Pirates of Hinchinbrook Island - Gould Island to Wheeler Island

August 1st - Gould Island to Wheeler Island - Day 8

A 16km trip with an expected 4 hour paddle time in medium conditions

Today was a big open water crossing - once off shore from Gould Island there was no landing till Wheeler Island. The weather was pretty good and the winds and the seas were pretty good.

We have a leisurely start leaving Gould Island at about 10.10 paddling past some moored yachts. We were able to paddle up closer to Notorious Espain what appeared to drift past us a couple of days ago when we were camped at Sunset Beach. This boat was used in the Pirates of the Carribean. It had cannons fore and aft and did look every part the pirate ship.

Out of t lee from Gould Island the wind current and swell was all pretty fair. Ian and I were bringing up the rear with a newly developed set of whistles for management of the boats. 1 toot for the lead kayaker to stop and the rest to catch up. 2 toots to start paddling and 3 toots for boat has capsized. This all worked pretty well. We made the crossing in good time with no issues and tracked pretty well to plan.

The camp site had 2 approach beaches, one with some fetch and the other in lee. After landing and setting up camp we had lunch. We had lunch at about 1.30. The camp site was pretty sheltered and we found some interesting seeds, little pod with a sail at the top and a sked on the bottom. We also found a seed pod that looked like tetra pack.

Chis did some snorkeling around the rocks, but there was very little to see unfortunately. We did some exploring along the beach finding some lovely oysters again. On the east side of the island we found broken coral meters deep banked up on the shore, I guess the leftovers from Cyclone Yatzi. Maybe in about 5 million years there will be some limestone caving to be done on Wheeler Island.

The rocks on Wheeler Island were more of a conglomerate with one striking rock that had a series of fist to football sized rocks embedded in the finer sedimentary rock. You could clearly see how the rock was squeezed up into its current position at 45 degree angle.

There were numerous rock orchids growing but unfortunately not in flower with the typical impenetrable forest brooding just behind the shore. 

Our camp site seemed to be devoid of mosquitoes and sand flies much to everyone relief. To the east was Bedara Island which at night you could see some lights from the sparce accommodation that was on the island. Apparently a nights accommodation is in the vicinity of about $2000 per night - a bit beyond our budget, also they only allow 28 people at a time on the island so it is very exclusive.

We had a fine meal with chilli beans with port and rice with quinoa. As usual it was washed down with another fine red. This was our last night camping. I must admit I was looking forward to finishing the trip - I was getting tied of feeding sand flies and mosquitoes and putting on what was becoming progressively damper and damper clothing. I sure that the continued use of DEET is probably not great for your skin either.

It was an odd nights sleep with sometimes pockets of warm air blowing in and at other time cooler air.