The Parry Harbour Affair
After waiting for the turn of the tide, we departed the Osborne Islands, weaving our way through a number of pearl farms that sit between the islands. We turned north with our destination being Parry Harbour, a large anchorage that consisted of two deep estuaries as well as a number of small islands and reef areas.
We had decided to head for a small creek on the far eastern side where we would be well protected and could use this as a base to explore the area. We had battled with the wind and tide and had a lot of ground to cover so by the time we got to near the creek mouth it was late into the afternoon. This area is all unchartered so we were cautiously moving into the creek mouth at low tide, which is good in a sense as the shallow areas tend to show themselves but also nerve wracking as you cannot see the old stray rock.
As we approached, we were looking through the binoculars when I spotted some guys fishing from the shore right up in the creek. At first I thought they must be indigenous mob and I was expecting to see a tinnie somewhere – as there are no roads here – but then we saw another three young guys with sacks on their backs at the mouth of the creek. They all had their heads down and weren’t looking at us – straight away I said ‘Indonesians!’.
We had seen so much evidence of Indonesians through this trip – predominantly in the form of fresh rubbish – but also with the constant buzzing of Customs planes and vessels in the distance.
By the time we had made our way into the creek and anchored it was pretty much dark. I was a bit disappointed as I wanted to go and have a chat as the reality is they are just simple fisherman, most likely from Rote and the southern islands and I wanted to chat and learn a bit more about them.
At this stage we weren’t even sure where their boat was hiding – we had heard a bit of chatter in the dark and I suspected that they were in a mangrove only about 150metres from where we were anchored.
The next step was calling it into Customs which proved to be a bit more challenging than I thought but after a few phone calls to WAPOL we had sent the details of our coordinates and would have to wait and see what happens in the morning.
Well, the morning arrived with a call over the radio ‘Singularity, Singularity, Singularity, this is Australian warship, do you receive over?’
Within a few minutes the cavalry arrived in the form of three rigid inflatable vessels, loaded with armed Navy personnel. They pulled alongside and after an introduction and chat they nudged their way across to the creek where we suspected the vessel was. Due to low tide, they weren’t able to fully enter the creek, but they went far enough to see an Indonesian vessel secreted into the mangroves.
A bit of a stand off ensured with some shouted instructions from the Navy crew and after about 45 minutes they were able to remove the vessel from the mangroves out into the estuary. It was pretty tiny and had about 7 or 8 crew onboard. The Navy was communicating back to their ship, which was quite a way away due to the shallow nature of the bay, and we were interested to hear that they had dealt with this vessel three times in the last few weeks.
From Parry Harbour, the economic exclusive zone boundary is only about 30nm out to sea, and so what is thought to occur is that a bigger Indonesian vessel sits outside our waters and they use the smaller vessels to get in and fish for trepang, before handing it over to the mothership.
Because of the sheer size of this area, the tactics employed by Customs and the Navy are that in the majority of cases the boats are escorted to the territorial boundary and told to leave and not return! In a lot of cases the vessels simply wait for nightfall and then return to the mainland and carry on. The exception seems to be boats that are heavily loaded with fish stocks or repeat offenders. If the Navy were to escort this vessel, it would mean travelling all the way to Broome or Darwin which would take them weeks to turn around, so an understandable tactic.
After all of that excitement some exploration was in order. We had passed a small island on our way in, that sat about 3nm from our location, which looked like it had a nice beach, so we were keen to check it out. We headed over in the dinghies and about 2nm out, at which time we are right out in the middle of the harbour (more than 2nm in any direction to land) Ted and Tina spotted a big croc just sitting out in the blue water - quite a sight!
We made it to the island and had a bit of a troll around it before settling on a nice white sandy beach for some lunch and a swim? We were sitting under the beach umbrellas and I was keeping one eye on old mate who by this stage was sitting about a mile offshore from us. We were all relaxed when suddenly Ted goes ‘‘Oh sh%t!” and we look up and see a very large saltie swimming around the corner less than 100 metres from us. He kind of gave a second take and then headed towards us before disappearing below the surface and we could see him just sitting there. Well it was action stations - food and drink was flying, umbrellas uprooted and the boys were trying to retrieve the dinghy’s without getting wet to their necks!
We had a good laugh afterwards but it was a bit freaky as he looked like he was eyeing us off for dinner. The Kimberlay adventure continues!