Stranded at Serrurier Island
We awoke to find ourselves all alone at Serrurier Island, one of our favourite little spots north east of Exmouth. As we had come in after the sun had set, we had anchored a bit further out in the bay than we would usually so after some morning stretching and exercise on the front deck, we had brekky and a tea/coffee before turning our attention to re-anchoring closer into the beach and headland.
One of the things we like about Serruier is the diving is really good – a lot of amazing corals and a really big variety of fish. Although the visibility never seems to be crystal clear here we enjoy getting wet and some of the best diving is along a ledge that starts literally metres from the back of our boat. You can swim along that ledge for about a kilometre and see enormous brain corals, plate corals and the big blue hazy abyss where it drops away to about ten metres straight off the edge. Bit spooky for Nicky but I love the action on the edge – schools of queenies and trevally swimming through as well as a huge variety of fish. Never really any decent fish to spear in this part – we go elsewhere for that.
Serrurier is also a good walk with a super long beach that stretches away to the north and a rocky headland to the south. Always a lot of treasures to be found, interesting items washed up with the flotsam and jetsam, usually including quite a few lures.
We had decided to make a treasure map and treasure chest for our friends on Eden and young Hux, following on from their treasure map idea last year. So we needed to walk the beach to find some treasures – shells, lures, crab shells – all the things a four year old seafarer would find cool. Over the next few days… well six actually; we put together a pretty cool treasure chest.
In between dives, exploring walks, squidding and updating our blog we got stuck into a cool pirate’s treasure mission for Chasing Eden. We put pen to paper and wrote a little poem with some clues about the treasure chest location, we got crafty and made a treasure chest from a Corona carton and collected a bunch of treasure items to fill it. I found a couple of cool bits of driftwood and made a little sword and together with the other bits and pieces we had a chest of treasure! Last year Eden had left an old pearl float tied to the Serrurier Island sign (which is hidden in the undergrowth) and so using that as a post box we left the poem inside and then placed the chest up under a bush on the headland. Now we wait a few months until they get here and hope they follow the clues!
We were joined by a couple of different boats over the course of the seven days, including the catamaran ‘Low Profile’, charter boat ‘Lucky Strike’ from Exmouth, the pirate ship like ‘Hybrid Ark’ whom we had seen in Carnarvon and of course a few trailer boats from Exmouth. However everyone was well spread apart and it felt like we were in our own little world.
Due to a high-pressure system that was sitting stationary in the Great Australian Bight, we were getting pummelled by strong east and north easterlies in the 20 – 30 knot range and they were hanging around for a week! Thankfully the nights were calm but of course we wanted to go east, north east in fact towards Dampier and so we had time on our hands.
We dined on coral trout and squid and enjoyed balmy nights and warm temperatures, but with an eye on the calendar and weather map we saw an opportunity to head to Onslow on a Thursday afternoon once the morning easterly had died.
Day of departure and we took the opportunity to have one last dive along the ledge. We had literally been in the water two minutes when Fisheries turned up for a chat. Turned out it was the same pair whom we had spoken with at Warroora (well – they spoke to us and boarded and checked our freezer!) and so after a quick chat they left us to it and we spent a good hour enjoying the underwater sights.
Some morning tea, yesterday’s scones actually, and a cuppa before up anchor and making our way out of the bay. Destination was Onslow, a distance of about 26nm and we would be motoring all the way.
Our original plan was to go to the Monte Bello Islands but because of the weather delays we decided we would skip that and head up the inside via the Mary Anne Group of islands, somewhere new to us and less distance to travel to get to Dampier. Bit of a bummer but we still had some serious miles ahead of us to get to the starting point of our Kimberley adventure.
Once you get past Serrurier you really hit all of the oil and gas stuff and so there are oil wells, big tender vessels and all sorts of things going on. We motored past a very large barge, which holds ensuite accommodation for 400 people and has a massive crane on the front – we think they were decommissioning the old Chevron Gas wells from off Thevenard Island; we saw the brand new Mineral Resources iron ore loaders which take iron ore from their new venture 40km out to sea to load onto a vessel - these things must have cost a packet so there must still be good margins in iron ore!
Late in the afternoon we pulled into Beadon Bay at Onslow and after anchoring up we stayed on the boat and had a chill night – managed to watch a movie on tv and then to bed. Only a few jobs to tick off tomorrow and then keeping moving towards Dampier.
