Thursday 3rd May 2018

We have spent the last week at the friendly Keppel Bay Marina in the appropriately named Rosslyn Bay Harbour. I did suggest that the name similarity deserved a discount but none was forthcoming. A discount would have been welcome, as we approach the popular cruising area of the Whitsundays, marina fees are creeping up and in this part of the world staying anywhere other than a marina is often not an option.

The island anchorages are sometimes protected from the wind but it is very difficult to find anywhere that escapes the Pacific swell. This swell also plagues the mainland beaches. Add in the difficulties of crossing bars to enter the few creeks and rivers, the struggle of finding somewhere to get ashore that has access to services and the problems we have with everywhere being rather shallow for our 2.4m draft and marinas have become our safe havens.

Life in a marina is not all bad, especially one as nice as Keppel Bay. At 3am last Friday morning, as we motored away from Lady Musgrave, we crossed latitude 23.50 S, the Tropic of Capricorn. Arriving in the marina a few hours later we rejected the traditional ‘got here beer’ for a slap up ‘got here breakfast’ at the cafe and it really did feel like we’d arrived in the tropics. The birds all appeared to have gained a new set of colourful feathers and exotic voices and bright tropical flowers lined the waterfront path. Even the air felt and smelt differently.

Looking out from Double Head across the marina to a Rosslyn Bay

To add to its charms the marina also has a nearby beach, a few local walking trails and a courtesy car for short provisioning trips to Yeppoon and a visit to the farmers market. This far away from the big cities and hordes of tourists, gone were the containers of olives and feta marinated a dozen different ways, there were no stalls of artisan bread and displays of rather dubious local art were conspicuous by their absence. Yeppoon’s Saturday market, the local town’s farmers market, had just local farmers selling cheap and seasonal fruit and veg.

Yeppoon in fact had all the facilities we needed including a very helpful post office where Wednesday we very reluctantly posted of our passports, to go in with our visa applications to the Indonesian Consul.

Looming over the marina and the nearby beach, is Double Head. Through the bush and ferns are two steep, but luckily short, paths to follow. One took me up to a look out with in one direction a great view out to sea and the surrounding islands, in the other across a crevasse, an exposed 60 million year old geological phenomena. Fan Rock was created by magma escaping through weak spots in the earths surface, the molten lava slowly cooled from the outside inwards, causing the rock to crack into hexagonal tubes that fan out from its centre producing a structure that looks almost manmade.

Fan Rock

As we have travelled north my walks have become increasingly deserted and on occasion I have begun to feel slightly vulnerable. Vulnerable to what I’m unsure, wandering muggers, deadly spiders, rambling rapists, venomous snakes,? What I was not expecting, as I rejoined the steps down from the look out, was to be accosted by a band of Jehovah Witnesses smiling and eagerly thrusting out their pamphlets towards me. Who exactly they thought they would find to convert on this lonely hill was a mystery but they were always going to draw a blank with me.

Deserted Kemp Beach

With a few days of calm weather in prospect, today we have moved out to Keppel Island. There is a bit of swell rocking Raya to and fro, lines of squally rain track across us and there is only minimal phone signal. However in between downpours the water is blue, on the pretty islands around us, numerous beaches beckon and the forecast is for plenty of sun tomorrow.