A Restful Day at Pancake Creek

Monday 12th June 2014

Out of bed quickly at 6 am, we were under siege by a large stink boat who was hanging in the total opposite direct to us at low tide and was getting far too close to us. Fortunately they yelled out as they were up fishing. Also during the night another big stink boat had arrived and anchored quite close to us. We took up some anchor chain to move us away from the first boat, only to find it moved us too close to the new arrival, so in the end we pulled the anchor up and moved.

No sooner had we reset our anchor well away from the offending boats, when we saw the one that we had been close to motoring out of the creek !!! Anyway, it is never good anchoring near stink boats as they hang at anchor very differently to yachts. Normally we would avoid it, but it is pretty congested here at the moment., and it is not a huge expanse of deep water.

Pancake creek

When we re anchored it was around 5.45am, still dark but not worth going back to bed, so we had a cup of tea and destressed.

After breakfast we put the dinghy in the water and headed into the beach. There was a large group camping on the beach last night, and early this morning we could see them packing up all of there gear to move on to their next spot, further inside the creek. they had lots of gear.

Campers on the beach packing up to move on

The Campers Flotilla Leaving the Beach

We arrived at the beach as the campers were leaving, but the midges were waiting for us and we were under attack from te moment we stepped on the beach. This greatly shortened our visit to a walk up and down the beach and then back in the boat to get away from them.

Our boats at anchor, Mica on the left

The beach is well used by campers and day visitors with some rough tables and a few bush BBQ''s,

as well as plenty of evidence of campfires.

The midges were too much, so it was back in the dinghy and around to the next beach on the western side, where there are some bushwalks that  take you across Bustard Head to the lighthouse and a few other spots.

Much as we would like to do the walks it was starting to rain, and the prospect of being eaten alive by midges took the edge off it.

Whilst a bit more rocky to approach, this was a nicer beach, but only at high tide. The tides go out a fair way and dragging the dinghy over rocky/coral bottoms is no fun. We saw a sea turtle swimming around as we approached the beach pretty unconcerned with our presence. We had a look around and headed back to the boat as the showers got a little heavier.

The rain was only light, so I decided to try a bit of drift fishing in the main channel between the sand spit and our anchorage. All I caught was a flathead about 150mm long, pretty disappointing. Other attempts close the rocks yielded no better, and I snagged a coral head and lost my rig. Discouraged I went back to the boat and tossed a line over the back to get rid of the rest of the bait. I caught a few small reef fish, but a least had some fun.

The biggest fish I caught !

After lunch, we had a lazy afternoon on board. There was only 1 new arrival this afternoon, resulting in only 5 of us being in the outer anchorage, a great contrast to yesterday when is was more than twice as many. 

More campers arrived in a tinny to settle into the "camping"  area on the beach, constructing a rough lean to, and happy to leave their boat beached at low tide. The must have great immunity to the marauding midges, or a not in a state to be concerned.

Dinner tonight is on Annecam, and only the way over in the dinghy hwe called in to introduce ourselves to the couple on Wine Dark Sea, who Mark and Janet from Koonya had spent some days sailing with on the way up. Janet had seen on marine Traffic that they were anchored near us and suggested we go and say hello. No doubt we will see them again on our travels.

We had an early night and a very nice lasagne and salad dinner on Annecam, before heading back to Mica to get the dinghy back up on the deck ready for an early departure in the morning. Destination is not certain, but if the forecast remains true, we will probably anchor at Hummocky Island tomorrow night, if not we will continue on to Great Keppel.