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| Hook Passage |
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| Underwater observatory |
After a really
great morning around Whitehaven again we head over to Mingo and motor her back
around Hook Island and head through the Hook passage. There is an underwater observatory we would
like to have a look at and a little resort that welcomes boaties. Unfortunately there are only two moorings out
the front which are both occupied, meaning we would have to anchor Mingo 600
meters across the other side of the Hook Passage, which in calm waters would
have been fine but Hook passage is known for its swell and roughness so was not
an option to take the tinny across.
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| Dugong Inlet |
Instead we head further down the western side of Whitsunday Island past
Mays Bay and into Dugong Inlet, which is behind Cid Island, Cid Harbour. It is a well-protected area in here with a
few small beaches and looks lovely as we motor in. There are a lot of other boats and seems like
a really popular spot.
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| 100 hours on Mingo clock |
Today 8.9.12 we
have hit our 100 hours on the clock for the motor since we put the new motor
in. We have also clocked up 1816
kilometres since leaving Scarborough, not a bad feat really.
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| Cid Harbour |
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| On walk to Sawmill Beach |
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| Chris behind a rock tree |
Once anchored we
venture over to Dugong Beach and see a walking track so have a wander down and
up the rocky path for 1km to Sawmill Beach.
The walk starts out in lovely rain forest type scenery with a lot of
pine, palm and fig trees along the way.
Its cool beneath the trees and a welcome feeling away from the heat of
today out of the sun. We come across a rock tree.
As we follow the
path we come across an enormous pine tree.
Christie touches the tree and says to Andrew. “This tree would have seen Captain Cook here
when he found the island 200 odd years ago, and imagine what it’s seen, if only
this tree could talk”. We both have a
laugh as Andrew leans against the tree pretending to be “Captain James Cook”.
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| Olden days photo on pine tree |
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| Andrew leaning on old Pine Tree |
We wander further
down the track and hear this noise in the bush, as we look over we see a huge goanna
lizard wandering around in the scrub. Unfortunately
it was too quick for a picture.
We find the little beach at the end of the
track called Sawmill Bay and see a small write up about how in the olden days
(1800’s) they used to saw the old pine trees down and sell them off on the mainland. There was, funnily enough two memorial sights
by the beach dedicated to Captain James Cook’s landing on the beach on 4th
June 1770. Was that just a coincidence
that we had been joking about him at the start of our walk?
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| Sawmill Bay |
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| Andrew at Capt Cook Memorial |
We walk on the
beach and paddle in the water and see a number of decent size whiting swimming
in the shallows. Another 30-minute walk
back and its time to sit out the back of Mingo and enjoy a drink watching the
sun go down.
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| Mingo through the trees |
We are puddling
about most of the morning on Sunday and even though the winds are at 15-20 its
looks pretty calm out towards Hamilton so we pack up the tinny and prepare
Mingo again and slowly head out of Cid Harbour with the plan to head over to
Hamilton to restock on a few things, including fuel and then go back to Hill
Inlet. We are out of Cid for about 5
Min's and the swell is pretty large, so we abort our trip for today and hope
that the winds calm for tomorrow. We
turn around and head back into Cid Harbour and anchor this time at a little further
south than we were at Dugong at Hughes Point.
There are a number of other boats in here too; obviously they knew how
rough it is out of the harbour.
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| Cid Harbour |
We keep
saying that we wont motor if the winds are stronger than 10-15 and we keep
saying we wont leave midday, but we still seem to fall into the trap of taking
it to easy at times and hoping – we fall into the same trap of getting out
there and it being rough. You think we
would learn…
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| Andrew fishing with lure off tinny |
We hop into the
tinny and motor around the harbour with a lure behind the boat, its nice in here
and is a very good all weather anchorage.
It was occasionally used as an anchorage by the Australian and allied
navies during World War 2.
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| Andrew climbing coconut tree |
We don’t manage to
catch anything but have fun trying again and really do wonder what we could be
doing so wrong that nothing bites.
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| Stingrays at Cid Harbour |
We go
for a walk along a couple of the little beaches in here and Andrew tries to
climb a coconut tree, half way up and he cant keep balance, so ends up sliding
down and grazing both his legs from the rough bark, no coconuts gathered. So Andrew goes to the tinny and grabs a rope
then throws this up the tree and tries to use this to balance himself, still no
luck – Oh, the idea seemed good. So
another coconut lives to tell its tale and we go hungry.
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| Chris being lazy in the tinny |
During the evening
we had a rod sitting out the back trying again to catch something nice and
big. I think that it was this fish or
should we say monsters lucky day because as we are sitting chatting we hear
this loud clunk and Andrew runs out the back to see what he’s caught only to
find that the whole rod has gone overboard.
So now there is some fish swimming around the Whitsundays with our rod
hanging out of its mouth. Another RIP
this time to our blue fishing rod.
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| Beautiful time to be leaving Cid Harbour |
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| Absolute clear blue skies leaving Cid Harbour |
On Monday we spend
half the morning looking through the binoculars again trying to work out the
water situation. Its still 15-20 knots
out, but we are itching to get out of Cid Harbour. We now decide not to head back to Hill Inlet
but want to go back to Airlie to refuel.
It was a really rough ride over from Airlie so we are a little concerned
but all seems good out there today and there are a fair few other boats out and
about. Once again its mid afternoon (our
no go motoring times) but we try our luck – are we becoming too confident and
cocky??? We get a break this time and
motor the hour and a half trip over to Airlie in low swell, perfect water conditions.
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