Curtis island, why the outside? ( guys this one failed to upload a few days ago – here it is ) 

The last two days have been spent paddling from Tannun sands through to the northern tip of Curtis island. The departure from Gladstone harbour was like one of those theme park rides that starts slowly then accelerates away at break neck speed. After waiting for three very large container ships to get out of our way we jumped on a 14 knot southerly wind which saw us essentially surf across the harbour to the channel between Facing island and Curtis island. The eastern side of Curtis island gave us full protection from the southerly winds which meant we had a fairly straight forward paddle up to our first campsite halfway up the island.

The bottom third of Curtis island looks like a set out of a Mad max movie, the trees are tortured and barely holding onto life, it looks like mother nature has taken a great big blow torch and scorched everything to within an inch of its life. It was quite unsettling and with a grey and blustery day I had added Curtis island to the list of places I would not be coming back to . By midday I was forced to change the island from the ” I will not”, to ” I will definantly be coming back “, list. The complete contrast of the enormous sandy bay which became our first nights campground was astounding, it was green, growing and beautiful.

We camped high in the dunes overlooking the bay, by midnight we had realised something was quite different to previous nights. The temperature dropped to 4degrees and completely caught us unprepared. At about 2am I was outside the tent looking for another clothing bag when I was stopped dead in my tracks by the stars, there is no light pollution here, the stars were on full beam, so bright – the darned things kept jumping around though in time with my chattering teeth. We both ended up wearing almost every clothing item we had and still shivered our way through the morning.

Today we were accompanied by Dolphins on our paddle up a stunning coastline dotted with white sand beaches and rocky headlands. Tonight we sleep on a small island having eaten fresh caught Flathead and Brim – this is such a remote place the fish jumped on our line in the last hour before sunset. We share the island with some very cute Banded Dotterils, many waders and by the look of the tracks either a dingo or wild dog.

Almost three weeks of paddling, we are both fit and well – we are sleeping like babies usually by 7.30 at night. We are both very bearded and a lot thinner than we were when we started.

Yesterday we finally worked out why Black Magics day hatch compartment kept filling up with water. It was not the hatch lid at all but the rudder release cable mechanism, it had broken away inside the compartment. A patch up job saw almost no water enter the boat today – I did a little dance of joy as it had been driving me bonkers.

Why the outside of Curtis island? The wind was in our favour, but the main reason was there are Crocodiles in the inside Chanel. No photos today as we have very poor coverage. We will be able to post some tomorrow as we again come close to civilisation. DT