Tongue Bay, via Border Island

Wednesday 15^th July 2015

There was no excuse for not having a good nights sleep, as it was dead calm all night at Nara. There wasn’t a lot of activity on board until around 8 am.

After breakfast, we went ashore to do the brief walk up to the aboriginal caves and take in some of the exhibits that have been put in place to explain the history of the Ngaro people. The tide was pretty high so finding a place to park our dinghy was a challenge. It is yet another lovely day and it is very calm at our anchorage.

Intrepid bushwalkers heading up to Aboriginal site

Mica at anchor from a lookout on the walk

A trailer sailor with a couple of old guys on board try to sail out from deep in the inlet, doing about 1 knot. They eventually come alongside us and they are in deep dialogue about an electrical problem they have on board and are devising a scheme to put a few strands of wire together to make a fuse. By the time we were ready to leave they were only about half a mile down the inlet and had dropped an anchor.

Our plan is to head out through the Hook Channel  in the direction of  Tongue Bay. It is such a great day, we decide to go to Border Island for lunch, and were fortunate enough to get a mooring on the edge of the bay.

The old underwater observatory (no longer used) in the Hook Passage

Whilst we were there I decided to top up the water tank and made  about 90 litres of water, had a very nice salad for lunch, and went out in the dinghy to look at the fringing reef very close to our mooring. The mooring lines here are huge, and Carole struggled to get it on board, but did so somehow.

At around 3pm we cast off the mooring and motored to Tongue Bay, a trip of only around 5 nm. There is no breeze, but the scenery is impressive, motoring between Border Island and Dumbell Island. On arrival at Tongue Bay, the anchorage is packed. We found a cosy spot and were entertained by visits from turtles, dugongs and had a bit of fun catching a lot of undersized fish.  Hopefully in the morning we might catch something we can eat.

Dumbell Island

For dinner we feasted on some of the biggest lamb shanks I have ever seen, and there were no scraps left on the plates. It looks like it will be calm tonight, so no-one should have trouble sleeping.