Cruising Log—18...Brampton Is to Shaw Is

A strange incident occurred while we were at Brampton. It almost made me religious. I found out that my mother and father, who were divorced a long time ago and have since both died, have been reunited in heaven. How do I know this? While we were on the island circuit walk, I received an SMS. It said “Got your e-mail. Sounds good. All well. Love Mum and Dad.”

Brampton is somewhat lower, but has a great walking track to the summit and an island circuit trail, one of the best walks in the region. We were soon into them. The highlights were an encounter with a green tree snake (harmless, I think) and lots of encounters with Shovel-nosed Rays and a pack of Black-tipped Reef Sharks in the shallows.

Monday 4 September finally saw us depart Brampton Island for Goldsmith Island. Due to lack of wind we had to motor the 12NM – pretty ironical given the strong winds we’d suffered at Brampton.

Goldsmith is a typical Whitsundays island, with a good beach but only accessible with at least half tide due to fringing rock and coral rubble. You have to be really careful that you leave the beach before the tide has dropped too far, or you’ll never get out over the rocks. You need at least half tide to swim as well, otherwise the water doesn’t reach the beach.

The up side of this is that at spring low tides a good portion of the reef is exposed. Armed with wetsuit boots to protect against coral cuts, deadly cone shells and stone fish, many hours can be spent wandering the pools looking at the wildlife and coral. Most of the coral that gets exposed like this is soft coral, looking more like plants. Many of them are positively grotesque, even to the dead flesh-like colour and texture. Others are bright green or bright yellow, some more than a metre across, looking like “flubber” or a large gob of some kind of unsavoury gooey stuff dropped from a great height.

In the morning we moved to the northern-most of the two Goldsmith Island beaches. This one is delightful with deep, clear water access, perfect for swimming. We had it all to ourselves.

Later in the day we had a rare and welcome beam reach sail for the 11NM to Thomas Island. The anchorage here gets a bit swelly and lumpy and is therefore not as comfortable as others in the area, but it is beautiful.

We were going to spend a few days at Thomas Island but the forecast for northerly winds saw us leave for the southern side of Lindeman Island. Again we had to motor due to lack of wind. Getting through the pass between Thomas Island and Shaw Island with the tide against us was an unexpected challenge – with 2000 rpm on the tacho we could only manage 1.5 knots across the bottom.

So, if anyone needs the phone number for heaven, I’ve got it. Just kidding. Anyway, I replied “SMS to wrong number. Mum and Dad dead.” There was no response.