Hinchinbrook Island trip - Southern channel to Dungeness, road trip home (Day 5)

 Mon 28 Sept 2020.

After a good sleep and morning coffee, departed Haycock Island about 8 am. The early morning conditions were nearly flat calm, so the southern channel proved to be easy motoring at hull speed (in total contrast to the 25knot SE er the previous evening) timing the seabreeze/landbreeze-calms is essential up here.

Southern channel - Early morning calm, Lucinda ahead

Hilly forested shoreline and clearing skies seaward

Tides are the other thing. it was high tide at 8am so they would be falling on approach to Dungeness harbour entrance. A grounding on the falling tide would mean being stuck for 4-6 hours until it rose again, so extra care needed.

The southern channel shores of Hinchinbrook are also spectacular. Allot of fishermen's speedboats were making the most of the flat conditions too. Teria's GPS showed 6.5 knots over the ground, the falling tidal current was running with us.

Fishing "tinnies" heading westward along the southern channel 

Reached "The Bluff" which protected a mangrove creek which a few tinnies were fishing in. From there was a course change toward Lucinda wharf.

The Bluff - the estuary opens up here and becomes more exposed to seaward

The Easterly seabreeze began to increase around 10 am, reaching 15-20 knots quickly. The outgoing tide against the wind and seas created uncomfortable short steep choppy waters. So throttled back to do about 2 knots and not ship too much water over the bow. Too busy with spray flying to take any photos.

It took awhile to reach the Dungeness channel markers, skirted around river mouth sandbanks, there was one area of muddy water where depth was impossible to see visually, so crept forwards with the centerplate fully lowered and it never grounded.

Once inside Dungeness harbour the water is deep again. Temporarily anchored among the boats near the ramp and resort facilities, as some were away from their moorings. Time for breakfast and do some road trip preparation, removing sails, lashing the bimini down, stowing gear securely and emptying full fresh water containers over the deck to wash it down (also reduce road trip weight)

Entering Dungeness

Dungeness Harbour - final rest stop

Dungeness Harbour - boat ramp area to right

The ramp retrieval went well. Tied up at the end of the ramps floating pontoon while bringing the car and trailer down (Fisho's tinnies could easily go around, they are far faster than a solo TS to launch/retrieve also most had several crew as well. School holiday volume traffic)

A nice wash-down bay had a good freshwater hose. so gave boat/trailer her a quick squirt down. Boat trailers were queing, so out of there fast and into the long spacious de-rigging laneway to get the mast down and secure for the road.

Rigging down lane - Dungeness

The road trip home was fairly good. Stopped in Halifax a small cane farming town (with sugar mill) about 10 km from the ramp for a rest and final check over of the trailer. Halifax also has a good petrol station. Took different back roads through the cane fields at 40-60 km/hr where there was no traffic and emerged at the sugar cane township Ingham (pop about 10,000) which has many repair and other facilities etc for visiting trailer boaters if needed.

Halifax

The Bruce Highway to Townsville had holiday traffic, and the first 50 km had allot of roadworks with red light stops (manned by traffic control contractors). My cruising speed was about 90 km/hr so a tail of cars would develop, but i simply pulled over at roadworks red light and let them all overtake when it went green, then be the last vehicle in "the convoy". Several of these roadwork stops occurred upto about 50 km's south of Ingham. After that it was ok because many overtaking lanes are located on the final stretch. Once in Townsville city's outer limits there was far less traffic than usual and better multilane roads kept traffic flowing.

The boats supplies lasted well. 

Fuel: Used about 25% of the petrol carried. Only 10 litres used out of 42 litres aboard. (Good thing about 4 stroke outboard fuel, no oil mix, so it could be poured into the towing car after trip and consumed fairly quickly.  Next boat trip the fuel is fresh from the bowser. Not really a possibility with 2-stroke fuel, it's likely to just get stale fuel/oil mix for the next trip)

Fresh water. About 25-30 liters out of 60 litres was used on the trip. A good safety margin. Also carried "Aquatabs" (chlorination tablets) for emergency purification (eg creek water) to extend if town-water supply ran out.

Food supply.  About half of the regular dry/tinned food was used. (also had some rice in-case of a several week forced outing). The Trangia alcohol stove used about 0.5 litre of fuel with 1 litre spare (30% of supply).

From a supply viewpoint, the Investigator 563 is probably capable of doing even 10-day unassisted cruises with 2 crew, providing its well stocked up, there is enough stowage room aboard. 

Hinchinbrook Island cruise - Hinchinbrook Channel (Day 4)

Sunday 27th September 2020.

Motored across to Gould Island early, while the bay was still flat calm and anchored off the lee sand spit for breakfast.

Gould Island

At 10 am a NNW breeze of 5 knots came in so set sail for Cardwell. Light conditions for the drifter for a couple of hours. A hot sun beat down, the Bimini's shade made it bearable.

The wind backed to a NE seabreeze and freshened to 15-20 knots. Dropped the drifter and broad reached at full speed with full jib and main into the Hinchinbrook Channel. The plan was to visit Cardwell but concluded the wind was very favorable for a long south bound leg, and Cardwell had become a lee shore as well, so made the best of it.

Hinchinbrook Channel chart

Hecate point passed by quickly, as Teria heeled with a bone in her teeth,  at 5-6 knots. The channel was miles wide at the northern end, so stayed closer to the Islands shores than mainlands mangroves andsand bars to leeward. There also happened to be a favorable south setting tidal current as well so kept sailing at pace.

Further along encountered a patch of light winds behind a large mountain, so motored a mile or so. Then the NE wind returned, funneled between a gap in two mountain ranges. Teria reached past Gayundah creek, heeling nicely. It is a well known yacht anchorage and several were anchored there. 

Gayundah creek - reaching toward anchored yacht

The scenery in this area is spectacular. White clouds streamed to leeward of the mountain peaks, capping them like snow. 

Cloud capped mountains and mangrove forest

3 other creeks, similar to Gayundah, on this stretch are good anchorages too. I had the wrong scale chart, which had no channel navigation beacons on it. Just picked them up by eye and kept to the correct side of them. But did miss one  and sailed right across a river mouth sand bar! fortunately the tide was ok and Teria shallow, just a confused bunch of small standing waves and yellowish water marked its location in the tidal current.

Creek entrance 

Rainforested hills meet channel

Looking NE 

Wilkin Hill (145m) and Leefe peak (256m) passed to port,  admired the rain-forest clad cliffs descending to the waters edge, full of bird calls as the boat silently glided on by. The wind eased off  further in the lees of these hills, so motored the narrower southern miles of the channel. Mangrove forests with myriad smaller channels, fishermen's paradise, passed to starboard.

Passed Haycock Island around 5 pm,  thought there could be time to make the 10 nm or so to Dungeness , so motored on. However, a stiff 25 knot SE  headwind hit on rounding Reis Point. Furled the jib and motored into it and a sharp chop, reduced to 2-3 knots speed. The jib unfurled at the top, so dropped and stowed it below to stop windage/further problems, and pressed on a little more, spray flying from bow to cockpit.

Haycock Island - first pass

Near Reis  Point

Watched some bigger yachts gliding effortlessly downwind in the other direction (motoring, sails furled) so decided to do a U-turn and follow them. This turned out to be a wise decision as they went to  Haycock Island to anchor for the night. 

Sundown over Cardwell ranges - Haycock Island anchorage

Anchored near about 3 yachts and 100 m from a houseboat near the north end of the steep, mid channel, rain-forested islet. The sun went down, the mozzie net soon covered the pop-top, coils were burning away repelling sand-flies, and dinner was good. Was tired from the long day-sail so turned in about 8 pm. 

Then the houseboat party ramped up. A big 240v generator powered a huge stereo which thumped away at 80-100 bpm to raucous abandonment.  The boisterous 2 storey rectangular box was lit-up like a floating Christmas tree/tavern with sound amplification (Sound travels much further on calm waters, than in a built-up area with council reg's ashore) 

It was impossible to sleep, so up-anchored and quietly idled away, past the yachts and to the other side of Haycock Island to re-set the pick. Amazingly it was nearly perfectly silent there, only about 400 m away but the small but high well vegetated Islet blocked all the stero's thumps etc really well.

Live and learn. That's the good thing about boats, they can be moved to more favorable locations easily be it weather or wildlife related.

Haycock Island - chart