Day 3 - Palm Islands

 29/7/26

The tidal currents changed direction overnight, so Teria swung 180 degrees with it. However the winds died off as well so it was a comfortable overnighter. I was in a deep part of the channel (8-15ft) but near a sunken boat wreck. The heavy CQR and chain held firm. (checked position on GPS every few hours)

Hundreds of mosquitos can reach the boat during calm conditions at night, so the double mosquito net over the pop top, plus a mosquito coil in the cabin keep them out. Two essential pieces of equipment in tropical rivers which avoid a potentially hellish experience.

During the day its less of a problem as the winds ground the mozzies in the mangroves. Just anchor 20-50m away from the mangroves, not right up against them. (Tropical mangroves are also habitat for sandfly swarms, fruit bat colonies, and 2 to 5m long salt water crocodiles.). Out at offshore Islands these critters are rarely a problem.

Dungeness anchorage at sunrise flat calm.

 Double mosquito net covers the pop top at night. 

Left Dungeness at 0830 on a high tide and crossed the entrance bar into the Hinchinbrook channel. (It's not passable at low spring tides, as seen on facebook, tens of fishing dinghies, aka "tinnies", were stuck outside at least on one day.) Teria's 2 foot draft makes it more important to time the tide right, the local tinnies draft is only 6" to 12" so they have a wider tide window to cross the bar.

At the Lucinda sugar shed's a white fast small passenger ferry came inbound, while a small blue vehicle ferry (with a beach ramp bow) was outbound. They probably service the Palm Islands group.

Lucinda wharf, Sugar sheds. 

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 wind. So kept going south along the Orheus Island coastline which provided a nice sheltered lee. July is the southern hemisphere mid winter time, however its nice in the tropics. (About 24C by day and 15C at night.)

Humpback whales

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 had a closer look and tied upto it for the night. It was a few hundred meters north of Yanks Jetty national park campground. 

Marine National Park mooring bouy.

The bouys allow 24 hour free mooring, most of them can hold large 10-20m vessels in normal conditions. The mooring rope was huge, about 50mm thick, and covered in growth so tied to it with Teria's 12mm white rope dockline.

Hazard Bay shoreline

Cloudy sunset. Commercial vessell anchored off hazard bay.

A cruising cat on a MNP mooring

There are about 3 MNP moorings at Hazard bay (north) side of yanks jetty National park. This is the more sheltered side. There may be a few others on the south side but it has allot more exposure to wind and wave action from the south.

This video is at the Yanks jetty marine National park mooring, Hazard Bay side, Orpheus Island.

Fishfinder and night viz light on.

The MNP mooring was in about 9m/30ft deep water with a sandy coraline bottom. If the moorings are full (as usual in season) there is allot of space and sand/mud bottom to anchor in Hazard Bay, but its deeper water about (15-18m) 50-60ft. About 3 big bridgedeck cats and a 30m commercial vessel were anchored out there. 

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.