Whitsunday Islands part 3
Oasis snug on her mooring in Palm Bay lagoon
Sailing Oasis a Beneteau 43 in the Whitsunday Islands
Wednesday 17th May
Weather no better. After breakfast we decide to make a dash for Palm Bay where Peter has arranged for a mooring. We head down Hunt channel inside Cid Island and across the same stretch of lumpy water we came through yesterday afternoon. Ross is on the helm but Peter takes over once we hit the rougher stuff and we round South Head on Long Island into calmer water before taking up a mooring outside the lagoon at Palm Bay. We have no sooner done this than the boatman from the resort comes across in his boat and invites us to move into the lagoon and onto a mooring despite the very restricted area available. We gingerly take the yacht up the narrow lead between the marker buoys and put Oasis onto a mooring with a stern line hitched to a Palm tree and settle in about 4 metres of water! All goes well and we are snug in this sheltered lagoon for the night. The water is almost mirror calm. We see a white morph Eastern Reef Egret on the beach and it visits us on the yacht!
Peter (photo by Hella)
Eastern Reef Egret foraging along the lagoon shoreline
Eastern Reef Egret on Peppers Palm Bay resort tender
The white morph Eastern Reef Egret on the bow of Oasis
Silver Gull on the glassy waters of the lagoon
Fig (sp?) along the shoreline in Palm Bay
We go ashore and take a look at the headland to the south where I flush a Whimbrel from the rocky shoreline. We go our different ways but I stay with Peter and Hella. The three of us go to the eastern side of the low isthmus where the small ‘boutique’ Peppers Palm Bay resort is located and then go north for a little way into the National Park area towards Humpy Point. We see signs of kangaroos and eventually find several Agile Wallaby Macropus agilis. Nothing much of note seen or heard by me in the woodlands except a calling Rose-crowned Fruit-Dove but Kate and Iain, who went up the same track some half hour or so before we did, came across not only a Bush Stone-Curlew but certainly (from their description) an Orange-footed Scrubfowl and a Brush Turkey which they had no difficulty identifying.
Silver Gull on the glassy waters of the lagoon
Fig (sp?) along the shoreline in Palm Bay
Oasis in the Lagoon, Palm Bay
Gathering storm. Eastern shore at back of Palm Bay resort
Screw Pine Pandanus tectorius and fruits
Path to Happy Bay
There is a major downpour just as we get back to the resort for a drink at the bar. Ross has gone on to Happy Bay but just avoids getting soaked! We all go back to Oasis once the rain stops. I find three Noisy Friarbird sitting in the top of a tree at the resort. Lewin’s Honeyeater were heard calling from the forest. A pair of Brahminy Kite obviously reside in this bay using a tall snag as a lookout point on the southern headland.
Screw Pine Pandanus tectorius and fruits
Path to Happy Bay
Brahminy Kite watching
Oasis in the lagoon, Palm Bay, Long Island