to the beach, go for a walk and wade back to the boat it was all too lovely.
There is a resort on Lizard very exclusive with rooms starting at $1500.00 a night we were unable to access the resort but they had a great staff bar that was situated right on the beach they had food a couple of nights a week, the best pizzas and whilst we were there, there was a big game fishing comp on so while it was on they had food every night, it was a big competition with about 60 game fishing boats entered and most of them had huge mother-ships one being ‘My Way’ that used to belong the Mick Dohan so the bay was crowded with all types of boats big and small. We got to do a bit of fishing as well as anchored beside us was Bruce and Fergal. Bruce had just bought himself a power cat and was taking it back to Perth (in the end he decided it wasn’t big enough to take around the top, but that’s another story) and Fergal an Irish backpacker who was helping him with the journey. So they took us out for a bit fishing and after a couple of hours we were back with 3 huge mackerel. It was very exciting wit
h wild seas and CJ had great fun reeling in a nice big one.
Chris and Pat left us after 2 weeks flying out from Lizard to Cairns (the winds were still blowing 20-25 knots from the south) we were running out of food and grog (amazing I know) but luckily we’d found a place when we were at Cooktown that organises groceries and even luckier still our friends Scott and Sarah off ‘Anui’ were arriving in the next couple of days and so we were reprovisioned and ready to linger longer at lovely Lizard.
We first met Scott, Sarah and their 2 boys Seth, 6 and Finn, 1 at Dockside when our boat was still a dream. They have a lovely 50ft Cat that Scott built himself. So it was lovely to see them. The days rolled by Rudy and I loved to walk over to the lagoon on the other side of the island each morning, we collected water from the water pump, we hand washed our clothes and showered off the back of the boat we’d swim over to Anui and Seth and Sarah would swim over to us life was simple and a real pleasure.
Rudy turned 50 while we were there and we were surprised to come back from our walk and there was a lovely chocolate cake and card made by Seth and Sarah. It was Rudy’s ambition to have a boat and to celebrate his 50th birthday on a lovely island somewhere and he did. The Anui gang joined us for cake and that night we went to the bar and had a wonderful night with a nice crowd of people.
Shortly after some more friends Bruce, Toni and there daughter Remi and there 2 dogs arrived with a bottle of Moet organised for Rudy. They too have a lovely 52 ft cat called “Wilson”. The weather had calmed down by this time and so we organised a day out on the outer reef. We decided to take “Wilson” with 6 adults, 3 children and 2 dogs.
The day we planned couldn’t have been better we awoke to the stillest day not a breadth of wind and the water so clear it was like looking in a fish tank. We headed out to a spot called the ‘Cod Hole’ aptly named as there are huge cod. The visibility as astounding we could see the bottom of the ocean at 27 meters and the water felt so soft. The snorkelling was awesome and we all had a fantastic day, so much so we went out again 2 days later this time Scott and Bruce were trying for some lobster we went out to a different reef and with a bit of wind we had a great sail there and back – no lobster though unfortunately, though Rudy managed to land a big Mackerel trawling off the back of the boat which was enough to give each boat a nice feed of fish and Bruce also caught a lovely Coral Trout.
After 5 weeks Rudy and I decided to make our way back to Cooktown and back to civilisation. We have had a wonderful journey and we now look forward to the unknown. From Cooktown we headed south up the Bloomfield River which is just north of the Daintree and is a beautiful river with rainforest right to the water’s edge, we stopped in Port Douglas for a couple of nights and as the winds had abated and coming more from the east we had a wonderful spinnaker sail across to Viasoff reef where we stayed the night and now we are at Cairns with a broken anchor winch so we’ll be here for a while, Cai
rns is a beautiful city and we plan to hire a car and do a bit of inland touring to the Atherton Tablelands and Kuranda from there we will head south back to the Whitsunday’s and after that who knows, we will travel where the winds take us…We have had a wonderful journey north we have learnt a lot about sailing, the boat and each other and we look forward our continued adventure.
Lyn & Rudy xxx
