Wednesday 6th September 2017
Last night we continued to work our way
through the mackerel that we caught off Bowen. We had delicious Thai fish
cakes, and there are still a few meals of mackerel left in the freezer.
The wind abated last night to a dead calm,
and we awoke to a light South Westerly, which is forecast to go around to the
SE later this morning.
At Sunrise it is calm with low cloud over our destination, Brampton Island
We left Stingray bay at just before 8am,
riding the current (motoring, as there was less than 5 knots of breeze), in the
direction of Brampton Island, our target destination for tonight. It took a
mere 1.5 hours to get there and tere were only 2 other vessels anchored there
when we arrived. A few came and went and by this evening there were around 5 of
us.
The tide is full at 10.30 am, so we plan
our dinghy trip ashore around this timing. The tides are big at the moment
revolving around the full moon and today is a great example, the high tide is
over 4 m and the low under 0.5m. We arrived at close to high tide, so we take
the opportunity to go ashore whilst there is enough water over the reef to make
it navigable by dinghy. As we motor into shore it is clear we can run across to
nearby Carlisle Island, something we haven’t done on previous trips.
We beached our dinghy at Sandy Point on
Carlisle Island, for a welcome opportunity to have a walk around. The Brampton
Roads, as the stretch between Brampton and Carlisle is known, is only navigable
by dinghy at high tide. We are lucky that the tide is very high at the moment.
After a walk on the beach and getting a different view of this very scenic
place, we were back in the dinghy determined to make te most of the high tide.
Our landing beach on Carlisle Island
Looking from Sandy Point, on Carlisle, back to the Brampton Island Resort(the shadow in the water is yet another bait ball)
Marine Parks Vessel is watching us all closely
Once we left Sandy Point we head up the
Brampton Roads towards Turtle Bay on the other side of Brampton. The caretaker at Brampton had recommended this
to us on our visit on the way up if the tide was favourable. We ended up going ashore at a little beach
about 2/3rds of the way along Brampton Roads and once we went ashore, we
realized it was about three quarters of the way along the Brampton airstrip. We
ended up walking along the airstrip to
its end on the South end of the island, and overlooking Turtle bay. I can now
see why the caretaker said it was worth the trip. Whilst we didn’t go down to the
beach, it looked incredible, and we could see wallaby tracks on the beach.
Beach where we went ashore near the airstrip
The airstrip at Brampton is still in good condtiion
Turtle Bay
Wallaby tracks on the beach
Back at our dinghy, the tide was running
out fast, so we thought we should head back. Putting our dinghy back in the
water, Carole noticed a shadow in the water near the mangroves where we had
beached our dinghy. It turned out to be a shark, so we didn’t leave our feet in
the water too long.
As we rowed out from the shallow shore, a
couple of very large stingrays also appeared.
It took about 20 minutes to get back to
Mica, after a very interesting shore visit.
As the tide really receded it was amazing.
The water we passed over this morning is now raised reef, and there is no
access to Brampton Roads, the pass between Brampton and Carlisle Islands (which
in itself would be mostly dry.)
Brampton Roads at low tide
It is one of our favourite anchorages, and
on this occasion we have had a chance to have a walk on Carlisle and see a bit
more of the other side of Brampton.
It is such a big moon tonight , and the
wind has died making it a pretty special place to spend the night. A nice T
Bone on the BBQ really set it off.
Great moon tonight
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