Port Douglas to Bloomfield River   Wind 15 – 20 knts  sunny  36 nm

After completing pre departure chores of topping up water tanks, folding up bikes, washing, pulling in power lead and returning the marina keys we headed out amongst the flotilla of tourist boats at 9:30 . The wind was only about 10 – 15 knots not the forecast 15 – 20 and mostly behind us so we only averaged 5.5 kts. The rods were out most of the day but it was a barren run.

We decided we didn’t have enough time to get to the Hope Isles with enough daylight to see the reef so it was an attempt at the Bloomfield River. We arrived off the entrance at about 4:30, the channel is not marked and part of it dries at low water to a height of .9 . The tide was two hours off the top so we felt we would have enough to get over the bar, even still we only had .2 under our keels for a lot of the way in, at least 500mts of nervous motoring. I wasn’t looking forward to running aground as there was very little of the tide to rise. We cleared the shallow part then negotiated the narrow entrance into the river which opened out into lovely calm water and only one shallow part of a metre.

The Bloomfield is a very picturesque river with rainforest overhanging the mangroves bordering the banks. It looked like real crocodile country. Looks like Morgan will be inside for the night.

We anchored upstream of a little jetty with locals fishing off it, in 3 mts of water in the middle of the river. There appeared to be a couple of derelect boats anchored upstream but no-one else. Enormous colonies of flying foxes were hanging in the trees, then about 5:30 they all took off heading somewhere for their nightly feed. Quite a sight as they blackened the sky.

 

 

 

 

 

 

An old fellow ( Dave Green) came over in his dinghy to talk about boats, he was very happy to see another cataraman in the river. I get the impression not many boats come up the river these days with the entrance so shallow. He has a hitchiker like our old cat Crusader. We might be able to send him our old sail which is stored in Maclean as he is putting a new mast on and we can’t use it. He told us to be careful as two 13′ crocodiles hang around the area, so not to let our dog swim. Well she wont be going near the water. Later I was reading that there are 12 – 15 crocodiles living in the Bloomfield, one named Brutus is 5.8 metres long.

Silverside and vegies for dinner and Brad Pit in the World War Z movie.