We all slept in this morning after a big session last night.
It was a lazy morning, Putu made some bread and I prepared the boat and
downloaded a weather fax and the latest Windy GRIB files.
By now we had a resident massive school of small fish under
the boat. They looked a bit like baby trevally and we would feed them all our
scraps, they are going to miss us.
Finally, we got organised and left around 11:00, it was such
a beautiful place and none of us really wanted to leave.
I setup my deck chair in front of the mast and with my
remote control (autopilot & instruments) in one hand and with my phone
(Navionics) in the other hand, I steered Sirocco while navigating with my
phone.
In the left side pocket were the binoculars for spotting
croc’s and a cold beer in the drink holder on the right-hand side.
I was all setup like King Dick as we cruised down this
magnificent river, taking in the spectacular view as I digitally steered left
and right. It must have been an unusual sight for all the guests in the Berkeley
lodge cruise boat as they went past.
All was going well until my bloody hat blew off. I turned
Sirocco around to get it, but Luke was on the ball and shot off after it in the
dinghy. I think it was just an excuse to get his usual morning espresso from
Putu.
We dropped anchor at Paul’s Creek to take a look at the
falls. After lunch, Bruce, Luke and I went in Bruce’s dinghy, tying to a rock
ledge just inside the creek mouth and climbing up the steep rock wall using the
large rope someone had installed.
We followed the stone cairns along a rough walking track at
the top of the gorge until we came to the waterfall at the end of the canyon.
It was really beautiful and quite a surprise after the tiny entrance through the
muddy mangrove creek.
There was a bit of water still flowing, enough to have a
nice cool refreshing shower while sitting on the ledge and we all took turns,
then warmed up in the sun before having another shower.
Down in the pool below, we could see lots of large mangrove jacks,
archer fish, mullet and other large fish. It really was a great place and well
worth the effort to walk in, but we had to keep moving if we want to cross the
sand bar on the high tide.
While cruising down the river, we saw a giant stalk eating a
sea snake and a small two metre crocodile swimming along.
When we got to the river mouth around 16:30, it was blowing about
twenty-five knots from the east and the sand bar had surf breaking across it.
After talking to Bruce, (from Lizard) I decided to cross the
bar first and if it was too shallow for Lizard (including the swell), then I
would return and we would wait inside the river mouth until conditions
improved.
The depth and swell seemed okay, so Lizard decided to cross
the bar as well. It was fine for Sirocco (having a shallow draft), but Lizard
only just made it through, touching the bottom several times with the keel
retracted.
Once through the sand bar, we anchored in five metres of
water in the shelter of Reveley Island. Luke and Putu stayed on Sirocco to
organise dinner, while Bruce and I went ashore onto the beach to collect wood
and start a camp fire, with Putu and Luke joining us later.
It was a great camp fire which kept the mozzies away, but
suddenly Bruce’s dinghy blew away and I had to go and retrieve it in the pitch
dark using my dinghy.
Eventually it became time to leave our great camp fire and
head back to Sirocco for dinner, but by now it was low tide and the sand became
thick mud up to our knees making launching the dinghies very interesting and
messy. We were all hoping that there were no croc’s around!
Putu baked my large barramundi in the Webber and fried up
some cod for dinner and it was delicious. Later on, we got the spotlight out
and there were two red dots (crocodile eyes) right near where we were stuck in
the mud after the camp fire. Hmmm, lucky!
It was a big night, great fun and there will be some sore
heads tomorrow.
Track Sirocco’s
progress
