Six Months In a Leaky Blog: Clam I Am

We spent another week in Townsville after returning from Nelly Bay. There were, as usual, some details to be attended to including another problem with our solar charging system and the need to get an order in for a new mainsail after shredding it on final departure from the Whitsundays. We had our bow roller straightened and reinforced after being bent sidewise sitting on our anchor in too many strong winds. Eventually, we cast off the mooring ropes for a final time and bid our farewells to Breakwater Marina, hailing a hearty goodbye to the staff over the VHF before knuckling down for another arduous passage to Magnetical Island.

Magnetic Island. Viewed from the general vicinity of the gelato shop at Townsville

The most troublesome part of the short trip out of Townsville to Magnetic Island is the first 200 metres outside the entrance to the marina. The depths in this area are so low that we would have grounded here without a heads up from the marina office the first time we had come in.

Departing the breakwater

Any time we had to arrive or depart it was planned around the high tide and even then, some of the tide ranges during our stay at Townsville only just put us clear of the bottom at high tide. On the original plan for the stay in Townsville, we were intending to spend a week in the marina and then a second week anchored in the "duck pond" which is an area outside the marina but inside the breakwater behind the casino.

A wrecked ship sits in the briny depths of the duck pond

As it turned out, the duck pond was equally shallow and there was no way we could have stayed in this area. As a monument to the shallow depths, a sad motor boat sat embedded on its side in the mud and peeking above the water to varying amounts with the changes of the tide as a grave warning to all to make sure the plug is in the sink before heading in to put it all on black at the casino.

Continuing our temptation of keel depths, we pulled in to Picnic Bay on the coastal side of Magnetic Island for morning tea. Here the crew got in some school time. We watched the depth sounder until it read 0.1 metres. When you can see the sea slugs and the whites of their eyes it is a signal to up anchor and find more friendly depths; and we did so by continuing around the island to Horseshoe Bay.

The parking lot at Horseshoe Bay

Returning from a successful prawning expedition

Horseshoe Bay is relatively sheltered and looks like it harbours many a long term sea salt living on their boat. We spent two nights here. On the second day, we made a Zodiac Assault to the beach for some exercise. It is a sad testament to our increasing complacency living in the confines of a boat that we lost a crew member on land for the second time in two days. The trouble with land after living on the boat is its unrestricted vastness. The crew was separated while running and walking down the beach. The Able Seamonkey somehow found himself separated from everyone else and elected to return to the tender, some two kilometres away, to await our return. A variety of people along the road and esplanade at Horseshoe were able to confirm his location since he was happily walking along singing Puff the Magic Dragon - which these days, alas, is an unusual sight to see.

Onwards and northwards our course now firmly lay; our goal: to put far more far in Far North Queensland. We headed West out of Magnetic Island towards the slightly dangerous Rattlesnake Island leaving the no longer firm northward plans in our dust. To slightly paraphrase Douglas Adams; I love plans. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

We needed some danger and nautical radio chatter to spice things up after many days in the marina; and Rattlesnake Island, in the middle of the Halifax Bombing Range, promised this sort of excitement. The bombing range did not appear to be active when we consulted the online Notices to Mariners. But the Notices to Mariners had proven to be somewhat unreliable on previous occasions such as when poor old Curlew and Digby Islands were

The Captain discovers where the crew have been hiding

torched by the well meaning skeleton crew at Marine Parks. So we radioed in to Townsville Coast Guard to confirm. They were slightly guarded in their response; advising that they had no record of upcoming activity on the range. This was no doubt doublespeak for: "we can not be held responsible if your vessel collects a paveway missile through the for'ard hatch".

On our approach to the area, we were mindful of the notes in Cruising the Coral Coast to avoid looking at incoming aircraft so we weren't blinded by their laser targeting systems. This is the sort of redundant information that one finds in the guides sometimes: given the unlikely ability of Arjuna to outrun a laser guided projectile and the fact that the crew are already well aware of the need to avoid lasers from their endless studies of Star Wars the Clone Wars.

We summon rain

Rattlesnake Island initially proved to be another delightful anchorage and the swell was slight when we dropped an anchor in the lonely bay. The Captain deployed fishing lines with some luck trolling over the reefs - catching a few undersized fish tank specimens off guard with his elusive lure techniques. The crew were landed on the beach for a limited exploration of the island - at least the beach itself since the rest of the island was well guarded by a sign with a dire warning about intruding on military land. The sign was lying flat half hidden in long grass - either damaged by a bomb, budget cutbacks or the ravages of time.

We had so far had very limited rain while in the Townsville region. The morning that Arjuna had first made marina-fall on the trip in from Cape Cleveland a squall had swept across Cleveland Bay as we manoeuvred into the channel markers. For fifteen minutes, the entire city and coast was hidden by sheets of rain and we were almost seduced into following the lights into the Port of Townsville and inadvertently accepting a bulk payload of zinc ore rather than taking the slight detour into the marina and "duck pond" area. Other than this, Townsville had kept up its reputation for sunny days (local tourism marketing lore and the Bureau of Meteorology say 300 a year) for the two plus weeks we spent there. However, with a fire going on the beach at Rattlesnake, the rain inevitably moved in and drowned the shore party and we returned to Arjuna.

As evening fell, a swell appeared from nowhere and we were gently wrenched back and forward all night. The crew needs this sort of anchorage to shake the marina complacency out of them and remind them of their cruel mistress. But it is baffling where these swells come from. Until darkness, the swell didn't trouble us at all. There was no wind to speak of yet as we settled in and the slight breeze shifted to the South, the swell improbably rose from somewhere in the East, finding its way past neighbouring Herald Island, the reef and the fringing rocks to torment the Arjuna for eight hours. After nights like these, no one is keen for full continental breakfast. We extracted the anchor early and set a course for the Palm Island Group around 25 miles to the North and presently veiled in low cloud or bomb smoke.

The waters of Halifax Bay - coursing with plankton

To reach the Palm Islands, we had to first cross Halifax Bay and its fabled mackerel grounds. Needless to say, the Captain had the trolling lines out before the anchor had even been stowed at Rattlesnake Island. He called for the filleting knife to be brought to the deck in readiness. In Townsville, the Captain had spent some time canvassing locals on the techniques for landing monster fish in this area and was thus fully prepared. The sea was angry and rolling - perfect conditions to wrestle and dehook large, razor toothed fish on a slippery swim deck. All the signs were positive for a massive fish haul. The Captain went so far as to order the First Mate to jettison the meat, milk, bulky fresh fruit and any other non-essential items from the fridge to make more room for the fillets.
Alas, we regret to confirm that Halifax Bay is completely fished out. There is literally not a single edible fish in 20 miles. This continues the sad narrative that we have seen all the way from the Queensland border. The Queensland coast has basically been emptied of fish apart from the odd decorative reef creature around the Percy Islands and a few other limited locales. As you will recall, we did hit upon a magnificent fish outside Bundaberg but our suspicions at this point are that this had merely escaped from a local aquarium tank.

Fishless and facing up to the prospect of likely starvation or at very least lot of meals based on the remaining dry stores and pulses and lentils, we skirted up the western side of Great Palm and Fantome Islands. The swell settled down inside the channel and we made our way up to Orpheus Island. Orpheus still hosts an operational five star resort - one of the rare establishments of its kind still running in these parts. However, we took the boat to the next bay north and managed to pull up a Marine Parks buoy in Little Pioneer Bay next to the omnipresent Mustang Sally who must curse our arrival each time their calm reverie is shattered by the appearance of Arjuna around a headland.

Little Pioneer Bay

Little Pioneer Bay is a calm little bay that faces directly west and is cut into the island with protective headlands on either side. The rest of the Palm Islands protect it to the north and south from winds and swell out of the east. Yet somehow, in the mornings in particular, a small swell still finds its way into the bay. This was nothing significant, probably just the seas whipped up overnight by the south easter moving slightly south but still - it is hard to find a bay that is completely protected.

Some coral

After covering a fair few islands between Pinchgut and this point, Orpheus seems a little underrated in the literature because the coral in Little Pioneer and Pioneer Bay was at least up there with what we had seen elsewhere (admittedly we failed to get the flippers out at Fort Dennison and can't speak of a comparison here). On the afternoon of our arrival, the Captain donned his flippers and prescription goggles and swam out from the boat to the northern reef for a reconnoitre - confirming that this area was not fantastic, slightly murky and looking a lot like an underwater documentary where a croc swims past the camera in the half light.

More coral and cocky marine park fish

The next day at high tide we fired up the Zodiac and equipped it with a full payload of snorkelling equipment: multiple mismatched flippers per crew member, snorkels twisted up in their goggles, diving bell, wet suits and rash vests, and motored in on the high tide to the truly amazing giant clam farm in Pioneer Bay. At low tide the afternoon before we could see the odd clam just poking above the surface and squirting water into the air.

We moored at one of the near by dingy buoys and swam in over the clams - expecting to see a handful of them scattered around the area. Instead, it is a bit like the snorkelling equivalent of the hatchery scene at the end of Aliens. Several hundred giant clams are gathered together, shell to shell in a densely packed garden. Drifting over the top of them is slightly unsettling with their big luminous lips and with so many, there is nowhere to idly put your flipper without putting it in somebody's giant mouth. Here and there, the odd skeleton of an unlucky snorkeller or perhaps a research intern still swayed in the current with its flipper stuck inside one of the monsters.

Giant clam. Yes, it's a Tridacna gigas lurking just below the surface

Able Seamonkey in the clam garden

The Able Seamonkey is quite a capable snorkeller despite his not advanced age. He does, however, have the interesting habit of talking underwater through his snorkel as if he were holding a conversation on dry land which means you can hear him chatting about what he can see even when watching him above water. As he swam over the clams, we got a non-stop commentary with lots of underwater giggling and screaming.

The First Mate, normally a serious kind of person, spent some time touching the clams with her flippers and watching them close up. She found this very funny. If the First Mate was writing this blog entry, this would also be the time to inject some interesting facts on giant clams and the success of the clam cultivation at Orpheus Island in the '70's and '80's. This entry is not being written by the First Mate and thus facts are few and far between. The Captain instead eyed the beasts recalling the interesting information that in the Pacific it was traditional to simply knock one of these over and drop it in its very own cooking pot straight on the fire. No doubt this is one of the reasons these farmed giant clams were relocated around the Pacific Islands to re-establish the numbers.

After our narrow but hilarious escape from the giant clams, we needed some land based exercise and took the tender into the beach. The crew, once again, were tricked into a

mountain climb - thinking we were only going to look at the remains of the old sheep station homestead. But, you never know what you'll see on these expeditions: with views to both the East and West from the ridge of the island we were able to look down the steep cliffs on the East side of Orpheus and watch a massive manta ray swim up the coast- clearly visible from almost half a kilometre (forgive the change of measurement systems here) away.

Manta ray heading up the coast

More coral!

We had to release this fish. They are all protected in this marine park

We stayed yet another day at Orpheus, attending the coral reef, this time on the southern side of Little Pioneer. The tide was very low as the crew swam over the reef. At points, the Captain had to suck in his sea tummy to avoid coral cuts to his sensitive belly button region. The fish and coral in this area were really quite good. Some decent plate sized coral trout and wrasse were found to be hiding in some of the channels and hiding behind their friends at Marine Parks who have slapped a Marine Park A designation on this whole island. Clearly, all of the edible fish are taking refuge in these sort of areas to avoid the attractive lures at the end of Arjuna's fishing lines.