Coasts of Cape York (48 page)

The two miners departed in their vehicle and the only movement ashore was the arrival of a battered utility with half a dozen Aborigines of various ages and both sexes. They appeared to ignore the LCT and walked out on to the sandy bed of the creek. Here they set about collecting worms and shrimps for fishing bait. Then they set up camp some way from the shore, back near some distant trees. At no time did they come near the LCT.

“This is the port for the town of Coen,” Capt Kirk explained.

“Can't be much of a town,” Willy grumbled, still sweating as the sun set.

“It isn't,” he was assured.

Night brought very little relief. It remained stifling, with no wind. The discomfort was increased by swarms of sand flies and mosquitoes. Insect repellent seemed to be quite inadequate in keeping these off. Of further concern was the weather report after the 7:00 pm news. This said that the ‘low' in the Coral Sea had deepened to 985 hp and had moved closer to the coast. It was now about 500 km east of Cape Tribulation. It was still a long way off and well south but Capt Kirk looked anxious.

“I am not just worried about us,” he explained. “I've got the
Malita
heading north from Townsville after being slipped for hull cleaning and the
Bonthorpe
is coming down past Lockhart River towing the barge
Oura
. The
Oura
is loaded to the eyeballs with empty forty four gallon drums- five thousand of them- and they are only making about seven knots as a tow.”

Andrew asked the question Willy wanted to know about. “Sir, if this low becomes a cyclone is it likely to come this way?”

Capt Kirk shook his head. “No. Very few cyclones come in north of Cooktown. Nine out of ten strike the coast between Cairns and the Whitsunday Islands. But it will mean we might have to hang around up here for a few days waiting for one to blow itself out.”

With that depressing thought Willy took himself to bed, lying under a mosquito net in a lather of sweat. It was an uncomfortable night and he slept badly. It was almost a relief to be woken at 05:00 next morning.

Daylight brought no improvement in the weather. It remained hot and still with no clouds in the sky. Nor was there any water in the inlet yet. The tide had turned and was on the make but only a few trickles were visible out between the headlands. An early breakfast was mostly eaten in silence. The main topic of conversation was the ‘low'. This had moved very little during the night and was still about 500 km away. But it had deepened, the central pressure dropping to 977 hp. The announcer informed them that it had begun to take on some formation and there was a possibility it might develop into a cyclone.

Capt Kirk spent some time on the radio and learned that the
Bonthorpe
and her tow had passed by during the night. They were now crossing Bathurst Bay, heading south.

For the next hour Willy sat in the shade and tried to read a book while watching the tide come in. To his surprise it really flowed in, the brown water swirling across the sand much faster than he imagined was possible. The wide expanses of sand vanished very quickly. This was to the evident pleasure of the Aborigines who appeared on the bank armed with fishing lines, cast nets and fish spears. By 07:00 the LCT was afloat.

An hour later
Wewak
was under way and nosing carefully out of the entrance. Once safely out past the many sandbars speed was increased and course set of the Flinders Island Group. This was almost directly across the ‘chord' of the great curve of Princess Charlotte Bay.

Within another hour the low coast had dropped below the horizon and there was nothing to see but the flat, gently undulating sea. Willy talked, read, and tried to snooze. But it was so hot that all he seemed to do was sweat. Lunch was eaten with no enthusiasm. Willy resigned himself to another boring, sweaty afternoon.

Then at 1:00pm he heard Graham calling his father. “What is it?” Capt Kirk called from his bunk. He usually slept during the day because he was awake and on watch at night so was short tempered and not amused at being woken up.

“A small boat ahead Dad, er, Sir. It looks like it is in trouble,” Graham replied.

Out of idle curiosity Willy made his way up to the bridge to look. A check of the chart showed they were near Wharton Reef- a small reef with a lighthouse on it. Nearby he saw a small white-hulled sailing yacht. The yacht appeared to be rolling in the gentle swell and as they got closer he saw that the sails and rigging did not look right.

“Got his mainsail all torn and tangled somehow,” Capt Kirk said, observing the yacht through his binoculars. Then he raised them again to study the yacht. “Hmm,” he murmured. “I think that is your friend the ‘Flying Dutchman' in the
Dyfken
.”

That got Willy's interest. ‘Jacob van der Heyden again!' he thought. ‘What is he doing?'

 

 

CHAPTER 31

 

SAURIAN

 

Wewak
hove to fifty metres from the yacht. By then Willy could see what Capt Kirk meant. The yacht's mainsail was only half up and was all in a tangle. Capt Kirk leaned over the wing of the bridge and raised a megaphone. “
Dyfken
ahoy!”

Willy could clearly see Jacob, his sister Julia and his mother. They waved back and a faint ‘Hello!' was called back.

“Do you need assistance?” Capt Kirk called.

There was a short delay during which Willy could clearly see Jacob arguing with his sister. It was Julia that answered. “We have a bit of a problem with our sails and the engine has broken down,” she called.

Capt Kirk swore under his breath, earning him a frown from Mrs Kirk. Then he said, “We can't leave them if there is the possibility of bad weather.”

Carmen stepped forward. “Sir, I have been trained on the rigging of yachts like that. I spent a week on one during my coxswains course.”

“Good. You and Andrew come across with me and we will take the engineer,” Capt Kirk replied. He went below, calling for Jock Cullen. Ten minutes later the boat was lowered. Willy badly wanted to go, so that he could question Jacob about what he was looking for but there was no room for him. Graham and the mate were left in charge of
Wewak
.

The boat went across and there was then a wait of half an hour. During this time both vessels drifted, rolling gently on the oily swell. Then a few whiffles of breeze ruffled the sea and Willy sighed with relief. The breeze slowly grew in strength until it was a steady breeze. To Willy's surprise both the mate and Graham frowned and looked anxious. “What's the matter?” he asked.

The mate answered. “That wind is coming off the land, from the South West. That could mean that the low has formed into a cyclone and that the whole system has begun to rotate.”

Willy had never been in the destructive part of a cyclone but he knew enough to also be worried. Even if it was 500 km away it was a threat. He knew that cyclones were gigantic revolving storms that could be two or three hundred kilometers across, with an eye that varied from 20k to 50km in diameter. The wind speeds would be above 60 knots- about 120 kph- and the entire system could move at anything up to 10 to 15kph. Their course was very difficult to predict.

When Capt Kirk returned at 2:00pm he was just as worried. “Don't like this wind direction,” he commented. He then sent the mate and Graham aft to prepare a steel wire towing rope. “Their engine is seized- overheated- and Carmen says that she needs calm water to get up the mast to fix the mainsail. It has a steel wire halyard jammed in the groove that the sail slides up. We will have to tow them to a safe anchorage.”

It took twenty minutes to attach the towing cable to the bow of the yacht. Andrew, Carmen and Jock Cullen returned back aboard and the boat was hoisted up and secured. The
Wewak
then got under way. All Willy could do was stand out of the way and watch. From a slow start to draw the tow line taut gently speed was slowly increased until they were moving at 10 knots, the
Dyfken
following along a hundred metres astern.

From time to time the yacht would veer and sheer off to one side or the other before steadying back on course. Capt Kirk watched this several times and shook his head. “I wish those landlubbers could steer a straight course. They could break the tow line with that sort of nonsense.”

“Would you like me to or Andrew to go aboard as quartermaster sir?” Carmen asked.

Capt Kirk shook his head. “No. We got a frosty enough reception as it was.” He then bent to look at the radar screen and tapped at it. “Odd little blip. Must be a small boat,” he muttered.

Willy and Carmen both moved to look. The screen clearly showed the shape of the huge bay and also the mountainous islands of the Flinders Group 20km ahead. Several other small blips showed. “That one is the beacon on Wharton Reef,” Carmen said, “And the one to the North West is the lighthouse on Eden Reef. But this little blip just north of there must be a boat.”

At 3:00pm Capt Kirk turned on the computer. This was linked by satellite to the Bureau of Meteorology website and gave the latest weather reports and warnings. Looking at the screen and watching the reactions of the sailors caused Willy a spasm of anxiety. The report said that the low had now developed into a tropical cyclone- a hurricane- except that in the southern hemisphere they rotate in a clockwise direction. It was only a Category 1- the weakest- and was still about 500 km away- but it had turned to a more westerly course. The computer predictions were that it would move west and cross the North Queensland coast between Cooktown and Cairns.

“That is not good news,” Capt Kirk said. “We had better start looking for a safe place to be, just in case.” He went to the chart and did some calculations. After a few minutes deliberation and a short discussion with the mate he announced, “We are going to head for the Normanby River. If there is going to be cyclone I want to be right up a mangrove creek. And we can fix that yacht's rigging there. Damn! I wanted to reach Cooktown tonight and Cairns tomorrow.”

Willy now knew enough about the economics of coastal shipping to understand that a day or two's delay cost a lot of money and he felt sorry for Capt Kirk. Capt Kirk next went to the marine radio and called his other ship, the
Bonthorpe.
 “Where are you now Tom, over,” he asked.

“Off Murdoch Point, over,” came the reply.

“You'd better think about turning back. I don't want you running into this cyclone, over,” Capt Kirk said.

“Already thinking about that. We are starting to run into some big seas already. I don't think we can get to Cookotwn before it arrives, over,” came the reply.

“Better to be safe than sorry. Turn back, over,” Capt Kirk ordered.

Wewak's
course was now changed to south. Capt Kirk tried calling the
Dyfken
to explain but they apparently did not have their radio on. Carmen shook her head. “They are unbelievable lubbers. They wrecked their engine, then they got their halyard jammed. Worse still they thought they were at Clack Reef. When I looked at their chart and saw that they had a pencil line from Burkitt Island direct to Clack Reef I could not believe it. The line ran across Hedge Reef, Grubb Reef and Corbett Reef as though they just did not matter.”

“So how come they didn't run on one of them?” Willy asked.

“Pure good luck and bad navigation,” Carmen answered. “They had not taken any magnetic variation into account and the currents must have helped push them south. So they went South East instead of East.”

“Did they say what they were looking for?” Willy asked.

Carmen shook her head. “No. They didn't say why they were there at all. They weren't very friendly but had to grudgingly admit they needed a bit of help.”

“Strange,” Willy commented.

Andrew laughed and said, “It just confirms that they have some secret they want to keep.”

It was a good mystery for Willy to puzzle over. He went back to watching. The LCT was now heading directly into the wind and waves but these were only about half a metre in height and caused almost no noticeable effect. The wind however surprised Willy. It was coming off the land and was hot, as though it was coming from a giant fire. The sky remained cloudless and the sun blazed down so fiercely that metal fittings were painfully hot to the touch.

After an hour and a half of uneventful progress the low coast of the southern shore of the bay came into sight. By this time the rugged and barren peaks of the Flinders Group and the Bathurst Range were standing clear above the horizon 15 km to port.

As they approached the coast Capt Kirk brought
Wewak
to, the
Dyfken
riding easily at the end of her tow. “The problem now is to get us across the bar. It is an hour past low water. I don't know this river mouth well, have only been up it twice and that was in a dinghy. But I think
Wewak
will be alright. She only draws a metre at the bow and a bit over two metres aft. It is the yacht I am worried about. I don't know how deep her keel is.”

Carmen looked at the yacht, on the deck of which the three van der Heydens could be seen standing staring at them. She said, “I had a look when we were diving to fix her propeller. She is only a seven metre ‘trailer-sailor' and has a sliding keel that is wound up and down, like a big centre board.  If that is up she should only draw a bit under two metres.”

“We will try that,” Capt Kirk agreed. He picked up the megaphone and bellowed, “Raise your keel so we can cross the bar.”

The response was a lot of gesticulating and barely audible yells. Capt Kirk called again and got the same response. This time they heard the words, ‘don't know how.'

Capt Kirk muttered an oath and shook his head. “People like them shouldn't be allowed out on the water,” he grumbled.