Enid kayaking in the Whitsunday Islands
For the last three days I haven’t updated the blog, as we have been out camping in the Whitsunday Islands, in Joe’s Beach which is actually on Whitsunday Island itself. We could perhaps refer to them as the wet Sunday islands, because it was a very damp experience.
On Thursday we checked in with Salty Dog Kayak Rentals in Shute Harbour, and got our rental kayaks all sorted out. They have a small office on the waterfront which they share with the company that took us to the island on “Scamper” their camper barge. The clerk was an interesting woman. She wants to go to Canada to travel (just for a holiday) by dog team, so we gave her some information about Land of the Loon Resort and Sundog Sled Excursions.
When we returned to our caravan park, we arranged parking while we were going to be away. The front desk told me where I could park, so I walked back and checked it out. It looked very wet, and I was sure that I would get stuck (bogged to use the Australian term). When I said this to the clerk she said that it would be ok, and assured me that if I did get bogged, they’d tow me out. We spent the rest of the afternoon and evening getting all of our food and gear packed into waterproof containers and dry bags. At nine p.m. the sky was clear, the moon was out, and you could see the stars.
Sometime around midnight it started to rain. By morning the ground, which was already saturated the day before, was overflowing. I left Enid with our gear under the entry way to the van park, since we had to get on the bus at 6:15. I drove the motorhome back to the parking area, and sure enough, immediately got stuck. But I was far enough off the road not to block any traffic, so I locked up and walked the 400 m to the bus. It was pouring rain.
We got to Shute Harbour about 6:30 a.m., and soon met the barge captain. He loaded the kayaks and our gear and we were off to Whitsunday Island, roughly a half hour boat ride. After we unloaded our gear at “Joe’s Beach” we sat under our umbrellas for a while until the rain lessened, then got our two tarps up: our small siltarp over the picnic table, and one plastic one we’d originally planned to cut for a ground sheet over the area where we planned to set up the tent. It was a nice level site with what appeared to be good drainage.
Since we were now pretty wet anyway, we decided to try out our new stinger suits, and so set off snorkeling. The tide was still pretty high, and we couldn’t see much as the water was rather murky, probably from all the rain as well as the current from the tide going out. We did see a few small fish. After that we went out in the kayaks for a short while before coming back to our campsite to eat lunch. A large catamarran moored out in the bay, and four adults and a baby came in on their small dinghy. We talked to them for quite a while and they suggested that the best snorkeling was just by the big rock on the next point. We then set up our tent under the tarp.
In the afternoon we tried to go snorkeling off the beach, but it was too shallow, so we went out in the kayaks. We found the spot with the good coral from the kayaks. While there Enid spotted a large sea turtle, and we watched it surface several times. While paddling back to shore I got a good sighting of it as it swam away from my kayak. Enid also saw some kind of a ray fish in the shallow water at the beach. The afternoon wasn’t bad once the rain stopped around noon, but it began to rain again as we made supper, and it continued throughout most of the night.
Reef off Joe's Beach
The tarp over the tent was a lifesaver. It kept the water off the tent (our $70 special that we didn’t really have a lot of faith in it’s waterproofness) and running off the back of the tarp into the very sandy ground where it drained away. Saturday was a very wet day. It rained almost constantly, and at times very heavily. We spent much of the morning inside the tent, out of the rain and the bugs. The mosquitoes aren’t too bad, but there are a lot of tiny midges or sandflies that bite and really bother Enid. Later between major squalls we did some kayaking and snorkelling. In the afternoon we snorkelled off the point at low tide, and there is a nice coral reef there.
Evening brought a lot more rain, so much that we debated whether we would stay or try to get picked up in the morning. While sitting in the tent to escape the rain at 4 p.m. we listened to the weather on the VHF radio, but it didn’t make us much the wiser as to how much rain to expect. Finally we decided not to phone to get picked up in the morning. Although we were wet, we weren’t much wetter than we’ve been while canoeing in Canada, and at least we were warm.
But at 7 a.m. the next day it was still raining, and I was so frustrated with the weather that I decided to contact the barge company. I got the booking company, not the barge company directly, and told them to send the boat for us. They said they would contact the barge company and have them phone us directly. When we hadn’t heard from anyone for almost an hour, and the rain had finally stopped as well, we changed our minds and decided to stay. We recontacted the booking system, they gave us the barge number directly, and so we phoned and left a message not to come for us.
That turned out to be a good decision. Just after that we saw a couple of dolphins swimming and so took the kayaks out and followed them around for almost an hour. Some of the small fish (20 cm) fly through the air skittering over the water on their tails to escape the dolphins. One passed in front of Enid, skimming the water for about 50 meters. Then one came flying directly towards me and hit me hard in the middle of the chest before flopping into the water. After following the dolphins we spent most of the morning paddling up to the Sawmill Beach area, where there were a lot of boats moored in Cid Harbour.
It only rained a bit as we returned from the morning paddle. Later in the afternoon I snorkelled while Enid did her job as safety patrol for me by following me in the kayak. This was the best snorkelling I had as I was able to swim out farther knowing the boat was available. I saw a lot of good coral, and got some nice pictures, until my camera battery went dead. Later I kayaked over to Cid Island, and saw a lot of sea turtles basking in the shallow water of a sandy bay across from our campsite.
Loading up the barge
We’re glad we stayed, as Sunday was a pretty decent day. This morning the barge came for us as scheduled, and we returned to Shute Harbour. Salty Dog Kayaking brought us back to the caravan park, where the park operators used a four wheel drive truck to pull me out of the mud. The motorhome had actually sunk in quite a bit deeper than when I left it and it was almost up to the axle. After we got out we went and restocked with groceries. Unfortunately, our refrigerator doesn’t seem to be working correctly. It is not getting very cold. After leaving the food in it all day it has only gotten slightly cool, so tonight we took everything perishable over to the caravan park refrigerator.
It didn’t rain for most of the day, so we were able to get almost everything dried out well. Unfortunately we got caught twice by sudden showers, so things that had been dried got partially wet again. Now tonight it is raining again. Everyone here says that it’s unusual for the rainy season to start so early. The clerk in the store today when we were buying groceries said that they are just about writing off this year’s sugar cane crop, as the fields are too wet to harvest. We just got wet!