Dec 312018
 
dhamuku anchored in lighthouse bay

dhamuku anchored in lighthouse bay

the week between xmas and new years is time we usually try and have away on the boat together, and our plan this year had been to head to the top of the wessel islands and explore from burston bay round past the cape wessel lighthouse and down to twin island bay. we had thought to head out boxing day and come back on new years day, going up in our big boat and dave coming along in his boat for 5 of the days that he had off.

well, best laid plans of mice and men etc, dave ended up with a crook back and the weather was pretty nasty on boxing day with a fair amount of rain and unsettled weather predicted, so we decided to shorten up the trip, head to truant island to be closer to home, and tow our tinny in dave’s absence.

we had a pleasant steam up to truant island on thursday morning, we got up there in the late morning and anchored up round on the north side of the island in a bay where there is an old oyster lease, it has a resident pair of large estuarine cod and a huge barracuda we call barry! they always hang around the boat waiting for any scraps to feed on.

we spent a couple of days enjoying the pleasures of truant – crystal clear water, good fishing, swimming, snorkelling and exploring the beaches of the island for shells, driftwood and other treasures. this was indispersed with afternoon beers, fresh fish dinners with salads and wine and afternoon naps!

kai also spent much time practising his hunting skills with his yolngu spear, he earnt the title of djambatj with his first kill of a decent mullet!

after a couple of nights on the north side of the island we decided to shift to the south side to get a way from a bit of nw swell that had started to create a little discomfort in our original anchorage, we also discovered that the commercial barra boat, ruby, was anchored off one of the other beaches, cooch and katie had also decided to spend a few days at truant instead of heading to the wessels as they also had intended.

saturday came to a close, we were intending to steam home sunday morning so it was to be our last dinner, we were getting dinner ready and enjoying a beer while watching a large storm front roll in from the south just before sunset. we had watched many storms over the 4 days and it was like we were in a storm shadow, it didnt seem to matter where they formed, they always just missed us so we had actually had very little rain. this one looked to be pretty big though, and it rolled in from the south slowly.

there was no real indication of what was coming, the breeze stayed very light NW and it looked like we would get some rain but nothing much else, but just after dark it hit and within minutes we had driving rain and 30kt southerly winds. the 180deg change in wind direction meant we were now anchored off a lee shore with the wind driving us onshore. we dragged anchor once, but it held and dug in again, then 10 minutes later it dragged again and we made the decision to pull anchor.

we discussed whether just to motor round to the other side of the island and sit it out there, but given that we had already planned to head home in the morning, and not knowing how long the storm would last or what the conditions would be like, we decided that having already pulled anchor we may as well steam home slowly through the night.

the next dilemma was that the tinny was only tied off on a short line, to tow it home we had to pay out a line with a float off the back of the tinny that keeps it tracking straight, and also attach the heavy tow line to the front of the tinny, so while sal drove the boat and held it slowly head into wind, i managed to climb on the tinny, deploy the trailling rope, jump back on the big boat, attach the long tow line and feed it out so the tinny was in the proper position to tow. we had to do all of this in pitch blackness, driving rain, howling wind and steep seas!

thankfully sal and kai worked with me to do what was needed and get the situation under control and we set off at about 6-7kts slowly punching into the gale force wind and high seas towards home!

we got about 5 miles out, on the south side of barricade shoal and i asked sal to check the tinny, she had trouble seeing much with the torch out the back of the boat with the spray and rain, so a bit later she took over the helm and i went back to have a look myself. to my horror when i pulled on the main tow line it was obvious there was no longer a tinny attached!

i pulled the 40m 20mm diameter tow line into the back of the boat and discovered the snap shackle had failed, so the tinny was drifting somewhere in the pitch blackness behind us – with no certainty about when and where it came adrift.

we quickly decided there was no point in turning around to look for it, it would have been an impossible task in the conditions. so we pressed on through the night and got back into gove harbour at about 11:30pm and anchored off the yacht club for the rest of the night.

the next morning the weather had cleared, and after some discussion sal and i decided we would take the big boat back out and run up to truant island again to see if we could find the tinny. we dropped kai off at the yacht club so a friend could take him home to spare him the trip! so we did another 80 something miles up to truant, round the island a couple of times and back home.

in effect all we achieved was confirming that it hadnt washed up on the island. meanwhile dave had reported it to the water police in darwin and they sent back a computer modelled predicitive chart of the area with the higher probability of drift path given the tides and winds – this information suggested the tinny would have been out of sight to the east of our track up and back – but it wasnt information we had on sunday because we were out of contact on the water!

so in hindsight we made the best decision we could with the information we had, but nfortunately it effectively wasted the best chance we had for finding and recovering the boat, the weather rapidly deteriorated over night and monday morning we had a tropical low over cape york expected to develop into a cyclone, and persistent rain. I spoke to a friend who owns an aviation company and asked about the chances of locating the tinny if we put a plane up for a few hours on a search pattern.

in the end we decided it wasnt viable, the odds of the tinny still floating were high, but still less than 100%, the odds of finding the tinny were under 50% in the conditions, sal and I would have had to refuel the big boat, put it back in the water, steam out to the search area and then have the plane conduct the search, if he was lucky enough to spot the tinny, he then had to find us visually – the plane’s radio is different to the boat radio – which was no certainty so maybe a 75% chance, then we have to be able to find the tinny by following the plane back – something less than a 100% chance too, and then we have to successfully recover the tinny and tow it home – so when you do the calculation, its probably less than a 30% chance of a successful search, discovery and recovery.

in the end we decided that in worsening weather, a cyslone threatening, tired from what we had already been though, and with something less than a 30%  chance of success, we just werent prepared to spend maybe thousands of dollars on a risky operation.

as i put it, if you asked would i spend the day out on the water i those conditions in the big boat, my answer would be ‘absolutely, if someones life was at risk, but if there was a suitcase floating out there with $20k in it, and a 30% chance i could find it and recover it, then no, the boat would stay in the driveway!”

so, now i guess you know why the blog post is titled “lost”!

at the end of the day the mechanical failure of a $40 snap shackle has caused us a large loss, and given that all our fishing rods and gear as well as all the snorkelling gear was on the tinny it really is quite significant, but its beyond our control and more importantly the 3 of us are safe and well, we had a fantastic 4 days, and we will remember our little tinny with great fondness.

i have to end the post there as i need to look for a nice 4.5m tinny with all the gear on it!

happy new year to all and sundry!

 

we did 13.8 hrs motoring covering 167.6 nm 0r 1.8lt per nm

 

UPDATE – i think we have closure now, tinny is too far away wih no chance of finding and recovering, here is the update this afternoon from the amazingly helpful John Piri at the NT Water Police,

Hi Rick, happy to help if we can.  I have run a calculation just now.   It uses actual BOM data up to now and predictions from here on in.   The prediction cans are show as 1530 today.  The black line is the most probable track.   After loitering for the first couple of days south of Truant Island it really is likely to have picked up speed to the east (ENE) which is not helpful.    QPOL have been advised.

image001

Prediction for 2 days time.   Likely to reach the tip of Cape York in 8 days.   Of course filling with water may affect the drift rate even if it does not sink it.

Again ignore the date markers on the black line as above.  The variation to the south is possible but has a lower probability.

image002

 

Nov 252018
 
truant-1

truant island

we had our first trip in the big boat for the season this weekend, we headed out on friday morning to truant island, towing the tinny. we have been waiting for the dry season winds to really abate and finally this weekend looked like the break, with the winds shifting round to the north and even into the north west on sunday.

despite the fairly long interval between trips, nearly everything worked well on the boat and we didnt forget anything other than a couple of minor items! our last trip was back in may, so it was quite a break over the dry season.

we had a gold spot trevally we caught after arriving on friday for dinner the first night, a sploosh of chipotle mayo, salad with greens from the garden and a nice bottle of white were the perfect companions as we watched the full moon rise. we had hoped we would see the turtles hatching given the full moon, but there were no signs when we checked about 10pm and no tracks in the morning.

we had a quite varied weekend, kai & I did quite a bit of snorkelling as the water was very clear, given that young sean whitcomb nearly most his arm in a shark attack here last weekend, we were a little cautious in the water! kai and I also spent a fair bit of time chasing fish from the boat with our spears, kai hit a couple of mullet but they got off before we could recover the spears. Sal and i spent saturday morning bottom fishing the reefs around truant banks without much success but caught a couple of mackerel to keep us fed!

we also did our usual beachcombing and brought home some more floatsom and jetsom for the decorations at rick’s bar and grill!

coffee time!

coffee time!

we had a leisurely trip home on sunday, as you can see kai slept the whole way, i am making a coffee while the auto pilot steers us homewards!

we covered 71.2nm and motored for 5.5hrs using 165lt for fuel consumption of exactly 30lt per hour and 2.3lt/nm

 

 

Oct 082017
 
anchored at truant island

anchored at truant island

we spent this weekend on the big boat up at truant island with the Blakes, we have been promising Andrew & Di a trip on our boat for the last few months and finally we all got our acts together for this weekend! Dave also came along in his boat which we planned to use for fishing and exploring sessions.

the weather wasnt as good as I had hoped and it was a fairly slow and bumpy trip up there on saturday morning, but as always, once we were in the shelter of truant it was white sand beaches, crystal clear water and lots of wildlife!

we did have a troll on saturday afternoon and picked up a couple of nice mackerel and gold spot trevally, with sal cleaning up with most of the fish!

we also caught up with the keeleys who were up there in their noosa cat with their 3 little boys – the whole family spent the whole weekend spearfishing!

saturday night we had a great meal with the mackerel sal caught followed by a yummy beef curry that Di had cooked and brought along.

we did 6 hours motoring and used 140 litres of fuel which works out to 23L per hour which is pretty good, and we did 74 miles so just under 2L per mile. I was trying out the spare prop, which is the original 3 blade alloy prop, I had already decided the current 4 blade stainless prop is too big but I just wanted to compare the old one before deciding on what the correct size for the boat is. Other than that we had more issues with the electrics, but I have isolated and rectified most of the issues, now its just a case of replacing the house batteries which are no longer holding a charge.

we also had some sort of fuel problem when we were nearly back to the boat ramp, on checking it seems like it was just accumulated water and crap in the fuel tank that had filled and blocked the fuel filter, so I have cleaned it all out and changed the filter.

i didnt get round to taking enough photos! i only have the one above from truant and a couple from our dinner on the friday night before the trip, so its words more than images this week! (sadly andrew’s waterproof case failed on his iPhone when he swam ashore at truant, so his phone is borked and all the photos lost, the one of me cooking the steak, he messaged to me on friday night – so its the last seen image off his dead phone!!)