Thursday
30th May
10
degrees of latitude
142
of longitude but we are now heading west, for the first time.
Thursday…and we are anchored just near
Thursday Island!
We have made it up and around the
tippytop of Australia.
This is Cape York:
Maybe not such a thrilling photo, but
all very thrilling to us. We left the
Escape River at 12.00 and absolutely powered up the coast, caught on a tidal
surge which gave us 10, and sometimes 12 knots.
So fortuitous! Well not
really…God management rather than good luck was in force. Pete had spent a lot of time studying the
wind, weather and tides, and he anticipated a bit of help from the tides. But not this much!
When we got to the Albany Channel we
were in a positive maelstrom of tossing waves going in every direction. We were mildly alarmed; how would we
negotiate this narrow passage in such turbulent sea? Not a problem! The water all flattened out, all but the
ripping tide, which carried us swiftly and majestically through a very
beautiful little part of the world.
This morning we had an unexpected
invitation to morning tea at the Escape River pearl farm. We met up with our Yacht Forty-Two
friends, Karsten and Mercedes (from
Hamburg) and anchored just off the farm jetty.
Rusty and Bronwyn
were extremely hospitable and full of
chat and information. And…best of all…I
actually got to see a wild crocodile! O
frabjous day!! Bronwyn told me that
there are lots of crocs in this river. A
very big one, further down from where we were anchored overnight, which likes
to LEAP. Recently it leapt out of the
water and tore a high-flying flag off a gently bobbing yacht, causing great
consternation all around. There is
another large one which lolls about on the sandbank near where we had
been. “Oh yes,” said both Karsten and
Pete. We saw a large log. Which moved.”
But I did NOT see it!! And just
near the pearl farm buildings, said Bronwyn, there is a cute smaller croc,
barely two metres, which is often visible.
When we left – there it was, as cute as a croc can be! It was sitting in the shallows, but as we
left in the laden dinghy it was thrashing about very happily, causing great
consternation amongst the small silver fish which hurled themselves out of the water
with a resounding splishysplash.
Bronwyn also told us that this river is
teeming with life Dugongs, turtles,
crocs big and small, groupers, mackerel, barramundi, and…sharks. Big ones!
Bull sharks and tiger sharks and hammerheads. SO glad I wasn’t in the least tempted to
swim!
We will have a few days here, around Thursday
Island (known to those in the know as
TI…) and we will greatly enjoy being able to buy some more food, and to be connected
to cyberworld.
Oh and I forgot to mention…my beautiful
beanbag, as An Asset To 2XS…(Pete is in the (temporary...) tarpaulin breezeway
And here are some of the Blue Thong Walk path markers:
and another one:
No comments:
Post a Comment