no sunset – sunraise at 6am!

The first light woke me, and I noticed I was sitting high and dry on the rocky reef, but the channel with still deep water was only 20 m away!!!

The path to the deep water were only flatish reef rocks with few shallow pools, and I simply felt I didn’t want to sit and wait there until the incoming tide would flood me again…probably a wrong decision, as for sure the 100kg+ plus boat dragged over even flatish reef rocks would leave some ugly gel coat marks…and my bottom was just freshly repaired and filled up with fresh gelcoat in Darwin!

Thanks to (another..) GREG for that job!!! I’m sorry I couldn’t thank you in person for that, as you did the job nicely when I was on holiday! And now this ugly abrasion again…but it didn’t feel too bad for the new layer of gel coat.

Eventually afloat again, the path along the beach of Dum In Mirie Island was a dry high rocky reef as well. So either waiting for high tide, carrying boat and gear quite a distance or…there maybe a chance passing through the channel between Warmali Island and the mainland, ending at Patterson Point? It was marked on my map first muddy and sandy, then “reef” again…maybe this “reef” would ba a sandy one?

I decided to give it a try, and paddled in the deep water around the corner into the mangrovy muddy channel. In other times it would be too crocy for me, but you are getting simply used to their possible presence…so no worries…

I found quite some mud crab pods along the channel, someone was very busy crabbing there…it reminded me to my beautiful time last week, where Greg and I went crabbing as well!

But paddling deeper into the channel, it was eventually there…the dry rocky bar, about 500 m wide…impassable at low tides…ok, then waiting…

I climbed out of my boat, had some breakfast and went for an exploring walk on the reef. Please, no slipping off anywhere…the sharp rocks would make very ugly wounds!!! Some reef rocks were muddy and slippery, but most were dry and covered with sharp mussel shells.

I could scout out a deeper water channel passing almost through the whole reef, it would take only about an hour of raising tide, and I would be on the other side, free!!!

A few more minutes, I could see the channel flooding even more, and I dragged the boat afloat through the rocks to the still dry gap. Another half an hour of flooding, and I was FREE!!!!

I could eventually paddle on on open water at 9am, feeling first fresh in bright sunlight, but my overtiredness came up soon again. I went for frequent power naps, my body simply told me I had to. And it was calm water again after a bit windy morning.

So I decided NOT to head down to Channel Point already as planned, but stopping hopefully at Point Jenny already.

Soon a lovely white sandy beach showed up on the horizont at the Point, I couldn’t believe my luck! I haven’t checked that spot out on Google Earth previously, as I was not thinking I had to land there. My map and chart showed “reefs” again…no beach.

This was a “sandy” reef, shallow and dry at low tide…and I arrived two hrs before low tide…means about 800m dragging the boat to dry ground, or emptying it and carrying the gear in 4 walks…I decided in Darwin to leave my trolley behind, no space, and the boat is simply too light built to bewheeled aroung full or half loaded.

First I was anchoring my still half loaded kayak on a stick in the sand, thinking I would go out and bring it in with the incoming tide, but I found remains of croc slides next to my tent…and I needed sleep…deep continuous sleep…and at 9pm I decided to do the emptying and carrying job rather than getting up at night twice.

I jumped out of the tent fully naked, for the first gear walk…a mistake, as I noticed with switching my headlamp on the mossies started to eat up my uncovered body…and you can’t splash them with two heavy bags on your shoulders…next walk I put some clothes and neo socks on!!! Autsch!!!!

And you can think I was cursing at my heavy food load for three weeks…

I turned my eventually fully empty boat around to inspect the bottom from the reef encounter the previous night, and saw the soaking gaping hole…shit! I was already wondering about a bit of water in the front hatch and quite some in the cockpit…it was just on the dangerous spot where the front bulkhead was sitting. Other spots are likely to flex on rock encounters.

I carried the boat up as well, rinsed it with fresh water and decided to sleep in tomorrow. The hole needs to dry out and then to be fixed, high tide was at midday, and I needed to fill water at Channel Point. So maximum 30 km were planned only for tomorrow, start at midday. Enough. The 50 km crossing of Anson Bay needs to wait for next day. Then I plan to cross Joseph Bonaparte Gulf in 4 days. Should be apiece of cake compared to the Carpentaria x-ing…

Next morning, there were two deep fat croc slides 40 m besides my tent, up to a dry “nest” in the dunes…my night’s neighbour came in at some times high tide at midnight, but was unfortunately gone fishin’ already in the early morning … I’d loved to say “hi”! I’m really getting used to their presence!

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