Gypsy Cruising

26 June

Middle Percy Island

Another day in paradise.  I have a feeling this might be a longish post, because it's been one of those days and I just can't keep the number of photos down.  Oh well, too much of a good thing is barely enough.

We started the day by taking the dinghy into the lagoon, which is accessible by water from West Bay only at mid to high tide.  Inside is very picturesque, but at low tide it becomes largely mud flats surrounded by mangroves.  There's a Hood 23 there, sitting on one of the higher sand banks where it would float only at the highest tides a few times each month. We end up meeting the boat's crew later in the day.  They've lived on the boat for four years.

Inside the lagoon, looking back out to West Bay

I remain uncertain as to where I want to spend tonight, concerned about the promised blowup in the weather conditions.  We have no mobile phone reception where we're anchored, so we decide to walk up the hill towards the homestead.  The walk becomes the main event.  Along the way we get views out to sea, we find little groves where the air is thick with beautiful blue butterflies and everywhere there are snippets of rhyming verse written by the pioneering lease holder from the 1960s, Andy Martin.

Spencer outside the "telephone shed", the precursor to the A-frame

Part of the track from West Bay up to the homestead

One of Andy's old verses, sounding remarkably wise in this island paradise

Me, at a lookout overlooking South Percy Island

Trees and the air were thick with these butterflies

We got a patchy mobile phone signal halfway up the hill and I managed to get onto BoM MetEye.  The information wasn't completely definite, but it looked to me like we could probably risk another night on Middle Percy so long as we left early tomorrow.  That sounded just fine with us.

Now with time to spare we continued up the hill to the homestead.  We found Cate, the Island's lessee and resident, working with her honey bees.  On Middle Percy, everyone is treated to feel like family.  So, if there's work to be done, visiting yachties pitch in and help.  Much of the island infrastucture has been upgraded and maintained in this way, and everyone thinks it's a very fair arrangement.  Neil and Mark from the anchorage were there helping and we also met the crew from the Hood 23 - Shipwreck and Bec.  Being family also means being invited in for meals, and Cate asked us all upstairs for morning tea and trifle she'd just made, probably with lots of the tropical fruit that grows on the island.  Far more so than the A-frame or the beautiful beach, this is what makes a stay at Middle Percy so special and unique.  Cate is a wonderful lady who makes you feel like you're home.

Shipwreck (Cate calls him Ships) has been making mead in the few weeks he's been on the island.  It's one of the staple products of the island, along with honey, goat pie and fresh fruit.  It gets served to us along with the tea, coffee and trifle.  Spencer comes away with a bottle of his own, and a goat pie.  Like everything here, it's all subject to a donation of whatever you think is right.

The Homestead, built in the 1920s

Spencer, with Shipwreck and his bottle of mead

Spencer, Cate and me

Cate instructing Neil and Mark on how to drive the quad bike, with me, Shipwreck and Bec

We take the "shortcut" back to the beach, still a couple of kilometres, along a narrow track through the bush.  Neil and Mark are already there, having borrowed Cate's quad bike.  They're packing up to leave today.  In the process they leave us four coconuts they've knocked out of the palms.  They'd actually proved to be very good at doing that - very different to Spencer's and my embarrassing attempts to do the same thing.  So, first thing before we headed back to the boat was to husk and split open three of the coconuts.  I left the fourth husked but otherwise intact for future use.

With coconut cups on board I made my first Pina Coladas for the trip, having carried an electric blender, cream, coconut cream and pineapple juice and having made ice cubes specifically for the purpose.  So, we sat in the cockpit, coconut cocktails in hand, watching paradise happen around us.  It was proving to be a simply perfect day.

Spencer husking our coconuts

I got one done, but score 3-1 to Spencer

Hard to imagine anywhere better than here

After five years of owning Gypsy Princess, I finally discover what those round things in the cockpit table are for!

Pina Coladas come in biodegradable cups

With the sun starting to get lower in the sky it's time for drinks ashore one last time.  Jim and Heather are there, from Argonaut of Melbourne.  Along with drinks and nibbles I've brought another item with me.  I've already mentioned here the tradition of each boat leaving something of itself in the A-frame as a record of its stay.  Having given the issue some serious thought I decided I'd leave my Alfreds racing pennant, under which the boat has raced for several seasons back home.  So, labelled, signed and dated it's now a small part of the A-frame history.  And I made sure to leave space for future visits.

Gypsy Princess now takes it's own small place in the history of the Middle Percy A-frame - upstairs on the companionway should you wish to find it

I put the drone into the air for some final photos of West Bay at Middle Percy.  We're expecting a big blow to come through mid tomorrow.  So, tonight's our last at the Percys.  We'll do almost 50 miles tomorrow to get to Curlew Island, which is rated as a protected anchorage in strong south and south easterly winds.  After that we'll try Digby Island before heading to Mackay and the end of this first cruising leg.  Argonaut of Melbourne will also move tomorrow, probably to Curlew, and West Bay will be empty.  Shipwreck and Bec will be quite safe in the lagoon, essentially immune from just about anything the weather might throw at the island.

I guess it's apparent from the last two days' posts just how wonderful our time has been here.  There's some sort of magic at work that only a very small group of people - yachties - will ever experience.  We're a very lucky group of people.

Gypsy Princess sitting in West Bay

The beach and A-frame