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Darwin Trip on Kokomo V: Broome to Sampson Inlet in the Kimberly

29th – Aug.  Still in Broome, Frank replaced the water pump on the engine and ran the engine for a while to charge batteries and confirm pump OK. We then visited the AllVolt shop as we had talked to the guy about new solar panels and he said he had some good ones coming. They had arrived but the “boss” was not there and we needed to confirm the price he had quoted. While getting some aluminium to make straps to install the panels, we had a call from Marianne Hall, she is in town on her way to James Price Point to count whales there. We managed to catch up for coffee with her, which was great. We got a call from the AllVolt shop; if we picked them up today we could have them at the quoted price. We went around and collected them. To fit them in the little car we had I had to sit behind Frank and we put the seats down on the left-hand side.  Then it was off to the place friends were staying for lunch. We had a good afternoon and then back to the boat and get the solar panels on to the boat. That was quite a feat as it was not calm, but could have been worse.

30th – Aug. Frank started early the next morning installing the new solar panels (replacing our old ones, on the side rails). We finished about lunch time and it looked like these panels will give us a much needed boost in power. We took the old panels to our friends (Phil and Maude), for their camper van. They are the people who have loaned us a car while we are here.

31st – Aug. Phil and Maude are visiting us on the boat so they can see it. Frank was looking at the solar panels and how they were charging, he realised the current regulator was not coping, so he removed it and installed a new one he bought in Perth in anticipation of putting more solar panels on the boat. Now things are beginning to look up and this regulator tells us much more. Phil and Maude arrived so Frank picked them up in the dinghy.  They stayed for morning tea and lunch, then Frank dropped them back ashore, there was quite a break on the shore so Frank got wet. Rob and Diana who had arrived a couple of days ago in Roebuck Bay at Town Beach, came around as the guy who is going to install their new sail wanted to do it at Gantheume Point (easier to launch his dingy here). We caught up with them on their boat.

1st – Sep. We went shopping while Rob & Diana waiting for guy with new sail. The night here are uncomfortable so we have all decided to head back to Town Beach tomorrow.  Rob & Di will have a hire car for 2 days so we will work together to get the cars over to Town Beach. While having lunch in town David Lee (Fremantle Cruising Yacht Club Commodore) walked into café. We were able to have a quick chat with him there.

2nd – Sep. Our 2nd fog here. A really bad night so we were up early, got the dinghy in and headed to shore in the fog, so we could pick up our veges before they close at 1400. About 0900 we went ashore and I stayed with dinghy while Frank took car to Town Beach and Rob & Di brought him back. Once he came back we waited for wind and tide to settle a bit then headed for Town Beach, it was still rough getting out of Gantheume, but calmer once we reached the point. I got some photos of the Endeavour with some of her sails up, she is heading off today to go south.  We had a very quick run around (~ 1hr)to Town Beach with tide assistance. Rob & Diana came around later after doing some shopping, they got dumped trying to get the dinghy and shopping launched off the beach. We took them around to pick up the hire car from Gantheume. While we were on shore at Town Beach Pam Lee (David’s wife) came to the playground with her grandchildren, so we were able to have a bit of a chat with her.

7th - Sep. We stayed at Town Beach until 6th, although it was a bit rolly at night due to wind over tide, it was better than it had been at Gantheume (which apparently is not good on any westerly wind). Town Beach is not so good on westerly winds either, but better than Gantheume. It is not good on strongish easterlies. We did some shopping for various things and kept catching up with Phil and Maude (we have not been to Broome since 2006 and so have not seen them since then). We managed an enjoyable roast night at the Roebuck Hotel and a night time dinghy back to the boat (beautiful and calm), then another evening we had  meal at Phil and Maude’s place and a slightly rolly ride back in the dinghy, but both trips fine. You have to anchor about 0.9 miles off the shore at Town Beach, so it is quite a motor.  Next we got a strong wind warning for Wednesday and the winds even on Tues were fairly strong E/SE 15 – 20 knots. So it was a case of return the car to Phil and then up-anchor and move back around to Gantheume Point (so the easterlies are off the beach), on Tuesday. Hooray Rob & Diana’s mail has arrived, Diana will pick it up today. Now we look like we are stuck here due to these strong winds.

8th – Sep. Diana rang David Lee (Commodore of FCYC and lived in Broome previously and is presently visiting), who then rang a pearl farmer up the coast, he said we are better staying here until the winds ease as there is no really  good anchorages further up the coast for strong winds. Forecasts currently E/SE 20 – 30 kn Easing in afternoon 18 – 23 knots. Forecast for tomorrow same only also reaching 25 – 33 knots west of Broome (not sure where that covers).

12th – Sep.  We think the winds will be OK today as the forecast is for them to drop. The last few nights have been calm with the wind picking up in the morning with the sun rise and finally easing in the afternoon. We did some last minute shopping , we watched the street parade for the Shizu Matsuri festival and went out for dinner over the weekend. The Kimberley Cruising boat True North came in and we watched the helicopter take off from it in quite strong winds.  We left the mooring at ~0730 today, with The Doctor. It was a bit of a mistake as the winds got stronger, so we sailed in close to the shore about lunch time and anchored just off the beach, where it was calm as the easterly wind came off the beach. We had lunch and by finish the wind had calmed enough so we pulled up anchor and continued north. The winds promptly dropped out almost completely, so on with the engine and we made some water for a while (using Desalinator). We stopped for the night just south of James Price point. There is a big cruising boat being used for accommodation for the workers there.

14th – Sep. Yesterday we sailed to Beagle Bay (~ 50 nautical miles (nm). That is a full days sail/motor sail for us. We managed to get through the Lacipede Channel before the outgoing tide made progress impossible although it was uncomfortable. We did not try to see the church there as it was quite a long way from where we could anchor. Today we continued on to Cape Leveque. We caught a mackerel just before we got to the Cape so I was madly filleting it while Frank brought the boat  around the cape. We then skinned it on anchor and gave ½ to Rob & Diana on the The Doctor.

15th – Sep. Today is our first real experience with the big tides in the Kimberley. We have to cross King Sound (the way down to Derby), we left at 1000 and used the incoming tide to pass between Swan Is and Alarm Shoals – we went through this pass at up to 10 knots (nearly twice our top speed). We then crossed the worst part of King Sound at slack water – between incoming and outgoing tides. The current there can be between 5 & 8 knots, we did not want that against us. We stayed the night at Hidden Is just off Silica Beach (out of the tide). We had a BBQ on the beach and ended up stranded  and had to wait for the tide to come back in before we could get our dinghies into the water and motor back to the yachts.

19th – Sep. We headed to the southern end of Hidden Is on our way to an area of enclosed water called The Graveyard (because there are graves of dead pearling divers on 1 of the islands there).  We used the incoming tide to get down there and were able to make the distance much more quickly than Frank or I am used to. We motored across the bottom of Whirlpool Pass and had to work the motor quite a bit as we were crossing a strong current coming out of the pass and so we were almost going sideways.   We stopped 2 nights behind Dunvert Island (a very nice spot) we had a, bit too close for company, visit from a ~2 metre crocodile there. We suspect he has been fed by other boats, either deliberately or when they have thrown away the results of filleting fish there. Frank found if he walked down to the back of the boat the crocodile would actually move in closer to the boat, and then drop back again if we went inside. He/it did not seem aggressive, but we did find it disconcerting.  We then had a rest day and actually went into Whirlpool Pass at slack water, it is very pretty, but appears quite benign at that stage of the tide. Then we went on to the Graveyard which entailed motoring through quite a narrow gap between an island and the mainland. We stayed only 1 night there as there was not a lot to do and we could not work out where the graves were on the island, and it was too difficult to get ashore. We headed back up to Dunvert Is for another night and then on up King Sound and around to Coppermine Creek for a couple of nights. Again we used the tides to assist our passage so making it much quicker. We found going past the bottom of Whirlpool Pass with the outgoing tide going into the pass was not so strong as the incoming tide coming out, but we had a really good run north along beside Hidden Is again. We even managed with engine, headsail and tide to get up to 10.6 knots for a period. That night we had dinner on The Doctor to help Rob celebrate his birthday.

24th – Sep. We stayed in Coppermine Creek for 4 nights. The 1st two nights were near the entrance to the creek, then we went further up it and later came back to just outside the entrance in preparation for moving on. The creek is interesting but there was no-where to get off the boat easily and it was a bit hot for exploring on the land. On the last night before leaving we spoke to a couple going south, they had advice that the tides were not big enough to get into Crocodile Creek so we headed for Silver Gull Creek instead, this was a nice easy days sail/motor. At Silver Gull Creek, there is a couple (Phil and Marion) who live there all year round. It is a highlight to visit them and all yachties passing call in. We asked them how many visitors they get, I cannot remember the number but it is a lot in a season. We called them on the radio about visiting them and they said after 1600 as they had visitors to watch the football final (on satellite TV) and a tour boat from Broome visiting at the time. We dinghied up the creek at 1600 and stayed for a quick visit them, they were fairly tired so it was for a short time with an invitation to come back in the morning, and we had a swim in their freshwater tank – very nice.

25th – Sep. We visited Phil and Marion again, Phil said we would have enough tide to get into Crocodile Creek tomorrow, so we will go there while The Doctor is going on to Talbot Bay. We had a good visit today and another swim in the tank – lovely. Then back to the yachts and around to Dogleg Creek to buy 40l of Diesel @ $3.00 per litre and 10l of fuel for the outboard @ $3.25 per litre. We then went back to Silver Gull Creek for the night before heading back to Crocodile Creek.

26th/27th – Sep. We headed around to Crocodile Creek , We had to wait a bit over an hour for the tide to be high enough for us to get up to the end of the creek. Once there we anchored at 1 end and tied the stern to a roped anchored onto the cliff. Then we motored across to a ladder near the waterfall and went to investigate the area. We have had it recommended that you do not swim in the lower pool as crocodiles have been known to get into it at high tide and be stuck there until the next big enough tide. We did not go for a swim at that stage. As evening came and the tide dropped, a mud and rock bar appeared in the creek with our anchor sitting on it, high and dry. We were still in a deep pool of water and so there was no problem for us there. Once the tide was down and we were confident the boat was safe we went back to the ladder (now much higher), climbed up it and up to the upper pool and had a swim there. We closed up the boat (with mosquito nets) and lit a couple mosquito coils and had no issues with bitey insects that night. The next morning when the tide was only in enough for a shallow channel past the bar, in came 2 dinghies off Discovery One – a tour boat, and took their passengers to the ladder and up to the 1st pool for a swim. We were a bit concerned, but no crocodiles appeared so all was OK. We waited until the tide was high enough again and left Crocodile Creek. We stayed at Dogleg Creek that night and just before dark almost contemplated moving a bit as we found we were closer to a mud bank than we anticipated, as the tide went out. We did not move and we were OK there.

28th – Sep. We got up early (still dark) and pulled up the anchor and set off in the dark as we wanted to be going through “The Gutter” at the bottom of tide as it is quite narrow and therefore quite a bit of current with eddies and whirlpools. We found the ebb tide assisted us to get to The Gutter and although it should have been bottom of tide it was still moving out through The Gutter, but it was not too bad, we went through at ~7 knots. We then used the incoming tide to motor down to Talbot Bay. We went to anchor and the tour people asked us not to anchor where we planned because of their float planes landing, and sent us all the way down to the creek where they had a mooring. We picked this up with some difficulty as the tide was racing into the creek and then motored up to their headquarters to see if we could get a ride through the Horizontal Waterfalls.  As we arrived a bit early for their tour, one of the guys took the 2 of us through the 1st lot of falls and then backed down into the top of the 2nd falls (there was too big a height to actually go through that one at the time). They did not even charge us for the ride which was very nice of them. We got back to Kokomo and found on the high tide their mooring disappears under the water, luckily I had looped 1 of our ropes through it and was able to just pull it back through. You would never pick that mooring up on a high tide! We then went to the northern entrance of Talbot Bay and anchored in a small bay for the night. This spot was recommended by the guys at the tour place, they said there was no tidal current there.

29th – Sep. I was rudely awakened at ~0300, Frank had felt something was wrong and got up to check, it was pitch black and he was a bit disoriented, but on turning on the Plotter/GPS he worked out we had dragged anchor and were on the move at 6.0 Knots, Speed over Ground (SOG),  (with the anchor hanging straight down with 60 metres of chain). Frank madly worked on getting the anchor up while I tried to steer the boat onto a course following the way we had gone into Talbot Bay the day before. Luckily we had bought a Garmin Plotter/GPS that actually kept a record of our track for 1 week. This is what we used to get us moving along the correct course out. Frank did a better job of this once he had the anchor stowed, but the tide had been keeping us in the deep channel between islands as well. Frank had plotted a course on the other GPS, once we got up to the turn off for The Gutter, as we wanted to head east there, not west. We turned onto this new course and motored between 2 islands just as it was finally beginning to get light at ~0500. We had planned to leave the anchorage at that time, not 0300. We continued on to Doubtful Bay as we had had such an early start. We anchored at the edge of a small bay, but could not get as close into it as we hoped. For the afternoon and early evening it was not so comfortable with wind against tide and bullet winds whipping around the cliffs there. It then calmed down and was a nice night but as we were both nervous, we worked out how to set the anchor alarm on the Garmin GPS and left it on so we could see if we were moving too far. We kept using this for the rest of the trip.

30th – Sep. We moved up to Raft Point the next morning with the plan to motor out to Montgomery Reef the next day. This is a big reef that disappears under the sea at high tide (except for a couple of islands) and then comes out by up to 6.8 metres. There is a channel you can motor up and anchor, then get off onto the reef. It is a different experience.

1st – Oct. We motored to Montgomery Reef and got off onto the reef. There is a lot of water still running off the reef up until it is covered up again. After having a look around we headed back to Raft Point for the night, we used the rising tide to assist or trip back there. We stayed an extra night at Raft Point but we had 20 knot NW winds which made it quite a sloppy anchorage – not comfortable.2nd – Oct. We headed north, we found the seas were very sloppy and the wind went from SW to S (which was dead astern and not comfortable). We headed into shore at Langgi and anchored there so we could look at the unusual rock formations there – very interesting. We then continued on, stopping at Deception Bay. After anchoring we decided it was too early to stop (only 12 noon) and Sampson Inlet was just around the corner ~ 10 miles, so we pulled up the anchor and continued on to Sampson Inlet. We noted that The Doctor was already there, in a side inlet, and we motored up to a different area within the inlet for a couple of days. We then moved down to the side inlet near the Doctor, to have a look at that end of Sampson Inlet.