ESCAPING THE HONEY TRAP

24 June 2023

I checked out of the marina this morning – I could have stayed weeks longer. It’s a honey trap, sooner or later it will drain the funds and suck you dry. Time to move on.  Moving only a short distance, just four miles to an anchorage at Turtle Island.  Here I want to get back into boat mode and get shipshape after the marina stay.

The provisions need to be properly stowed, the laundry put in its proper place and stuff like fleece jackets and long johns bagged up as they won’t be needed for a while.

The anchorage at Turtle Island was super calm, tranquil and peaceful.  A low hum in the background of Gladstone industry working through the night came across the calm waters.  Ships, ship loaders, LNG plants all working away generating wealth for Australia.

In the morning I noticed the boat is covered in a layer of black grime, Gladstone is not a clean place, plenty of dust and pollution generated by the industry.  After a relaxed morning I weighed anchor and headed up the North Channel.  I had wanted to travel through a shortcut north called the narrows.  This route required high water to navigate and unfortunately the high tides are all during the night at the moment.  The Narrows are unlit, so a night passage was not a safe option.  At the top of North Channel I anchored just behind Rat Island to provide some protection from the northerly breeze.  Not a very nice anchorage and the northerly breeze blew for two nights.

Eventually, a southern breeze was forecast and we motored out of North Channel in flat calm.  Well, the breeze didn’t really arrive, I tried sailing but it was hopeless.  We sat for a while becalmed off Cape Capricorn, enjoying the scenery.  Someone told me once that less than 3% of the worlds population live south of the tropic of Capricorn, I don’t know if that’s true but thought provoking. When I discovered we were moving backwards on the tide the engine went on and we motored north at economical revs.

The destination was keppel Island.  However, on the way we passed Hummocky Island and the anchorage there looked very inviting.  As there was no wind and the noise from the engine was bothersome it wasn’t a hard decision to anchor early.  We could get to keppel Island tomorrow.

Hummocky Island proved a good fair-weather anchorage.  Although there were some currents circulating in the bay causing small wind against tide conditions and spinning the boat around.