Sharks, Crabs and The Keppels.

Gladstone Harbour
Friday 3rd August  and we are now leaving behind the pretty spot of Pancake creek we head over to Gladstone harbour, which we both found bloody awful, all industrial, even on the water.   Fishing Boats, tug boats, crane boats, ferries, work boats, dredging boats all occupied The Port of Gladstone, so the water was dirty and we are now not used to having to share the pathway with other vehicles.  It felt like trying to leave Brisbane at 5pm on a Friday – Yuck!

We fill up with fuel in Gladstone and to Christie’s disappointment, no weekend newspapers.  Thanks Pete for the link on the Internet, you were being given big praises.

The Narrows

Cattle Grid at Ramsey's Crossing

Motoring on to an area called "The Narrows" which is renowned for being dry enough for cattle to be herded across certain areas at low tide, so we have to make sure we get the tide at high to cross.    We follow a tug boat the majority of the way through the harbour, just to be on the safe side as it can be quite daunting navigating around all the ships and working boats, then all of a sudden notice the tug spewing up mud from the motor, oh no its stuck in the mud.  A few heaves and he seems to get out but has to turn back.  We manage to find a deeper path through and motor onto a spot called Black Swan Island.  What a night we had here.  It was the most beautiful sunset we have seen yet.

Sunset at The Narrows - Black Swan Island

Getting crab pots ready

Andrew was given four brand new crab pots from Gay and Michelle for his birthday in January which of course are with us on the boat, and we thought what a lovely night to try some crabbing.  We have been saving our meat scraps each night after dinner for our crab pots, so get the pots all ready and tinny over to about 2 meters of water and drop them in the mud near low tide.

Our Baby Grew Nurse shark

   Then as Christie is cooking dinner and we both have a rod out each side of the boat, we hear this whizzing of the reel.  We both run out to the back and Christie pulls her line in, with what seems like a mighty weight on the end only to find a 2-foot baby grey nurse shark on the end. (Mmm Flake for dinner we think).  We do the right thing and let it go, Christie hoping that it does not resurface as a large shark and have a chomp of either of us when we are diving or snorkeling.  Just as we sit down for dinner we hear the whizz of Andrews reel and low and behold he pulls up another baby grey nurse.  We can’t believe our eyes; no decent catches since we left and we now have caught two sharks – what a catch.  Yes we let that one go to.

One huge crab

We get up the following morning and have a good sleep in, as we knew that we couldn’t leave until high tide at about 1030 hours. So we motor out again in the tinny to retrieve our crab pots and we find three pots with a large buck crab in each, they were huge and its always a fun task trying to get them from the crab pot into the bucket.   Andrew being very brave jiggling the pot around to make them fall in whilst Christie is sitting at the far end of the tinny making sure they don’t fall out.  You really had to see the nippers on these crabs to believe how big they were.  We are now looking around for the next half an hour for our fourth pot and its no where to be seen.  Has someone stolen it?, has another boat run over the rope and cut it? Or is the tide so high now the floater is under water.  We just couldn’t see it.  Someone will have a nice pot of crabs one day.

Andrew being very careful 

We get back to the boat with our nice catch and Christie unloads the freezer as Andrew is now negotiating with these crab pincers using a pair of pliers and multi grips.  These crabs when they try and pinch something have such a mighty hold and there is no way of getting out, so Andrew sure is keeping his fingers well away.  Andrew then puts the crabs in our freezer for 25 Min's until they are not moving. Apparently from what friend Steve says,   Putting a crab in the freezer or a bucket of ice is one of the most humane way before killing them, as this puts them to sleep first before putting them straight into a boiling pot.   We then boil them up and they will be tonight’s dinner mixed with butter and sweet chilli sauce.

So now its high tide and time to motor through The Narrows, taking it slowly at 7km as we were going against the current we head north and come to the area called Ramsey’s Crossing where the cattle are brought across at low tide.(Cattle Grid).  It’s a nice drive through and no other boats around.

Andrew at The Keppels

Once at the other end we look for a spot to anchor, and cant really find anywhere nice so decide to head over to Great Keppel Islands and the rest of the Keppel Isles.  It’s a quick trip of just over an hour at 42km/ph to get here and we are in our element with crystal clear water.  Wow this is beautiful and reminds us of being in the Solomon Islands last year.

Chris at The Keppels 

We anchor up and have a walk around Humpy Island with the sand like powder under our feet and the water so clear, we are just wishing it was a bit warmer so we could swim.  We explore the island and walk through the rock pools.  We are feeling very lucky to be here and love it.  Can we stay forever?