Day 17 The Trouble with Ex’s.

Anchored in only 4 metres!

28^th January 2011

Island Head Creek

Australian Mainland

02.00 Dreamagic reached an incline of 60 degrees before coming back upright as the tide came back. Unfortunately she righted momentarily and flopped over to the starboard side where she stayed at an angle of about 15 degrees, keel still attached to the ground. The tide here has to be seen to be believed. The log is showing 3 knts while we are aground and our dinghy, lying at the end of her painter at right angles to the boat is planing with the motor off! What has happened is that when Dreamagic righted she immediately floated back to a sandbar and was caught with the tide amidships. We had a cup of coffee.

03.30 Dreamagic doesn’t look like she wants to leave anytime soon. As the tide lifts her it also pushes her further onto the bank. I do know that eventually there will be enough water for us, we crossed that sand bar yesterday, but when? I started the motor and ploughed her around to face the anchor chain and oncoming tide. Within another 10 minutes she had lifted and we recovered the anchor and reset it further out in the channel.

06.00 Leaving Thirsty Sound on the top of the tide we set course for Island Head, some 39 nms away. We logged on with VMR Thirsty Sound and gave an ETA of mid afternoon. The weather was superb, although the 15 knt wind was blowing slightly off where we wanted to go. We set a headsail and with the motor running were making 8 knts in the vague direction of our destination.

The trouble with ex’s is that they always turn up when it isn’t convenient. I have great relationships with some of mine, fantastic girls, (indeed I know a couple read this blog!) I love catching up, but it’s important to make sure it’s at a mutually convenient time. Take for instance, Anthony.

Tropical Cyclone Anthony is now officially EX Tropical Cyclone Anthony. It was a lot of fun mate, but it’s over. You are an ex. I know. I heard it on the radio. Feeling low? Well that’s what ex’s (and especially cyclones) do. They become lows, and they bugger off. They do not hang around like a fart in a phone box, (or in this case a fart in the Coral Sea) building up malevolence, reform, and have another go!

The VHF radio is alive with revised forecasts for Anthony and each one is worse than the last. The wind is blowing 30 knots, we have covered nearly 80 nms to get the 39 to Island Head Creek, the entrance is a mass of white caps and rocks and Dreamagic is not happy. Our plan was to get to Rosslyn Bay tomorrow but that is on hold as we may have to lay up here for a day or two and ride this out. Other than our spot tracker we have had no contact with the outside world for 5 days and I am sure that Rona’s people are getting concerned. (Mine know me).

We entered Island Head Creek in the dying light of the day. Close past some very formidable rocks whose teeth surfaced no more than a boats length from our starboard side, but wary of a drying bank to port. The creek itself is very wide and very shallow. There is little to protect us from the wind but there is no swell. We choose the first spur to starboard and circled like a dog finding a bed looking for deep water with enough room for us to swing 80 metres on the change of tide. Dinner was pumpkin soup with chicken and sweet chilli sauce before retiring at 19.30.

At 22.30 the shallow water alarm went off so we did our traditional nocturnal dance to find that we indeed had less then 3 metres under our keel, however the boat would swing into 6 or more within a few degrees. I moved to the aft cabin so that I could hear it more clearly and went back to bed.

Island Head



Too Close!