On Monday, Crazy Horse and Ocean Jasper actually made it into Port Douglas. We came in on the low tide and barely made it through the Dickson Inlet to the marina. But when OJ pulled into her slip there was a sudden stop and she had run aground only 15 ft of getting into the slip. We had to all wait
until high tide to get into our slips at the Mirage Marina. The name surely suites because there were no marina workers to help or direct us to a different slip. Turns out Port Douglas has this imperative need for dredging for the whole marina and even inlet pass to get into port. They have several dredgers around (but none seem to be working) trying to keep the boats from being hi and dry. So after a couple hours of passing back and forth through the inlet that we knew had higher water, we finally were able to literally drag Crazy H into the slip. Don't think we would want to do that again! We plan on leaving today on high tide and hope to make it to Lizard I. after a night passage.
This town reminds us of perhaps a Florida Keys town. There is an abundance of shops, restaurants, pubs, a grocery store and hotels. This is the place to be for the winter for the folks down in Melbourne or Victoria. It is the height of the season here. There are also lots of boats to take one out on the Great Barrier Reef. This is probably a better place to approach from land rather than from the water. Oh well, live and learn.
We won't be going into any more rivers again. We did take a little charterboat called Lady Douglas up the river to view the crocs. There was aparticularly aggressive male going after a smaller female. She got out of his way quickly. According to our captain these male crocs get quite amorous in their mating and have taken off a leg of a female on occasion. But no worries these crocs are quite adaptable and do fine with one less limb.When food supplies get low they eat their young. This is one way for population control, I guess. Going up the little river, I felt a little like I was on the African Queen going up a mangrove in Africa with Humphrey Bogart.
As we slowly make our way up to Lizard I. we expect some of the ARC boats have already made it to Darwin. Hope they have a great time! We seem to be firmly stuck in Australia on this front!
Rosemary, Bill and Matt