CAPE BEDFORD TO FLINDERS ISLAND

3 September 2023

Yesterday was a good sailing day, we covered 72 miles from Low Island and had a peaceful night at anchor under Cape Bedford.  It was my intention to call into Cooktown after Low Island, but the plan changed.  We are on spring tides and the anchorage at Cooktown is notoriously shallow and tide prone, I decided that the stress of a dodgy anchorage with potential wind against tide snafu just wasn’t worth it.  People also told me that Cooktown was expensive and touristy.  Cape Bedford looked far more comfortable, easier to access and only a few miles up the coast from Cooktown.   

The sail to Lizard Island is a far less strenuous undertaking, just 36 miles and with the perfect wind of around 10 knots it was a very relaxing ride.  We saw dolphins and whales on the way, arriving at the Lizard Island anchorage early in the afternoon.  The anchorage is very scenic and the water crystal clear with fish swimming all around.  There is a resort here, a small shop and a bar open to boat people a few nights a week.  Once again my plans changed, I had intended to go ashore at Lizard Island and visit the place where Captain Cook stood on high ground looking for a passage through the reefs.  Instead, I got a severe lazy attack and stayed on board, I could not be bothered putting the dinghy in the water and even the invitation for a cruisers beer and bar b que ashore couldn’t break my  lazy state of mind.  I did finish off painting a small area on the foredeck with KiwiGrip and overhauling the outboard motor.  I stayed two peaceful nights at anchor.  There is no hurry in life.

Lizard Island is a beautiful place but I am sure that Captain Cook wasn’t interested in the pretty beaches when he landed there many years ago urgently seeking a safe passage out of the reefs for his severely damaged vessel the Endeavour.  After nearly losing his ship on a reef and then finding a safe place in which to make repairs he then had to escape the reefs surrounding the coast.  His sailing Master wanted to retrace their track south and find safe water.  But Cook must have known that his ship, in her weakened state was too fragile to beat into the strong trade winds.  Cook left the Endeavour off the mainland coast, taking a pinnace sailed to Lizard Island to use the high ground there to survey a possible exit from the reefs.  He climbed the hill on Lizard Island, as his journal records, ‘With a mixture of hope and fear proportioned to the importance of our business and the uncertainty of the event’ and from this vantage point detected an opening in the reef to seaward.  He immediately sent out the pinnace to survey his findings.  Cook camped overnight and ascended the hill the following morning but a haze had set in reducing visibility.  However, the survey from the pinnace convinced him that escape from the reefs was possible.  The rest is history.  

After my lazy stay at Lizard Island I set off with a very early start northwards again.  The route now follows the coast inside the reef system, this route is also used by commercial shipping so not only reefs but other ships to watch out for.  For the evening anchorage I had a plan A, B, and C.  In the event I went for plan D.  The wind from Lazard island was a steady trade wind, around 15 to 20 knots and we made easy miles. 

I looked at the anchorage under Cape Melville but it seemed windy and unstable.  I had also been reading some history.  In 1899 more than 100 fishing vessels were anchored under Cape Melville, a tropical cyclone struck and more than 300 crew were lost, must have been a tremendous storm.  The cape is like nothing I have ever seen before with huge boulder mountains.  It instantly reminded me of the pyramids its on such a scale.  The individual boulders are huge – its just there.

The anchorage in The Flinders Island Group in Owen Channel was supposed to be an all weather anchorage so I pressed on.  On arrival in Owen Channel it was low water and the anchorage was very windy with big tidal swirls.  I tried anchoring but got wind against tide and didn’t like it.  I picked up anchor and motored around to Stokes Bay behind Stanley Island in increasing wind and strong tidal current, arriving in the dark.  There was no moon, it was very dark, there was one other boat in the anchorage, the first boat I had seen all day.  The anchorage was good and protected from the swell, the wind blew all night but it was just a blustery wind off the land and not gusty. 

Today had been a big days run, almost 94 miles.  I had not intended such a big run but with a good wind I just had to keep going.