The Cosmos Adventure - News
Report From Steve Hall -- Received July 4, 2002 CosmosMackay & onwards.........
Our stop in Mackay turned out to be a fairly functional one revolving around the necessities like customs, restocking & preparing Cosmos, E.mails & phone calls, showers & laundry etc. We also welcomed the two new crew members: Marga & Hilary. These are women, a misty memory. Marga stayed as far as Cairns before that horrible reality 'work' dragged her from Anders arms. Hilary has signed up 'til Africa. The most noticeable changes for me have been a lot less farty smells & noises(where do they all go to now?), more people to share the watches & that I don’t see the galley so much. Bummer. Before leaving Mackay, Hilary & I harvested @ 10lbs of mushrooms from the gardens around the marina office after my crewmates finally accepted (on proof of my eating & not dying shortly thereafter) that they were just plain, tasty old field or 'portobello' mushrooms. Nothing tastes better than foods you harvest yourself, in my book, but in this case we needn’t have harvested quite so many!
So...first destination- 'The Whitsunday Islands', a group so named by Captain James Cook, mistakenly believing he'd sailed upon them on Whitsunday- the first day of the eighth week after Easter, or the week of 'Whitsuntide'. Apparently Captain Cook had neglected to account for sailing across the date-line in his otherwise immaculate ships log,, making him a day out that went unnoticed until he returned to England. Doh!! Captains, & certainly crew, have been keelhauled for far less. Exactly what or why is Whitsuntide, on our Cosmos at least, is unknown. I remember Whitsunday as a child in England being cause for a long public-holiday weekend & connect it with the first real Summer break spent with my family, but no more than that. Any explanations gratefully received. I think Easter has something to do with a bloke called Jayzus.
Dugong Bay, Whitsunday Island: Our first anchorage after a days very picturesque sailing. A bit of swimming & diving off the boat here, also Anders, Marga, Hilary & I took the dinghy for a quick visit to a small ‘beach’ where we marveled at the mangrove seed pods- long, bottom-weighted, often floating with already growing leaves & ready to plant themselves on contact with the sand/mud bottom where they could self-consume in earnest. Nature! An unusually pretty coconut tree & we also spotted a few small stingrays with immensely long, black/white banded tails gliding around in the shallows close to shore, & to us.
Nara Inlet, Butterfly & Manta Ray Bays, Hook Island: Nara is a 3 mile long, fjord-like inlet cutting through a forested, narrowing escarpment culminating in a waterfall(which was neither watering or falling during our short stay). It is, quite simply, beautiful. You'll read that word or similar a lot in any reports from 'Oz'-there are only so many superlatives to go round & Australia is a very big, unique & awe-inspiring Country. We took a short walk to some simple aboriginal cave paintings & a viewpoint looking back down the length of Nara. A nighttime sky jam-packed with stars. I managed to lose a favourite shoe over the side that evening, which was swiftly gone in the dark night & darker waters. Joe & I rose at dawn next morning to go fishing, were beaten back to the boat for some repellent by the sand flies, but returned to the fray to claim 3 'spotted something’s' caught on spinners. Though we searched, we didn’t reclaim the lost shoe. I still have the other ‘just in case’. The fish were consumed, probably with the still plentiful & tasty mushrooms, for lunch at 'Butterfly Bay'. For the sake of the otherwise inevitable stomach cramp's, our Mother's seemingly having internationally issued the same warnings, exactly one hour after lunch we all dived into the bay, masks etc in hand & headed for the coral reef 30 yds away. Due to the Williwaws (Katabatic winds)& squalls heading down the hills & along the bay, the visibility underwater wasn't great, but we still saw a large array of colourful reef life. I spent a minute or so swimming alongside a large turtle I found just sitting on the coral- turtles are always a big buzz. Manta Ray Bay the next day was even better-ay. We stayed 24+ hrs & super-snorkel-scuba-dived as well as plain old snorkeled. The vis' was better, the life more profuse & the winds were settling down. Again I was lucky enough to snorkel with a turtle on my own & also to meet a huge one while diving with Joe later on in the day. Another of the many highlights was when we all snorkeled under, over, through, hovered amongst, & disappeared into the midst of a huge school of bait-fish, scattering them shimmering in the watery sunlight. When all you can see through your mask is a seemingly unending mass of these small fish, it really is like being in a huge, & very full, aquarium. Two more excellent snorkels the next morning, then we headed off to the following piece of Paradise-
Coates reef- one of the countless barely submerged coral reefs contributing to the whole which is the Great Barrier Reef Marine reserve. A 30 hr frenzy of snorkeling & diving followed. I think somebody else is going to try & catalogue all the species of fish & corals we have seen in the GBRMR-it'll be a very long list & I'll leave it to 'em. Moored alongside this @200 by 400 yd outcrop miles from anywhere & anyone else, it feels like your very own piece of underwater, & above water paradise. There must be few who have had this pleasure, liberty & privilege, I'm very grateful to be one of the very lucky ones. Can’t help mentioning some of the cast: Triggerfish, parrotfish, angelfish, altheas, trumpet fish, surgeonfish- with the little 'scalpels' on their tails, the ridiculously cute clownfish, just the names are wonderful, the colours bewildering, potato-cod, grouper, jackfish & white-tip shark all cruising for a chance meal, or dropping in to a 'cleaning station' for a bit of de-lousing by the cleaner wrasse, or just ogling us- the real underwater oddities. It really is a different, fantastic World.
Magnetic Island.....this was a stop of just a few hours. Anders, Marga & I headed up to a track I'd walked a couple of times before, each time seeing wild koala bears so close-up we could touch them. Unfortunately we arrived a little too late in the day to find any this time, though we did meet some other walkers who told us where they had spotted some- but we just ran out of light. Aah well-back to the beachfront for an open-air shower, some 'tucker' & a beer. Then around 11pm we upped anchor & set off for......
Hinchinbrook Island/Channel: En route to Hinchinbrook we searched for a famous dive wreck called 'Yongala', a ship that went down in a cyclone in 1911 losing all the 121 people on board. It now, reputedly, supports a huge variety of marine life as well as having well preserved remnants- including ship supplies & human bones- scattered all around. Well, we were now running short of mushrooms & so searched the open ocean in the area of the wreck, using the excellent electronic charts, fish-finder & compass(man...is this boat equipped!) for 40 mins before we definitely 'found' it, electronically at least-unfortunately the state of the sea, lack of mooring or anchorage plus the fact we'd now discovered we needed permission & a permit to dive there meant that we left dive-less, but nevertheless pleased with ourselves at actually locating the thing in the middle of nowhere. Lunch this day was fillet steaks of blue fin tuna, barbecued as usual to perfection by our in house barbecue specialist-George. This was on the plate one hour after fatefully chomping on our trolling lure. A pretty fish of about 25lbs by my estimate, @ 12-15lbs ignorantly offered by the rest of the crew. We did all agree on it being one of the tastiest fish we'd ever eaten. On to Hinchinbrook Channel; arriving early the next morning to a series of creeks, inlets, bays & coves making up this peaceful mangrove fringed channel around the edges of the mountainous Hinchinbrook Island, itself a National Park. For lunch we simply dropped anchor in the middle of the channel, draped a sheet over the back of the deck & ate, wait for it, 'poisson cru' - grace a Anders & Marga. What a life! Yet another great Cosmos meal. It seemed such a natural thing to do, but about midway through lunch we all stopped & took in again our surroundings & good fortune to be where we were, doing what we were doing. I think those are called 'moments'. An exceptionally wonderful day in an exceptionally beautiful area. Amazing to think that a few years ago someone wanted to concrete over a huge section of this area to develop a 'resort'! No doubt he thought he'd be making a few improvements to nasty old nature, only intended to bring employment & 'progress' to the area & wasn't in the slightest bit interested in making huge profits for himself. Off me soapbox. Anchored overnight just off of Goold Island, slightly North of Hinchinbrook.
Cairns: Anders & Marga disappeared for their last few days together, for a little while at least. That was after volunteering to take pretty much everybody's washing off to the launderette first. Crazy fools- there must have been 6 sacks full of pretty manky clothes, at least 7 articles of which were mine (that’s counting a pair of socks as two) - I like to economise while at sea(while at sea?). Again the E.mails & phone calls, shopping & supplies & also 1/2 a dozen films were developed here, which hopefully compliment Anders enviable & impressive 'snap & immediately view' digital ones, some of which I viewed on the Cosmos website when I logged on whilst here for the first time since N.Z. Excellent Tom- really enjoyed checking in. Great to talk to you, Ma, Pa, Aline. Marga took us all out for a seafood dinner before she reluctantly left Anders & us- the food was great & plentiful, a few bottles of red wine, company excellent, we had a really enjoyable evening & a good laugh......Thank you again Marga. I enjoyed your company, smiling face & happy being. Wishing you & Anders all the very best.
Steve's Bommie: Back to the diving at this suitably named site, just swap that ‘o’ for some good ol’ toilet humour. Again we had our very own personal reef playground. I thought this a notch up from Coates- better visibility, more variety & more colourful coral, more & bigger fish, deeper water. We snorkeled in the morning & afternoon before Joe & Anders went off for a dive. Again, to try & list everything you see on dives like this would be a huge task. One thing I would suggest is that everyone who is able to dive should do it at least once in their lifetime. It is impossible to adequately put across the wonder of this other World. I joined Hilary on her first ever scuba-dive; I think this is a special moment in itself, & one I've not had for a few years - to see the disbelieving smiles & head shaking of someone experiencing their very first dive, breathing underwater, on a tropical coral reef to boot, & amongst the myriads of fish & coral, even seeing a white-tip shark from.....what? 5 or 6 yds. Another addicted scuba diver draws under-water breath...........
Pixie's Pinnacle : Definitely the pick of the bunch. All the dive book pictures you ever saw compressed into a dive-site 20 yds in diameter. One pinnacle hanging 100 yds off of the closest 'ribbon' reef, open to the ocean currents & so a magnet for as many fish & corals as could squeeze onto it! Here, apart from thousands of all the fish we’d seen before, for the first time, we saw: lionfish(beautiful, venomous); gorgonia sea-fans filtering the open currents; gray reef shark- this 5’ guy seemed slightly worryingly confident as with 5 of us snorkeling around I dived down to get a closer look before he surely swam rapidly away, but he just came closer- probably only 10’ away- I decided that he was definitely in charge, braver, more able, the superior being & so swam back noticeably closer to everyone else. If I ever meet him on shore he’s in trouble though. Anders, Hilary & I went for a night snorkel a bit later on but apart from it being Hilary’s first attempt at this activity nocturnally (brave particularly considering the earlier shark encounter, that Anders & I are notoriously impulsive plus the fact we had just one torch) there wasn’t really anything remarkable going on. Next day & again Hilary & I teamed up for a scuba-dive. To say that she’s improved from her initial aquatic efforts (read her account) would be a massive understatement- here was Hills gracefully finning around, comfortable with buoyancy control, even swapping regulators with me 45' down (this entails taking your air supply out of your mouth & handing it over to someone else & vice-versa), starting to look at home down there & of course enjoying it all the more because of it. Very impressive. Unfortunately the time had come to leave this wonderland. We headed North aiming for another couple of dive sites, both of which were not diveable due to the sea conditions & lack of anchorage. So far, that is the end of the diving in Australia. Magnificent it was- 3 months just in the Barrier reef would probably still not be long enough, fantastic, wonder-full. I’ll be back.
Lloyd Bay, Lockhart Township: Somewhere en route to here, Anders landed a ‘spanish mackerel’ of about 8lb (14lb according to him) which went towards feeding us very nicely over 2 or 3 days. The back of the boat, us included, was a bit blood spattered after Anders had taken to the fish surprisingly enthusiastically with George’s baseball bat. Bit of the Viking of old floating around in his veins I think, absolutely savage. Our first afternoon in Lloyd Bay was spent dinghying around the rivers & creeks, armed to the teeth, in search of the infamous Aussie crocodiles. Nothing. Not a sausage. Birdsong, strange popping noises from the mangroves, kingfishers & herons, but not a croc in site. We moved anchor before nightfall, after putting Anders, snarling, back in his cage. I hooked a few fish here, none of which were landed, just dropped a scrap of tuna over the side of the boat & it seemed I got a bite each 10mins or so. One of these was on the line for maybe 15 mins, bending the rod double, before making a huge surging run & straightening out the reasonably heavy-duty hook. I still wonder what & how big that was- the one that got away, huh! Walking along the road into town the next day, a 4wd driver pulled over for a chat & so we met Damien, who in typical, hospitable, friendly Aussie fashion, offered to drive us out to the neighbouring Iron Range N.P.. So next morning we met him on the beach (worth a mention for it’s rocky beauty - see website photos) as arranged, he drove us out to the park telling us a bit of the local & natural history, current situation in the area etc. We had a very pleasant walk through the varying types of forest, saw a few bits & pieces of the flora & fauna- Anders & Hilary saw a ‘cassowary’ which is a large, thick-legged, flightless bird, mainly dark plumage except bright blue, & I think red, on the upper neck & head & a totally bizarre bright blue bony plate sticking out of it’s head- worth looking up if you have the faintest interest. Lucky buggers, my crewmates- I’d love to see a cassowary in the wild. These strange, secretive birds, found here & Papua New Guinea, have an aggressive reputation that includes having disemboweled the odd person to have surprised them. Damien drove out from town to meet us in the afternoon & take us back to Lockhart. Shame we didn’t have the time to have a beer with this generous, interesting man- I would have liked that. Next time Damien? Good luck with the Ranger job. We left Lockhart that evening after collecting a few coconuts from the beachfront. Seemed that this town was maybe typical of the Australian Aboriginal peoples struggle to find, or re-find themselves, not a particularly happy story on the whole. I hope it isn’t too late to steer it towards a happy ending, whatever that may be.
Thursday island, Torres Strait: This one really was a flying stop. We did squeeze in a wonderful church service, complete with electric guitar & rich harmony singing that went through the body carrying a rich tingle of pleasure. I’m not a church goer at all, but was glad to have taken this local opportunity- so vastly different from my last stuffy, pompous & hypocritical one in England. Half an hour in the supermarket after a hamburger lunch, then back to the boat for the off. Big sail this one, the first really since the Tasman sea: @650 miles non-stop.
Darwin, Northern Territory: The journey here passed without difficulty, some good sailing & some slightly rougher stuff on the final run-in. Darwin struck us all as a great place with a good feel to it. Anders & I hired a car & disappeared into Lichfield N.P. for 4 days. Joe, George & Hilary took a tour to Kakadu & the surrounds for a couple. Lichfield was superb fun &, of course, very beautiful. Plenty of walks, swimming (one down a creek 5 to 10’ wide for a couple of kilometres-under masses of spider webs, down loads of small waterfalls, under/ over logs-EXCELLENT!), camping out under star filled skies with bandicoots & possums running through the site, waking up to bird song (always missed at sea), 25’ high termite mounds, waterfalls, wallabies, parrots, kookaburras & so on & on. We had a great time. As did the others who were full of praise of the country, paintings, birds & animals they’d seen. Beautiful, beautiful country with a special feel to it, Australia. All the usual boat necessities carried out, calls home & E.mails, watched a bit of the ‘World Cup’ (go England!) & headed out once more, this time for the remote Kimberley Coast.
Having seen the Kimberleys from inland & rating it as one of my favourite spots in Oz, I was really looking forward to the opportunity of seeing it from the Sea. First stop was at King Georges River, where we took the dinghy up one of the rivers arms to explore. We didn’t see much wildlife, but once again the rocky scenery absorbed & fascinated. From memory I believe the Kimberley range was a coral reef 14 or so million years ago, could be way out there though. It’s one of those places where erosion has left rocks balancing impossibly on top of each other, gaps, caves & holes between, stunted trees growing where surely they shouldn’t survive, wonderful contrasts & shades of light & shadow. The ever enthusiastic Anders & myself climbed one side of the ‘ravine’ to see what might be there to see- more of the same stunning, harsh terrain. Our next stop was at ‘Shelter Bay’, an island of the Prudhoe group. Again, fantastic rocky scenery & once again, fine, HOT sunny weather. I don’t remember when we last had a not clear-blue-sky day ending in a picturesque sunset. George & I dinghied to another island & found plenty of turtle tracks to & from nest digs, & tiny turtle tracks flooding from a nest site, presumably from last year. We also saw 4 small shovel-nosed rays (or angel sharks?) 6’ off the shore. Later, after a bit of exploring, rock-climbing & jumping-off-of, photo taking & frisbee-throwing, we headed back to ‘Turtle Island’ with all the necessaries for a beach BBQ. We cooked our lamb, onions & baked potatoes over a driftwood fire, to go with the tomato salad & a cool beer, star-watched, then went off for another exploration of the area. Joe & myself took a torch into the shallows & wondered at all the life around us: crabs; fish; small cray; phosphorescent life drifting, being eaten by crab & also making our footprints a trail of brilliant green & blue light. Being the big kids we are, we crept up to the others, hid behind rocks & made ‘animal’ noises & giggled at the thought of them not knowing what it was. Some chance- I think the giggling gave us away if not the pathetic animal impressions. We didn’t see any turtles as we’d hoped- perhaps if we’d waited until high tide at 3am we would have, but I think the fun of the day finally wore us out & we headed back to Cosmos through a mass of jumping & tail-walking garfish in our torch-light beams. Another fantastic day comes to an end.
Lacepede Islands: Just a couple of sand islands in a lovely setting in the Indian Ocean, 70 miles North of Broome. These were full of nesting booby birds, with seagulls & frigate birds hanging around in the hope of a meal in the form of booby chicks. There were also hundreds of turtle nest diggings & at least half a dozen hanging around in a small bay I guess waiting for the nighttime high tide to come ashore to lay their eggs. The booby birds & chicks looked to be very photogenic & we all snapped away at this amazing situation & opportunity- can’t wait to see the photos. Hilary found a sort of turtle graveyard- complete skeletons of large turtles that didn’t make it back to the sea in time & paid a heavy price. One was on top of a booby nest with the skeleton of what we guess was a booby chick under the turtle skeleton. Bizarre. Cool sunset once again with hundreds of birds heading back to roost on Lacepede.
Broome: This is our final destination in mainland Australia. We’ve restocked the boat once more, tomorrow we refuel & entertain the customs officials, wash down the boat & head off for the 1500 mile run to Cocos Keeling Is. So this will be my summarized account of the whole of our time in Aussie waters. I had meant to write shorter reports & send them off more often, instead of keeping updating a larger one & not sending it on, but……..would anyone believe me if I said it is sometimes difficult to find the time!?! From here on we will be on much longer legs: 1,500 to Cocos; 2,300 to Mauritius; 1,500 to Durban. So finding the time shouldn’t be a problem- watch this space!
The story behind ‘The Scourge of the Oceans’: Pictures of this combined work of art & cutting edge technology have already appeared on the website, so here is the truth behind the pictures. It began when Anders & I decided it would be cool to catch a fish on a self-built lure. After discussions & drawings the body shape was decided on & hand-carved from top quality timber, fixings fashioned from the strongest of steels & ‘the brainÓ’ made from various components from the Cosmos’ stores. Once built, the Scourge’s first couple of days efforts were unfruitful- not, as we had to remind our crewmates, because it was crap, but because these were test runs where fine adjustments to the inbuilt intelligence were made, therefore the target-fish selector was set to ‘full avoidance’. I’ll try & explain the workings in a simple way, as the full complexities would make a mess of all but the strongest, the most agile & genial of minds. A tiny hydroelectric generator located in the gullet fed a series of batteries in the gut, which in turn gave life to ‘the brainÓ’.
A series of highly responsive photo-interrupters down each lateral line gauged the size of the fish as his mouth closed around ‘the scourge’ & depending on the settings was either allowed to ensnare itself on the appallingly efficient armoury, or rejected- by which ‘the brainÓ’ would send signal & full power from the batteries to the tail prop’ & steering gear & the sleek predator would be left, confused & embarrassed, wondering what he’d just encountered (or was it imagination?). Around Thursday Island, all tests supposedly completed, ‘the scourge’ slipped without a ripple, without a sound back into the depths.
Predictably, within minutes, the action started. A perfectly proportioned meal-for-five sized fish hit the lure & was comfortably brought to the back of the boat, sporting a ‘beaten fair & square’ expression on his fishy face. It was here that the first shadow of doubt crept into our tiny minds- the release mechanism triggered early & ‘the scourge’ let go of it’s catch before we could grab it, it hit the back steps on the way back to the water & gratefully swam away. Again ‘the scourge’ took to the ocean & again a fish hooked up within minutes. This time ‘the scourge’ self-released the catch before even reaching the boat. Something was going horribly wrong. ‘Scourge’ was connected to the Cosmos laboratory computer & all programs were checked & rechecked. Surely we couldn’t have made a technological oversight!?! (it was possible -- look at the comparatively simple Hubble telescope escapade).
Extensive tests revealed nothing amiss. Perhaps we were wrong to do it, but we released ‘the scourge’ back into the Oceans for which he was so perfectly designed. Once again, within minutes, he suckered in another perfect meal for 5, then, without warning, the line went slack, the rod straightened & all went deathly quiet -- as suddenly as that ‘the scourge’ had left our lives. As to what went wrong we could only speculate: he was only supposed to self-detonate if falling into unsavoury hands & there was no sign of an explosion at all; there was always a small chance that an entire shoal of fish had, driven to new heights by his irresistible alluring lines & colours, managed to out-maneuver him? Or was he just overloaded with technological innovations- too far ahead of his time. No, we don’t think so- it seems most likely that his processors absorbed the happenings on the boat at the time of his building, & that he disconnected deliberately from the line & went back to Nara Inlet to retrieve my lost shoe. Sadly, we didn’t stumble on to this conclusion until after we’d changed destinations from Christmas Island to the Kimberley Coast. ‘The scourge’ was pre-programmed with the boat’s course & would not have known of this change!
We fear that now all is lost- ‘the scourge’ had batteries good for 5 yrs & self-perpetuating drive within that time. It seems likely then that ‘the scourge’ will continue circumnavigating the Oceans, teasing fish all along the way, shoe in mouth, until finally the batteries can no longer hold power, and ‘the scourge’s’ life will flicker -- and die.
The End
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