North Goulburn Island (Mullet Bay) to Valentia Island

Posted on 18 July 2019 by Gerhard Malan

Left North Goulburn Island at high tide, around 8:30am and rode the ebb tide all morning, up to a knot from behind. Fresh SE winds, up to 25 knots at times, pushed us along with poled out headsail. We saw several surfs of 11-12 knots and averaged 6.8 knots for the day. The last hour or so we had the wind on the beam, ripping along at 8 knots or so. Real sailing for a change!

The island is rather pretty, with nice bays, red rocky cliffs and sandy beaches. We poked around in the dinghy taking soundings around our anchorage and then went ashore. We still haven’t grown weary of a gorgeous sunset, often reddened by smoke from the fires on land that seem to be common here in Arnhem Land.

Yotties info: the anchorage at Valentia Island turned out to be very snug. While it appears not to offer great shelter from the SE wind there is very little fetch from the mainland and so no real sea to contend with. We anchored in about 4.2 metres on a 1.3m tide, so just under 3 metres at LWS. We interpolated the Cape Cockburn and Point David tides, which seemed to be about right – we didn’t bump at spring low tide in the middle of the night – as far as I know. Good holding in silty sand. Note that the track below includes our dinghy ride to the beach!

Valentia Island Anchorage (copyright Navionics)

Liverpool River to Mullet Bay, North Goulburn Island

Posted on 17 July 2019 by Gerhard Malan

A long day for us as we’ve gotten used to 35 mile days, getting to the next anchorage by lunchtime. We had to get out of Liverpool River (about 9 miles) , sail the 45 odd miles to the Goulburn Islands and then give the south-west corner of North Goulburn Island a wide berth to clear the reef extending SE.

Tides were a factor: we had to leave just on high tide (around 8am) and get to the Goulburn Islands just after the afternoonhigh tide (6pm) or face a stiff tidal rip going the other way as we passed between South and North Goulburn Islands. It was also full moon the previous night, so a spring tide made tidal effects even more significant.

Goulburn Islands, Arnhem Land — Between the Goulburn Islands, a smoky sunset

With the wind dead astern and a rolly sea, sailing was a mixed bag and we motored a fair bit, making water when the ocean was not too milky. A nice size Trevally caught on the troll had us feeling a bit guilty when it started loudly croaking while I performed the last rites with a knife. We soon got over it and it was cleaned and marinaded for the evening’s stir fry, which turned out to be a huge success (Teriyaki, rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, chilli, garlic and spring onion went into the marinade).

Yotties info: currents through most of the narrow channels in Arnhem Land “ebb west/flood east”. The channel between the Goulburn Islands is meant to be the same, but it continued to set east (against our course and into the wind) for at least an hour after high tide. This was on a full moon spring tide, so our experience may not hold for other times.

Mullet Bay is tricky to get into. There’s reefs and rocks to contend with and, disconcertingly, the bottom is reef/rock with deep (2m) cracks and crevices visible on the sounder. This holds until the bottom shoals to about 5 metres, where it becomes a smooth sandy bottom. We motored up and down parallel to the beach for a while before we got close/shallow enough to find good anchoring. Once there, however, the anchor set securely on the first attempt. The anchor and chain also came up spotlessly clean the next morning, free from the toffee-consistency grey clay we had dragged up in Liverpool River. A coarse clean sand is assumed to be on the bottom.

Mullet Bay Anchorage (map courtesy Navionics)

A new adventure

Posted on 28 April 2019 by Gerhard Malan

The day has finally dawned for departure on our new adventure. We’ve set aside a minimum of six months to go cruising and see how we like the lifestyle. We were anchored overnight in Morning Bay, Pittwater (Sydney) and set the alarm for 5:30AM, planning to be underway by first light and have sails up by sunrise. It was clear and cold (April weather) and we procrastinated a bit, but by 6:15AM Maria had weighed anchor and we were sailing up Pittwater towards Barrenjoey Head.

Our target for today – a safe, easy sail/motor to Broughton Island, east of Nelson Bay.

Back to Lady Musgrave

Posted on 8 December 2014 by Gerhard Malan

We’ve sailed back to Lady Musgrave Island – we grew a bit bored and restless sitting in Hervey Bay so we headed out of the marina on the high tide on Sunday afternoon for an overnight sail to Lady Musgrave. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve been out on the open sea so the boys and I turned a nasty shade of green for the first few hours. The boys quickly recover and managed to keep themselves occupied by watching a movie before heading off to their beds. By the time bedtime had arrived it was turning out to be quite a wild sail so we decided that Hugo would be best snuggled in with his brother, rather than on his own in the midship cabin. Gerhard had shifted things around so that they could sleep together in the aft/ Oscar’s cabin with the lee cloth in place between them. This arrangement was met with whoops of delight from the boys and excited little voices declaring they would be ‘bed buddies’. They quickly (and rather surprisingly) settled down to sleep for the night.

Meanwhile up the in the cockpit I was continuing to feel seasick and good old Gerhard was running around making sure everyone was comfortable and fed.

The sail wasn’t outrageous but it was a fast sail with the boat powering through the night with full sails out. It’s a long time since I’ve been on an overnight sail and must admit I was feeling a bit apprehensive, but declined Gerhard’s offer to head into Bundaberg for the night. I tried sleeping for a while somewhere between 9.30 and midnight but by the time some game of the boys’ fell narrowly missing my head and the crockery crashed about in the galley I decided to give up and go back up into the cockpit and enjoy the moonlight on the waves and the exhilarating feeling of night sailing.

At midnight it was my turn to go on ‘watch’ and whilst Gerhard was less than a metre from me, and still half awake, at least my being there meant that he could close his eyes and doze some of the time. My alarm was set to go off at 10 minute intervals so that when I did nod off it would never be for long.

Ahead of us the lighthouse on Lady Musgrave Island showed its presence a long time before we reached her – tantalisingly shining and yet seeming to take for blasted ever to reach. We arrived outside the reef just as the first blush of dawn started to lighten the night sky. It was pretty windy and bouncy out there, but we needed the early morning light to be able to navigate the channel into the lagoon. We tried to settle down and get a couple of hours sleep – but after about an hour of the boat creaking mercilessly and rocking so badly that food in the lockers could be heard crashing about, we gave up.

We made it out for several long snorkels across the reef. It’s the time of year when the turtles lay their eggs on the island so there are plenty of turtles to be seen swimming around: we swam alongside them as we snorkelled. Gerhard and Hugo also came across reef sharks, and we all enjoyed the mass of reef fish.

Later we went over onto the island. The water lapping the shore was an unbelievable temperature – it was like climbing into a bath. As we walked around the island we saw numerous turtles swimming by in the shallows, schools of fish and a Black Tip Reef Whaler Shark too making its way along the shoreline.

All along the beach you could see evidence of the turtles having made their way up the sand, the flat sand under their belly and beautiful waves / wings in the sand made by their flippers as they ascend the beach to dig holes and lay their eggs. Magical.

Tonight the water is calm and the Wedgetail Shearwaters and Black Noddys fly over the boat as the sun sets behind the island. Last night we were besieged by Hawk Moths (Hippotion Velox), annoying to say the least as we had to close up the boat to keep them out. Thankfully tonight we seem to be all clear.

It’s been another day of fascinating conversations with small boys, asking lots of questions and coming up with wild and wacky ways to save the planet or whatever the theme of the day is. Hugo has to have today’s award for a classic line. In our discussion about whether teachers are paid for teaching (clearly a debatable topic) we also talked about taxes and how public services are paid for. I also explained that if you attended a private school parents had to pay for the education. His little voice piped up – “so if you’re at private school are you not allowed to tell them your name?”. Cute…