Thursday 6th July 2017
Our plan to go to Bait Reef this morning
looks good. It was a very still night with not a lot of swell, so we slept
well, and the forecast for the next few days is for light winds.
The decision was easy, so we packed up, got
the dinghy on board and were motored out of Butterfly Bay at 7.30am. We expect to take about 3 hours to get there
and it will be a motor all of the way, as the breeze is very light.
Butterfly Bay behind us
Whale sightings along the way were a regular occurrence, as it is clear that whales have now arrived in numbers.
Approaching the reef all we can see are a
few boats sitting in the middle of the ocean.
You are not allowed to anchor inside the
reef and there are only 6 moorings, so if none are available and no-one moves,
then you have to go elsewhere. The nearest anchorage is behind Hook Reef about
another hour away.
When we arrived, all of the moorings were
taken, so we waited outside, with another boat who got there before us. Within
about 30 mins, 2 moorings became available and we quickly got one.
During the day there were a few other
arrivals, some of whom waited a very long time for a mooring to become
available and by mid afternoon, no-one was moving other than a tourist boat
full of snorkelers and a big motor boat who had just come out for the day.
Dive boat that brings tourists out for a days diving or snorkelling
Another Hanse , Etre Jeune, arrived mid
afternoon, and waited outside. In the end Tania got in their dinghy and came
into the lagoon to ask us if we had ever anchored at Hook Reef. I pointed out
that there was a commercial mooring available, and maybe they could hang of
that until someone, left or they could probably stay on it as the chance of
some-one turning up wanting to use it was slim.
They did hook up to that mooring and
eventually the big motor boat left and they moved to a public mooring.
Etre Jeune
We also saw another boat we knew, Tiara,
and had coffee with them on their boat and invited them over to Mica for
Sundowners.
Tiara on the left
It is a beautiful day, and we are soon in
the water off the back of our boat, and greeted by a very large fish who was
not at all shy. I suspect they get fed by visiting boats.
The water is crystal clear, and the fish life
plentiful and very colourful. Sadly, the coral is largely dead or bleached,
with only small patches of colour. The feature of Bait Reef is the Stepping
Stones, a row of large mushroom shaped bommies, that are spread along the
entrance to the lagoon. You have to go between two of them to enter the lagoon,
and the navigation marks are rudimentary. The original ones having been
destroyed by cyclones (probably) years ago.
The only navigation mark
There is a large expanse of reef and we
decided to to a dinghy tour weaving in and out of the reefs getting a good view
of the reef from our dinghy at low tide.
The area around the stepping stones is
quite amazing, and whist resting up in our cockpit, we saw a parade of whales
swimming past the outside of the stepping stones, not far from our boats.
A school of small fish swim past our boat
Ian and Margaret from Tiara came over for
sundowners and we sat in the cockpit taking in the view and sunset. It is a
very pretty place, even though you are anchored out in the middle of the ocean
with nothing showing above water at high tide. We are most fortunate that the
conditions for our visit were near perfect.
The Sun going down as we enjoyed a few drinks and conversation on Mica
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