Dugong

Dugong diving around Nauti Kitty

Friday 24th June 2022

We had a slow start to the day as we had planned to stay on anchor so we were out in the cockpit having our morning cup of tea when we heard a swoosh noise. Rick spotted him first a beautiful dugong munching on the grassy weed below. He hung around the boat For about 10 minutes coming up every few minutes for breath. I was so excited as I have never seen a dugong in the wild before, it certainly made my day.

We had decided earlier that we would depart for Blaksley’s Anchorage but we had to wait until the tide was on the rise as we knew there were some significantly shallow areas we would have to cross so we needed as much tide as possible. We left Dux anchorage around 1pm and as The wind was mainly on our nose and the passage was winding amongst small mud islands and required careful navigation we kept to motoring. The passage took us past Jumpinpin which is at times the opening to the ocean between North and South Stradbroke islands but as we passed it was a beautiful white Sandy spit with no obvious connection through to the sea. It would be a beautiful anchorage to keep in mind for the future.

Our course was quite convoluted as we wound our way along the channels keeping to the charted deepest sections although in parts the depth readings were much shallower than shown on charts. Many times we were on high alert as our depth alarm would scream and on one dog leg bend we actually hit bottom but had enough speed we just moved through. We actually went this way as the Canaipa passage was meant to be beautiful but we were so focused on our depth and not running aground that it was hard to take in our surrounds anyway! The final section of shallows was topped off by having to go under high voltage wires that spanned across the channel. Again the chart said there was 20 meter clearance at high tide but we kept as close to the starboard bank where the wires were highest just in case..we need 18.5 meters to clear our mast. Once clear of the wire the channel opened out to a huge bay and our intended anchorage looked very exposed to the predicted westerly winds so we quickly chose a new anchorage at horseshoe bay on Peel island that would be more protected. It was an hour further on but as it was only 3.30pm we had plenty of time.

We cleared the channel around all the mud islands and made a bee line to horseshoe bay on peel island. We had to circle out of the way of the north stradbroke island car ferry as we were on a collision course and they were much bigger than us, then we had to find a spot among the multitude already at anchor. We ended up at the back of the pack but securely anchored in about 6m. We got a bit of wash from the ferry’s transiting across the bay which made it a bit rolly at times but otherwise lovely. Looking forward to exploring the beach tomorrow.