Buccaneer Bound: Sea Leg 3 - Doubtful Bay back to Yampi Sound

7 July - Day 13 - Raft Point to Sale River - 32nm/ 65km

Turns out that the 15mins of chugging last night only resulted in us moving about 200m. Sure it was enough to get us to a better anchor holding and out of danger. But it’s a testament to the incredible strength of the tidal currents in this place, and how darkness really messes with your senses.

After Brekky we decided to head over to Red Cone Creek for a look. We could either stay there the night, or move onto the Sale River once the tide was higher. Well apart from providing some good photo opportunities looking back at Steep Island over the glassy water, Red Cone was a big fat waste of time. The tide was dead low so all the mangrove forests (and I do mean thick creepy old mangrove forests) were about 300m beyond wide mud banks. We trolled around for a bit with the only bit of joy being a foul hooked Mackerel.

So we gave Redcone the big A and headed towards the Sale River, stopping to troll and flick lures at a little inlet along the way (again without any luck).

Just before arriving at the Sale River a pretty strong southerly wind kicked up so we high tailed into the Sale. The tidal currents reacting with a rock bar at the mouth of the river was churning up white water and I had Daz calling out directions to me based on satellite photos to help avoid the rock bar. (this river is unsurveyed on the charts so the satellite photos are super helpful).

Anyway, we made it through near the top of the tide and headed up to an anchorage point about 6 nautical miles upstream. Since it was only early afternoon I picked a random spot with a nice deep hole and a back eddy and dropped anchor to do a bit of bottom bashing.

Well what a spot! Within 5 mins I had landed and released 2 small fingermark. 5 mins after that I had landed 2 more big fat ones (keepers) and everyone was starting to look at me like I was possessed with fish magic. Then they all started pulling out more fishing rods and joining in the fun. We told Bruce and Daph and soon they come over and anchored near us. By this time I had landed 2 more keepers and the kids were having some success too, so I assigned myself deckhand duties and we had a wonderful afternoon as the kids hauled in fish after fish. Daz went up on the bow with the micro jigs and also pulled in plenty of fish. After we bagged a dozen or so the whole family pitched in cleaning them and Daph and Bruce also did the same.

We’re now feeling a lot better about the fishing!

After that we chugged away from that lovely fishing hole and used the Active Captain tracker to map the contours for the river floor, then pick a spot to anchor. Since we all smelled a bit fishy, we pulled out the fresh water shower and we all got ourselves nice and clean, threw our smelly clothes in the shower water and settled down to Mackerel for dinner.

After dinner we sat and marvelled at the strength of the tidal flow in this place. The water was racing past the boat at maybe 20-30kmph. It unbelievable to see. At about 8pm (an hour before low tide) the incoming tide started pushing upstream causing whirlpool just behind the boat. We could hear the whirlpools erupt by the sound of slurping water (a bit like the sound of water getting sucked down the bath), then we’d shine the torch on them and just watch the water action in wonder. The forces of nature here are really something to see.

Heading from Raft Point into Doubtful Bay

Looking back to Raft Point from near the mouth of Red Cone Creek

Captain Daz!

Red Cone Creek

Our secret Fingermark place in the Sale River

Fingermark I tell ya!

The tice creating some push in the Sale

Sale River - SUnset at our anchorage

8 July - Day 14 - Sale River

Well the Whirlpools didn’t suck us under. In fact we had a very peaceful night’s sleep with no anchor alarms, drag alarms, wind or surging waves.

After Breakfast, Mum & Dad fished in the same spot as yesterday so we chugged upstream a bit and found another likely spot. Soon we were hauling in more Fingermark and Mangrove Jack and then Daz Showed off by pulling in a 75cm Jewie. Bruce and Daph came up then so we cleaned our fish and used the incoming tide the go up to about 1km from the rock bar (about 20km upstream). Since the GPS didn’t chart the river we used the satellite maps as a guide to dodge the sandbars, and as we progressed upstream, the sides of the river rose on both sides into huge splendid cliffs with amazing rock formations. What a beautiful place. We cast lures for a while into the mangroves in the hope of snagging an elusive Barra, but again it was not to be. So as the tide stalled and begun it’s outward run, we headed back down the river to our anchorage and watched the setting sun light up the huge cliffs.

Daz prepping to fly his drone over the Sale

Looking upstream from our Sale anchorage

The Sale River

Daz's nice Jewie

A decent haul of fish. Not bad of about an hour of fun

But guess who has to clean them all?

Daph with a 50cm Fingermark

Exploring the upper reaches of the Sale

Sale River cliffs

The view from our anchorage as the sun sets

9 July - Day 15 - Sale River - Raft Point.
After another night in the Sale, where the tide didn’t quite run so hard overnight thanks to the incoming neaps, we went for one last fishing session back at the Jewie hole. Both boats soon bagged out, and cleaned the fish, and so on the rising tide we bid farewell to the wonderful Sale River.

Fuel on this leg of the trip is a constant worry. We need to conserve enough to get back to Cockatoo Island for resupply and this leg we’re covering some LONG distances. So every mission is carefully potted and calculated against the fuel reserves before we do anything. Surprisingly it seems like our consumption is coming in under what we planned, so we have enough to stick our noses through Success Straight and into George Water. Success Straight on the incoming tide was well worth a look for the scenery and just to experience the might of the tidal currents.

I was driving and I don’t mind saying that I was peaking a bit with adrenaline going through there. The currents made the water top glassy and pushed the planing boat left and right sideways (like fishtailing) and at one point I had to swerve to miss a whirlpool that in it’s centre was about 1m below water level! Scary powerful shit right there. I was glad to have experienced it, gladder to be alive, and gladder to be out of it.

Back out of Success Strait we headed across a pretty choppy Doubtful Bay and into Raft Point. It was like Pitt St in raft point with a massive passenger ship holed up there and a few other boats. Later in the evening more big cruisers lobbed in to get away from the wind that had been kicking up all day. Many of them only stopped for a few hours and then headed back out again.

With Bundy Runner rafted along side of up we settled in for the night. But Raft Point isn’t all that well protected from the wind and currents and soon we had to re-think the anchoring situation as the sloppy conditions was bashing the boats together, making it hard to stand. So we set Bundy Runner free and they went and anchored on their own. It made for a much smoother night.

Bruce and Daph get another nice haul

Matilda bag this fat cod. It was fat because it had the whole head of a fish I'd just cleaned inside it's belly.

Back at Raft point...

My other boat is here to greet us

Or maybe they're sitting there drinking sundowners and scoffing at us peasants

A busy night at Raft Point

10 July - Day 16 - Raft Point - Montgomery Reef - Cockatoo Is - Silvergull Ck
We wanted to see Montgomery Reef near low tide, so it was up early and straight out to the Reef. The easterlys had kicked up over night and was making it a bit choppy, but it wasn’t too bad and we made it to the reef in good time. We made our way up the narrow channel and hung around on the anchor for a bit to see the spectacle of the waterfalls cascading over the edge of the reefs.

Personally I don’t think “reef” is a very accurate description. It’s more like a bloody great big rock. It’s nothing like the colourful coral reefs of the Great Barrier Reef. It’s just solid brown smooth stone.

The waterfalls were pretty cool though and they got more impressive the further up the gutter we went. We had a troll up and down the gutter, but after Matilda hooked a huge sea turtle and we had a hell of a fight freeing it, she gave up, mortified that she might have hurt a turtle. Instead Daz hooked up on something MASSIVE that went SPLASH, GULP, zzzZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ, PEH. We can only speculate it was a big spanish Mackerel, Since all that was left of the rig was a piece of chewed through wire leader (right up near the top) - I guess we’ll never know now.

We had a bloody long haul left ahead of us to get back to Cockatoo Island for fuel, So we got ourselves ship shape and headed out with captain Daz at the helm. Things went well for the big open stretch, but as we neared Melomys Island things got a bit gnarly. There was one hell of a tidal race going through the gap between Melomys and Traverse Is and it was running against us, while the wind was behind us. So the pass was a long stretch of white capped standing waves. WIth Nat on windscreen wiper duty, Daz punched his way through it with Bundy Runner on our tail. It was a long stretch of pretty intense driving.

Once in the clear, we had a quick conference with Bundy Runner and agreed to make a dash through the Koolan Channel despite the incoming tide. We just wanted to get back to base! So we picked our way through more tidal races between islands and in through the gutter at the bottom end of Koolan Island which was pretty frightening. The current in that place was mammoth as the tide was going at full roar. You’d be going backwards if you attempted it in a lesser powered boat, so full noise on the motor and you wanna be sure you keep your bow pointing dead straight into that current or I reckon you could flip it in a heartbeat. It was 10 seconds of terror. Then we were through, and into the main Koolan Channel where we got some respite, until we crossed the washing machine of Yampi Sound to reach Cockatoo Island. Phew.

The tide was still a bit low to fuel up, but we moored up and waited, had a few beers (and some valium) and a rest, and an hour later we were able to pull into Cockatoo Island and fill up on fuel and water and ice.

After that we headed back to SIlvergull Creek for the comfort of a bloody good mooring site. That night we were joined by 4 other speed boats like ours.