Montgomery Reef 2nd Sept

Up early, yet again, to go and collect oysters from the rocks. Yuk! Both Stephen and I don’t like oysters. Stephen tries one and agrees that he still doesn’t like them, however he claimed he was experimenting to see if they work as an aphrodisiac. Hmmm, worrying!


We drop them off at the boat and head towards Sheep Island and Camden Settlement. This was the one and only settlement in the Kimberley (1864 – 65). Those poor people. The land is so harsh it’s not surprising only a handful of the 124 people survived the 12 months they spent there.

Back to the GE for brekkie while we watch a pod of dolphins frolic in the boat’s wash. We spend the afternoon travelling towards Montgomery Reef. Don’t know why but Stephen kept wanting to go to our ruuuum???? We sat out the front of the boat watching for whales. We soon came across a mother and baby who put on a wonderful display for us including swimming under the boat. An hour later we come across another mother and baby. We cruise right up to them and the baby is playing around but the mother is not moving. All of a sudden she becomes aware of us and takes off breaching the water 3 times. The baby doesn’t follow so she returns to gather it up before swimming away. They truly are magnificent creatures.

Under the Boat

Up she comes and down she goes

Finally

We anchor in a channel at Montgomery Reef and head off to some nearby islands for a fish. Finally I land a decent sized fish, a mackerel, that doesn’t get thrown back into the water and is not kept for bait. Lots of line tangling this afternoon courtesy of Ali.

Trippy announces on the radio that we should all start heading back to the GE as the tide is dropping quickly. As we reach the channel where the GE is anchored, the tide drops and the reef is revealed.

There are turtles clambering to get off the reef and fish jumping across the water. The boat is now in a lagoon surrounded by the reef. We wait about an hour for the tide to drop a little more and then we get back into the tinnys and go for a walk on the reef. It is a stone reef and the coral is quite hard. The colours are wonderful. The tide continues to drop at a rapid rate and waterfalls appear in gaps in the reef. It is such a weird feeling walking around in the middle of the ocean. It is sunset and the colours are fantastic.

Waterfalls in the middle of the ocean

Another beautiful sunset

We are on a tight timeline however as we have to get back to the big boat and out through the channel before the tide gets too low. We sit high on the deck and watch the sunset with a gin and tonic or two. Aaahhh, the serenity!!

We cruise onto Doubtful Bay. Later that evening Trippy received a distress call from a nearby yacht. A woman on board has fallen and broken her leg. They don’t have a satellite phone and need to contact a doctor. We have just finished dinner and the booze is flowing tonight. We only have a couple of days to go and everyone is trying to clear the grog fridge by the time we get to Broome.

Trippy and the twin Suzanne nurses get into the tinny and go over to the yacht. Trippy and the husband come back to contact the doctor. I don’t know what the husband made of our General Hospital jokes. When they all get back we are told the woman has quite a bad break requiring surgery and will have to be evacuated in the morning by seaplane. Trippy is all for resetting the fracture – he just luvs playing doctor – but the Suzannes hold him back and do their duty, blow up splint and medication for pain. Unfortunately the poor woman is not going to have a very restful night.

We all troop off to bed a little worse for wear tonight, except for Stephen who for some reason is full of beans.