With accurate coastal waters weather forecasts I was able to know two days ago that the SE would kick in hard on Saturday and was able to adjust my runs each day and made it to the Cooktown and am now anchored in the Endeavour river, which is very shallow and begs the question:
How much water did Cook's Endeavour draw?
For those that don't know, in 1770 James Cook ran the Endeavour onto a reef a few miles south and came in here to make repairs. Luckily for him the coral head he hit snapped off and formed a plug in the hull. For me it was a serious of shallow! - stop - back up - turn - try there - shallow! - stop - etc... A smart ass comment from one of the twenty or so game-fishing boats choking up the waterway was really helpful. Luckily Brent off one of the boats I have been travelling with, came in his dingy
and showed me the way, which still entailed pushing through sand until getting to slightly deeper water.
Cooktown is similar in size to Thursday Island (two or three streets wide), but connected to the rest of Queensland by a reasonable road. History and the reef trips are the big things here. with a few museums and lots of Cook monuments and murals depicting indigenous life before and after his visit.
To add to the historical theme of the arrival into Cooktown I passed Bounty, the replica of Captain Bligh's Bounty a few miles out. It was heading north, using a non-authentic motor.
For me its now a wait for the SE to drop off again and continue south. Most of the trip from the Escape river was a motoring affair in calm conditions. The last afternoon coming in was a different matter, with a stiff NE sea breeze coming up and we sailed along at 8 knots to charge into Cooktown. Lets hope the there are more days like that.
Expecting no change in the weather for four or five days.
1 comment:
Hi Col, Liz, Courtney & Anna,
I lost track of your exployts for a while. Too engrosed in my own little world I guess. I have finally quit work and have spent some time in Malysia just recently but I see you are in Aust again. We visited Hadjai but didn't get any further into Thailand this time round. I have to settle down and catch up with all your logs. I had feeling you may have begun using a blog after reading one from a close friend who also has on on this site. "Legs up and Laughing". She has just turned it into a book. Anyway that prompted me to try looking again and here you are. I won't bore you any longer and will begin reading your past adventures. My email is "ken.watson_at_iinet.net.au.
Glad to see you still enjoying life at sea.
Cheers
Ken and Juni.
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