The Governor Islands and Cape Talbot
With an ice-cream in hand, I was sitting in the helm seat watching Nicky clean and stow the anchor as we prepared to leave Honeymoon Cove and head the short distance to the Governor Islands. Fresh from our resupply we had decided to head around to the Islands to give ourselves a little more protection from the north westerly winds that were prevailing every day.
It was an uneventful motor sail, with the jib out, the wind straight on the nose at 10 knots and a little bit of tide in our favour. It was only 9nm to our destination and soon we were slowly edging into an area of water, protected by West Governor Island to the west (!) and East Governor Island to the east (!). On the Double were in front and we gave them some distance to let them find a suitable anchor spot and then drop their anchor and position themselves. We were tucked in about 25metres from a small cliffy section in about eight metres of water and well protected from the prevailing winds.
We had a great three days here with plenty of interesting exploring in the dinghies, lots of fishing and a couple of good walks on the Islands.
The fishing here was quite good, and we nailed a nice big black spotted cod off the rocks late in the afternoon as we slowly worked our way along, casting lures into the likely hidey holes. Like most of these areas there were a few big osprey nests, with concerned parents squawking loudly at us as we drifted past.
It was a relaxing few days and we were really enjoying having some fresh produce on board. It had been nine weeks since leaving Broome and so we had well and truly exhausted our fresh food supplies. That night we feasted on cod and salad – with the salad being the highlight!
After a couple of days, it was time to keep moving, predominantly because we had some gusty south easterlies coming and so we decided to head to Bruce’s Bay, located just below Cape Talbot. The bay was located on the western side of the Cape and so offered some protection, although it was quite open to the swell.
It was a 14nm run and for a while we managed to sail just on the screecher, but that was short-lived as we arrived at our destination! Once more we had an interesting few days in this spot with plenty of exploring, some croc and cattle action as well as some fun fishing.
Bruce’s Bay has a lovely long beach, and we went for a good walk to stretch our legs and check it out. At the southeastern end is the entrance to a small creek area, which had a good body of permanent water but was dry at the entry with the tide. Looked pretty croccy and we actually took Bob in there one morning on high tide for a fish – which resulted in a couple of lost barra and Nic hooking a beautiful honeycomb cod. It was super ‘croccy’ in there and we weren’t too keen on hanging around too long or going further up the watercourse.
A walk on the beach at the other end revealed a few sets of crocodile tracks and you could see where a croc had come out of the water and walked over the sand dunes and then about ¾ mile to a small permanent body of water. Pretty impressive but also gave you the hee bee gee bees a bit! We found a few more croc tracks where they had gone from the ocean into this small estuary, which must have only received water on big spring tides, but from the opposite direction to our beach. This sort of stuff just reinforces how careful you need to be!
The next day we went fishing and exploring down the peninsula and found a couple of interesting beaches with big sandstone formations and dry creeks running into the back areas of the beach. Just offshore were a series of rocks and reefs and we were spending some time throwing lures (unsuccessfully!) and exploring. Ted and Tina left before us to return to the boat and a short time later came back around the point to let us know that there was a big salty just sitting offshore near the reef.
We sorted ourselves out and headed for a look and sure enough there was a decent saltwater crocodile just sitting out amongst the reef in the blue water having a look around. We kept a respectful distance and when we ventured too close, he disappeared, so we gave him a wide berth and went fishing nearby. A few minutes later he was back on the surface where we left him just sitting watching.
The gusty easterly winds were subsiding and so it was time for us to plan out trip around Cape Londonderry, a distance of about 40nm. We needed to move with the tides particularly around the Cape, so a plan was hatched that saw us pulling anchor at the respectable time of 8.15am to time our arrival at the Cape with the most favourable tide.
Once more we found Cape Talbot an interesting spot with plenty of things of interest – typical of every location we have found ourselves in the Kimberley.