Queensland, Windy One Day, Bloody Windy the Next

Late May 2013

We've reached the jewel in the crown of Australia's sun seeker holidays; The Whitsundays. Currently we're moored off a little known place called Goldsmith Island. We have the whole anchorage to ourselves the only sign of human life is a tiny bungalow nestled by the waters edge, with the largest TV antenna I've ever seen. Apart from us and this TV loving island recluse there isn't a soul for miles.

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Late June 2013

Take two, skip ahead a month or so and the title of this blog post remains as true as it was when I first tried to write it 9 degrees of latitude south of here. Reading the weather forecast has become a moot point. Though they may vary the words slightly from "Strong Wind Warning" to "reaching 30 kts at times" they weather does not. South easterly's at 20-25 knots, day in, day out. It's a good thing we are headed north west.

As I type we are a couple of hours away from a place called Portland Roads (don't worry I had never heard of it either) just north of the Lockhart river. After a night dodging coral reefs and 500ft cargo ships in equal measure, we have just sighted the coast, and i'm not surprised to find another stretch of uninhabited, unadulterated nothingness. The great dividing range has finally divorced itself from the coast and now gives way to low lying bouldered headlands and vast stretches of fine sandy beaches. It's as though the mountain range got as bored as we did with the endless procession of Australia towards the Cape York peninsula, and forsake its dividing vow.

The last stop on our trip was Lizard Island. A fantastic place for three things; lizards (duh..), Snorkelling, and seafaring history. As I find lizards pretty dull on the most part, and Katie has another awesome snorkelling marine life encounter to retell in another post, let me bore you with some history.

Sunset enroute to Lizard Is. thanks to a GPS we aren't about
to run aground while enjoying it.

Imagine you are Captain James T. Kirk.. No wait a minute, Captain James Cook. It boggles the mind how he brought the Endeavour through this stretch of water. What was his GPS? What did he have for lateral markers, cardinal markers, isolated danger marks, don-t-sail-this-way-you-idiot markers? All he had was a bloke with with a piece of lead on a rope sitting on the bow of the boat dropping it down to the bottom as he went, hoping against hope that it didn't hit the bottom at less than 5 feet [sub-editor note, please check endeavours draft.. anyone? oh well]. In any case, it turns out that said bloke had one to many rums and decided his bunk required his attention more than his lead dropping duties. It was then that the Endeavour struck the reef which now bears her name. After very nearly losing his ship with all hands, Cook managed to break free of the reef by jettisoning cannons and other heavy items and next made landfall (miraculously not hitting one of the many more reefs in his path) at what he named Lizard Island.

There he made a decision which, with our mercator projected maps of Australia engrained in our memory, seems so bizarre to us now. He sailed north east for the gap in the outer reef which is now known as Cooks Passage. Despite all the technical wizardry that separates the modern sailor from Captain Cooks era, one thing remains the same. When you want to sail West for home, sailing North East is no fun. It must have been torture for the crew, however captain cook was convinced he was becoming "embayed" by mainland Australia and hence he took the decision to sail NE now rather than have to sail SE against the trade winds later. Despite his decision being made under the false pretence of an easting of the mainland further north, it undoubtedly saved their lives. From cooks passage the continental shelf drops away from 50m depth to around 2000m alarmingly quickly, but more importantly for the Endeavour, the outer reef forms a well ordered line, queuing neatly for admission around Cape York. Had they sailed the way that Elizabeth Jane has just come, they surely would have run aground on one of the numerous inner reefs get under your feet like so many unruly toddlers.

The more I read about Captain Cook, the more I think that he had some sort of sixth sense for continental structures. I guess after studying and charting new landforms it isn't a great surprise that he could navigate the way he could, but it is sad to think that the world has never, and probably will never see his like again.

26/6/2013

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Categories: australia, sailing