Day 3 - Palm Islands

 29/7/26

Dungeness anchorage at sunrise.

In the mangroves, a double mosquito net covers the pop top at night. (Once the seabreeze dies off the mosquitos can reach the boat.)

Left Dungeness at 0830 on a high tide and crossed the entrance bar into the Hinchinbrook channel. 

Lucinda wharf, Sugar sheds. A small passenger ferry and car ferry which service the Palm Islands group.

Amazing Hinchinbrook Island

Lucinda sugar terminal has a 6km long jetty.

Lucinda

Bulk carrier loading sugar

Hinchinbrook Island backdrop for the sugar terminal and blue islands vehicle ferry.

Teria enroute to Orpheus Island, about 10 nautical miles offshore

Raised sails about halfway over and caught some SSE seabreeze. 

I checked out Pioneer Bay, but the mooring area was a leeshore in the Southerly. Kept going south along the Orheus Island coastline which provided a sheltered lee. July is southern hemisphere mid winter, however its nice in the tropics, about 24C by day and 15C at night.

Off the aft port quarter i spotted some whale spouts, about 500m away. They were heading south, like i was, and they were slowly converging on my course. Being the first time to witness whales from Teria, i was exciting stuff. A full grown humpback Leviathan is huge, and make 1 ton Teria look like a gnat (just their heart or brain weighs 1 ton!). The west side of Orpheus Island is quite deep, about 80-100 feet, so the whales had plenty of searoom. They dived somewhere below and i didn't see them again. They have excellent echolocation abilities and a gentle temprement. They migrate to the tropics from Antarctica every year to give birth to their calves, fatten them up, then head south again. To their Antarctic feeding grounds to feast on tons of krill (shrimp) over the southern summer.

I motor/mainsailed upwind, and spotted an empty national park mooring bouy in Hazard Bay, so tied upto it for the night. It was a few hundred meters north of Yanks Jetty national park campground. 

Marine National Park mooring bouy.

Hazard Bay shoreline

Cloudy sunset

There are about 3 MNP moorings near Yanks Jetty, but also allot of anchorage room out in Hazard Bay in 50-60ft deep water with a sandy bottom.

The MNP moorings are in about 30 foot deep water

Day2 - Dungeness (Lucinda)

 Day2. 28/7/26

Departed Rollingstone mid morning, the Bruce highway crash site was cleared (both guys survived it) and we arrived at Lucinda and Dungeness around midday. Rigged up but had to wait a few hours for the spring low tide to turn and rise, until the ramps water depth was ok for Teria to launch. (2 ft keel draft)

Rigged up in the large boat trailer park at Dungeness.

While waiting for the tide to rise, made a cuppa and read "Cruising the coral coast"  good cruising guidebook by Alan Lucas.

Dungeness ramp at spring low tide, mud and mangroves.

Spring low, my trailer wheels may have run off the ramps deep dropoff.

Dungeness harbour (Enterprise channel), the small public pontoon is on the left (can pickup and dropoff passengers, 15 mins tie up time) Further down are private fishing resorts pontoon docks.

After launching motored upstream and found a deep spot to anchor overnight. It's one of the best sheltered small yacht anchorages on the coast, its always dead flat calm, except for a few small runabout wakes which were no problem, Teria's extra water bottle ballast in the keel sump helps.

T24, day1. Bruce Highway closed

 Day 1. Monday 27/7/26

Final preparations and headed Northbound for Lucinda early afternoon on the Bruce Highway (A1). At Deeragun several ambulances and police vehicles sped past northbound sirens blaring and lights flashing,

70kms north of Townsville a huge line of backedup higway traffic ended the journey.

A serious road accident had occured less than an hour before, a few km north of the "Frosty Mango" (Mutarnee, Crystal creek). (That's where the emergency vehicles were headed)

 People got out of their vehicles and rumors along the line, plus facebook posts indicated that the accident victims were badly injured but still alive. A 2 car head-on collision had occured at Studs rd, Coolgie.

An unmarked highspeed police chase vehicle slowly came along the traffic line, something that Max Rockatansky would have been be proud of, letting everyone know that it would take 4-6 more hours to clear the scene. Many cars ahead had alread done U-turns back towards Townsville. 

There are no feasible alternative bypass routes for this stretch of the Bruce highway, no sub-parallel secondary farming roads, because the rugged coastal ranges come down fairly close to the highway and coastal fringe farm access is only from the Bruce Highway. The ranges are like a major logistical barrier, there is an inland highway about 100km west that services cattle stations and remote outback towns, but its only linked to the coast in a few sparse locations, the nearest was from Townsville.

Decided that camping at my boatshed was the best bet, it was only 25kms south. Found a side road to do a one point turn-back, traffic was backed up several kms by then. About half the qued traffic u-turned back and half had to wait until the Bruce was open again, sometime that night.

Ramp finding

 It good to know information about boat ramps before setting out for a new area. 

I usually use Google Earth and Google maps to checkout ramps before going there. (Also the access roads and parking spaces, facilities. public reviews)

A Google search (and AI response) should identify your local ramps and give detailed information as well.

There are some fishing websites that also have ramp finder webpages. For example

Boat Ramp finder Australia

For an Invesigator with its "deep" 2ft draft heavy keel, only a few ramps in any one area are suitable. (Most ramps are designed for small very shallow draft lightweight powerboats). What i look for (sailing solo) are floating finger pontoons, "deep" calm creek water, parking spaces and resonable or all tide access. 

 If you have crew to hold the boat, then lack of a floating pontoon may be ok. If your TS is very shallow draft (eg 1ft, 30cm) it opens up allot more possibilities.

.

T23, day 7. Head home.

 Monday 25/5/26 Day7

Welcome swallow on the bow rail

It was a flat calm morning. Got rid of spare water (to reduce ramp haulup weight) and stowed the jib. waited for a big ship to depart port,  then motored around to CG ramp pontoon by 9.30am (Half tide falling). Logged off my CoastGuard QF8 trip sheet with a VHF call.

A shoal draft traditional ex-reef fishing vessell and deep keel ketch behind.

A Swanson 28 yacht

The trailer tilt/winch up and ute haulup went ok. The de-rig time was about 35minutes, a bit faster than usual. The ramp was moderately busy but it was still ok with some tinnie fisho's and jetski pilots making the most of the calm morning conditions

Tide tables for the trip, helps with trip planning, navigation  and avoiding groundings.

The road trip home took about 15-20 minutes, this time I tried a new route. Turned left off Flinders st east (Tsv night club area, quiet by day). Drove past our Rugby league football Stadium, then turned right onto Boundary st (the V8 super car straight for 1 week per year), left onto Charters Towers road and right onto straight medium sized Bayswater rd in Hermit Park for an easy run home.  It seems to be a good route with less traffic. Late morning Monday is a lower traffic time as well. 

Anyway it was good to get home after a long trip, wash the salt off everything, dry out in the sun and have flat land to walk on again. 

Back home for washdown, remove gear and storage

This whole trip was to test the boats' equipment and systems, get a bit more skipper training done before heading further a field. 

T23 Day 6. Day sail to Red Rock bay, (Cape Cleveland)

 Sunday 24/5/26

Had to sort out jib halyard, it got caught up in a spreader somehow. I was able to stand up on the boom and reach the spreader to free it, the joys of a small boat.

Traditional wooden schooner anchored at Duckpond, Townsville.

It was a flat calm so motored off at 10.30am heading ESE. Crossed the ferry and shipping channel ok.

 However it was "Mayhem"crossing the Ross river channel entrance. At least 10 tinnies/powerboats all going full speed (20-30 knots) coming in or going out were counted. My course was beam on to all of them also at full throttle (5.6 knots), fortunately they were all fully aware and avoided slow boat Teria.

Flat calm motoring towards Cape Cleveland (Cape Palleranda and Magnetic Island astern)

After that it was a nice cruise at 1/3 throttle doing 5 knots for over an hour with tiller-pilot on. I stayed inshore and followed the 2m depth contour on the gps chart (which was about 12 ft depth on the sounder with tide up)

At 12.20pm the seabreeze began. Sailed at 4 knots on course for Cape Cleveland. 

The wind picked up at 12.30pm so hand steered. A spirited starboard beat to windward.

Anchored in Red Rock Bay at 1.45pm in 5 ft depth on a rising tide. It's the second bay in from Cape Cleveland. It's less windy and more sheltered than further offshore at the Cape. 

The red rock of Red Rock bay

Beach at Cape Cleveland

After lunch, it was time to reduce sail at anchor for the expected stronger afternoon seabreeze. The VHF's "offshore test" went well, Tsv Coast Guard was loud and clear on Channel 22.

Cape Clevelands' rugged coast and shoal waters.

Departed at 3pm and sailed hard at 5 knots back along the Capes' coastline. The wind blew offshore at about 15-20 knots. Kept the depth around 10 ft deep so as to stay near shore and avoid the wave action further to leeward offshore..

Cape Cleveland coast

At 3.30pm bore away towards Townsville, away from the Capes' hills and shallows. The wind eased off (as it does here when inshore near the south Townsville coast) so tiller-pilot steered and did a lazy 3 knots running downwind.

"George" helming on a broad reach

At 3.50pm we were becalmed, so motored onwards at 4-5 knots. 

An ESE 11 knot wind (vhf CG weather report) came in at 4.15pm, so shook out the reef in the mainsail and sailed at 4-5 knots with tillerpilot "George" helming. Played Jean Michel Jarre's "Oxygen" at sunset on the Ryobi 18v workshop speaker (bluetoothed to mobile phone with spotify app). The speakers' 5Amp swapable lithium battery lasted for the whole trip (no recharging aboard, it has a 240v AC to DC charger at home)

Got back to the duckpond after dark at 6.20pm. navigated into the anchor area (with help from a waypoint on my GPS), also knew where most of the anchored yachts were, however not all boats there have anchor lights on. One big expensive powerboat going to the marina had no nav lights on at all.. 

Tempoary LED lamp decklight hanging off boom

As usual I frapped the halyards to the stays (to prevent wind induced halyard mast slap noise) and setup the 12v anchor light (led lantern below boom helped). The good thing about Teria is it is a quiet boat at anchor which makes for a better night's sleep.

The trip was a good test of Teria's electrical system. All the tiller-piloting, nav, radio etc had drained the 12V battery down to about 50% or 12.0 volts, too low for comfort. The Coleman LED lantern was a good backup night-light in this situation. In future i will need to bring more solar charging capability along (100w fold out solar blanket) and try to reduce some power draw as well. The main 12v battery is 3 years old which is nearing it's useful lifespan. Its at about 80% of new capacity, about 80ah, so only 30ah to play with but still hoping it can last the rest of this years sailing season (few more months).

T23 Day 5. Sail to West Point. Cooking and navigation.

 Saturday 23/5/26

Another calm morning so got up later and continued "cooking class" with 5 sausages to fry and a 3 egg omellete. Coleman 20cm frypan on the Trangia25 spirit burner.

Boiled 2L fairly quickly on the Optimus 111T for a warm midday bucket bath.  It runs on kerosene and has a noisy "roarer" burner outputing about 3kw. To start, it is preheated with methylated spirits.  (The optimus was made in Sweden in the 1980's and was originally used on Antarctic expeditions from an Australian base)

The brass pressure fuel tank folds out for use. 

The "T" designation means it's triple-fuel capable. Kero, alcohol (meths) or white spirits. This one is jetted for kero. (jets are changed for other fuels, but i don't have those) Kero is the most energy dense fuel of the 3 types, so it packs more punch per tankful.

The Optimus 111T stove folded away in it's stowage compartment. 

Then tested the gas burner on the T25 to boil it's 0.9L kettle in 4 minutes flat (Spirit takes 12-13 minutes).  The spirit is better for slower heating/ ok for bacon and eggs etc. Cooking speed isn't all that important when sailing solo. The methylated spirits fuel is cheaper/safer than gas (It about A$6/ litre vs A$12 for a 460g isopropane gas bottle) 

Trangia 25 gas burner

The daily NE -E  seabreeze began about midday. So set full sail for West Point about 10nm from the Duckpond. Took the helm as it was a fresh 15-20 knot breeze. The first waypoint was the west marker of middle reef. 

Middle reef west marker

West point, Magnetic Island ahead.

It was a nice broad reach in the 20ft deep channel near the reef flat. Magnetic Islands hills offer a fair bit of shelter and alter the conditions. The wind swung astern, weakened to a nice breeze and the waves reduced to wavelets. The tiller-pilot could easily handle it as we glided along effortlessly, arriving at Westpoint beach around 3.30pm. 

The tide was high so anchored in close to the beach in 7ft of water for an easy sail change. Dropped the jib and put up the smaller #2 jib and furled it. Took a reef in the mainsail.

This was a bit of a navigation/piloting learning lesson. It takes about 2 hours or more to sail this leg one way. The note taken: Leave more time for this trip, at least 6-8 hours return. (It doesn't matter if the trip over is pure motoring on flat calm) Also the GPS chart and sounder allowed me to stay in the deeper channel away from reef flats. 

It was only a 30 minute stay before the return leg.  Motored off at 4pm at 5.5 knots (hullspeed) upwind skirting the reef flat but staying in the islands deep channel. Once clear of the windshadow, sailed on a beam reach for west marker of middle reef at a sedate 4 knots. Then hardened up on the wind for a close haul to the Duckpond by 5.30pm (motor assisted last mile)

Cooked up the last of the bacon, on bread with tomatoes, pickes and cheese. The ice finally all melted, 5 days of ice was pretty good. 

Another nice sunset at 5.44pm.

The LED lantern lights up a dark cockpit at night.