Year One
Date: 22/9/2008 19:00
Weather: Lovely
Location: Great Keppel Island
Author: Kylie

15/09/2008 Scawfell Island: Pete woke up, heard wind, and decided it was time to leave...he didn't look at the clock however...it was an early start -2am! We slowly sailed through to Digby Island where for the first time in many months we had an anchorage to ourselves. We left for The Percy Islands the following morning.

Digby Island




There was very little breeze and we drifted along asisted by the current. At times we were travelling at just 1 knot or less. We are not complaining however as the lack of wind made for some fabulous whale photographs.







The Percy Islands

What a fantastic yachting history this place has! Late afternoon saw us anchored in West Bay, Middle Percy Island along with quite a few other boats. We had heard some stories about this place, someone had said "there is an A-Frame on the beach and boats have left little souvenirs with their vessel details". That's a gross understatement. We did not expect to see quite the number of vessel plaques and signs that were present….there were thousands. I don't think you can imagine this until you see the pictures. Some people obviously came prepared with pre-made signs, other had written on coconuts, t-shirts, thongs, alcohol bottles, buoys, fenders, driftwood, plates, can openers and god knows what else. Every inch of this structure was covered up to 3 deep with signs. People listed their names, vessel name, sometimes a description, picture or painting of the vessel and the date/year they visited. Those lucky enough to have been there on multiple occasions had added to their sign over the years. And if that wasn't enough near the A-frame was a smaller shed that dated back even further. I think the oldest sign we saw was from 1961.

We spent several days at Middle Percy and learnt a little bit about its history. There are several dwellings on the island and currently they look a bit rundown. There is a Queenslander style homestead, a treehouse near the beach at West Bay and the Rondarval built by the Hicklings family. We did a walk to the old homestead (about 7km loop in soft sand). Some very creative person had created timber painted signs along the way with little poems about courage and information on the wildlife in the region.



The treehouse

Here is a short history from information board on Middle Percy Island
Captain Matthew Flinders surveyed the Percy Isles in September 1802 and commented favourably on its natural assets. He mentioned evidence of the nomadic aborigines who in 1830 killed two white botanists visiting Middle Percy. In 1860 a Gladstone man named Jimmy Joss settled here as the first permanent resident. He helped build Pine Islet Lighthouse in the 1880's. In 1918 he was taken away, too old and too ill to stay…supposably leaving 1500 gold sovereigns buried beneath a special rock. Colonel Armitage obtained the first lease and settled with his family in 1887. He grew coffee and raised sheep and cattle. The lease changed hands several times from 1918, until the White family from Canada bought it in 1921. They built the present homestead and ran the island as a sheep station until 1964. Andrew Martin bought the lease in that year and began catering to the boaties needs. He built the A-frame, the treehouse and planted the coconut trees on the beach.

We are told that recently there was a big legal dispute over the owner of the lease. Apparently when Andy became too sick to continue living on the island a man convinced him to sell the lease for 10 pounds. Andys family has fought and we read on a sign in the A-frame "Finally the court case against Colter, who conned "the island" from Andy Martin; has been successful. Cathryn (Andys cousin" has taken over the running of the Island and caring for the ecology as Andy wished." Next year the lease ends, National Parks have expressed an interest in controlling the island and have offered the current leaseholders a conservation lease in inhabited areas. We are hoping this doesn't affect the A-frame but it almost certainly means the palm trees will be removed.

Middle Percy Island has a natural lagoon, there is a very narrow entrance at the end of West Bay. We are told at high tide we could even get Jura in there! This time we just investigated it in the dinghy. The tides around here are huge, changing by about 5metres!

I had my first real swim all year off the beach in West Bay. It has been quite a strange cool winter and I am a bit of a woos so not including snorkelling and diving I really haven't been swimming up here. (We are now anchored off Great Keppel Island and we have been swimming everyday)

Sunset at Percy Island

The weather has been much warmer lately and a light north-east breeze has been blowing most days. Many of our fellow cruisers are using these conditions to make their way south at quite a phenomenal speed. We have been left behind, however we were surprised to meet quite a few boats still heading up to the Whitsundays. We met a lovely couple, Bob and Gill aboard a 16 year old aluminium catamaran. They had lots of advice and we picked their brains about the dos and don'ts of cat designs. For those who don't know we have plans to build a cat sometime in the future (we are talking many years away…don't think I could go through the building stage again this soon)

Catamaran "Bellatrix". Does this boat look 16 years old? So far ahead of its time!

I have been trying to think what day it was we left Percy Islands…what day is it today??…mum said to me recently "everyday is a Saturday for you guys" and she is right, its really hard to keep track of days especially since leaving Airlie Beach 2 weeks ago, there really has been no need to know the day. So it was (just checking the log book) 19/9 which would have been last Friday. The wind was too good so we picked up anchor, pulled up big bird and sailed away from the Percy Islands. We were heading back to the coast to Island Head Creek. Many people had mentioned this as a good anchorage so we thought we would have a look. It also happened to be about half way between Percy and Great Keppel. The wind died on us for a while and we had to motor to avoid hitting the most inappropriately positioned island (there are little islands popping up everywhere). We came back into phone service and received a msg from Pete and Jess saying where are you? They had left Airlie a week behind us and stopped at Shaw Island to beach the boat and apply antifoul. It turned out they were already ahead of us having made a direct line south but they were only a few miles ahead and planned to anchor only a bit further south of Island Head Creek. They planned a much faster trip south so we wanted to catch up one last time before they sped off. We both anchored in Port Clinton for the evening and the following morning we were woken by them at 6.30am as they left to catch the tide south. We motored out after them and with little wind we then bobbed making just 1knot south. That is 1knot of current no actual speed!!! They motored away over the horizon. Around midday there was wind again and we flew big bird and main getting up to 9knots at times. They were experimenting with a new kite and we ended up catching them around North Keppel Island. We both anchored in Great Keppel as the sun went down and had dinner together. The next morning they were off again and we have sat here exploring now for 2 days.

Caravanserai anchoring atGreat Keppel

One thing I have to mention is all the whales we have seen. We have been surrounded by pods whilst sailing and at anchor. I have managed a few good pics of mother and calf doing tail flicks in unison and a few big belly flops pics too.

Today we went on a massive walk and I think I will need to spend tomorrow recovering. We duckied to shore intending on walking to the lighthouse on the eastern side of Great Keppel by our calculations we expected about 4-5km each way but as usual the path was not too straight and the lighthouse was over several big hills. Turned out to be about 7km each way and it is really hot walking. You don't notice the heat on the boat but as soon as you step ashore it is much hotter. We made it back after much grumbling by me and whilst the views were quite spectacular the lighthouse turned out to be little more then a navigation light. It was short, reasonably modern and not worth walking all that way for.

Coryn, hope you had a great birthday and didn't fall over too many times. Mum, the doughnuts turned out pretty well, need to cook the next batch a bit longer they were a bit doughy inside- good first attempt though and very easy to make. Much easier than hoping into the car and driving somewhere to buy them and much better tasting than anything we could get from the Great Barrier Reef "supermarket."

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