Rounding Cape Londonderry to Glycosmis Bay
Departing Bruce’s Bay, we were heading for the most northerly part of Western Australia, Cape Londonderry, where the Indian Ocean meets the Timor Sea. Cape Londonderry is only 260nm from Timor and at this point you often get a convergence of tides, which combined with ocean swell, fetch and wind direction can mean a pretty awful place to sail through in the wrong conditions.
The wind was almost non-existent as per usual in the morning and so it was sails up but motoring for the first part of the journey. The reef and shallows extend some 4nm out from the area west of Cape Londonderry, so we were keeping a wide berth with our eyes wide open.
Just west of the cape we observed groups of dolphins in the distance, and they slowly converged on the boat. We soon realised that they weren’t dolphins, but we believe Pilot Whales and soon we had a small group riding our bow wave. Pretty cool experience you never get sick of and after a few minutes they peeled off and went back to their own cruising. In the distance we saw a humpback breach fully out of the water, so we knew that the area was alive with activity.
Rounding Cape Londonderry, we were more than 6nm offshore in order to clear the shallows, however even in 15metres of water we had a series of standing waves that were being driven by the tide. We were running with an outgoing tide, so the current was in our favour, but we had a light wind coming in the opposite direction, which was creating fetch, which was in turn being turned into a standing wave by the force of the tide.
It was tricky to know when to turn and have the waves on your beam and in the end, I just turned and waited to see what happened, which was nothing really – well some sideways rolling but nothing serious. The water through all of this area is discoloured by all of the turbulence and to our east we could see the line where we would return to blue water once more.
Our destination was Glycosmis Bay, which upon entering you could then navigate across a small sandbar and enter into a lagoon type area, surrounded by high cliffs and completely protected from the weather.
We had timed our run so we would have an incoming tide when we arrived, but not a full high tide. When we arrived, we slowly nudged up to the sandbar, which was clearly indicated by waves breaking on one side, but not so clear on the other regards the depth. First attempt we were a little too far to the east and we were soon turning up sand. We quickly retreated and passed right next to the area of waves, and we were through. It was then a case of negotiating a narrow sandbar entry point into the lagoon, then sticking to the western side to head the 500 metres to the anchorage area, which sits just off a large cliff face.
Not a lot of depth or wriggle room but we soon had the anchor down and after a 40nm sail we were happy to sit and chill for a little while. Just off our back steps was a 150 feet cliff and across from us were two 150-foot waterfalls, which of course were dry! Very scenic, fully protected and a lot of birdlife and things to check out.
The next day we made our way back out of the bay in our dinghies – dodging a few waves I might say – to head up the peninsula on the eastern shore to check out a place known as the Lost City. This is an area that is quite expansive and consists of a whole series of sandstone rock structures, all independent of each other, with scrub and grasses in-between. Within these structures there was generally a shady cave area and overhang, on which we found drawings and often middens. It was quite an amazing area, and you could easily imagine family groups living in this area with kids running around. The whole area was up high on the escarpment so had a commanding view out across the ocean and it was very spectacular. We spent many hours wandering around – it was easy to get lost amongst it all and again very cool to see all of the art and other bits and pieces. Another little gem of the Kimberley.
We spent a day exploring the area up above the falls, where a big boab tree sits as a marker. We were able to follow the watercourse back upstream some distance, most of it being dry, until we found a nice big billabong that was suitable to have a swim. Our usual practise was at this point to cool off and then sit and have a cuppa and some snacks, before cooling off, drinking some water and either walking further or retracing our route. In this instance we retraced our route until we were a few miles from the top of the cliffs, and then headed west where we located the watercourse for the second waterfall.
We found another lovely little swimming hole and after a cooling swim we returned to the top of the waterfall where we admired the view back across the boats and out to the ocean. The rocks in these areas are beautiful and smooth, worn down by years of flowing water, and we had heard there was a dinosaur fossil somewhere in this area, but we couldn’t find it.
We spent another couple of days just hanging out, doing a bit of fishing, exploring the main beach in the bay and just enjoying ourselves. The weather gods had been a bit kinder, and it wasn’t super-hot – it was warm but not overbearing.
We were all looking forward to the next stop – the iconic King George River and on a high tide we left early in the morning to shoot the sandbar and head east towards Koolama Bay.