The voyage of S.V. Catcha Star: King George River:

31st August to 4th September 2010

We had a bit of a rough sail after we left Cape Talbot, it was blowing 30kts on the nose with 3M swell. "Not what the forecast said I would be". We made for a bay at the eastern side of the cape, at one stage with a 5kt current against us we were doing 0kts. We tacked again (heading towards Darwin) and managed to eventually gain some headway. While all this was going on a ship loomed up out of the spray, it was Paspaley's "Christine". The ship that I had worked on when installing the Cyclone mooring for Paspaley in Broome, back in the late 90's.

We set sail from Jim's Bay at 0500 the following morning, hoping to beat the expected strong wind that had arrived at 0830 the previous day. As we approached (Glycomis Bay) our intended bay for anchorage a call came from the catamaran "Night Moves", people we had met near Biggie Island a week or so ago. Robbie's deep QLD accent came over "where are you Guy's goin - Over"? "Coming for brekkie with you two, why"? I replied. "No place for a keel boat in here mate, especially the size of yours - Over". "We are just pulling up the pick and heading down to King George, why not follow us in - Over" "Okay we will give it a go, but time and tide are against us" I replied. "No worries mate, I will go first and give you the depth soundings as we go - Over". "Okay Robbie, you in feet or metres"? "In feet me old mate - Over". High tide was at 0915 and only 2M above datum. We knew about the sandbar near the entrance and that the gap in that sandbar moves, so all we had to do was get there in time and follow "Night moves". Note to self........NEVER FOLLOW A CATAMARAN THROUGH SHALLOW WATERS WHEN IN A KEEL BOAT!!!!

At 0920 we arrived at the mouth of the river along side "Night Moves", before we could get in behind "Night Moves" we came across another uncharted sand bank. We draw 2.3M and our depth alarm goes off at 2.5M. As the alarm went off I turned and headed back out to deeper (4M) water. We tried again, with the same result. "Okay Robbie, what was the minimum depth you had again, old mate"? "Crackle-crackle...Never saw less that Crackle feet me old mate - Over". "What depth, please repeat Robbie"? "Nothing less than ten feet - Over". Okay we will give it one more go, we keep running out of water and we draw seven foot six inches Robbie". "That weird me old mate, we got plenty of water, try going a bit more to your port - Over".

The depth alarm sounded for the next four minutes, I closed my eyes and gave "Catcha Star" full throttle. Cathy saw the depth sounder go down to 2.1M, we bounced along the sandy bottom for the first bit and then dug a trench .2M deep across the rest of the uncharted sandbar. As we reached the charted sandbar Robbie proudly announced; "there you go old mate, not a problem, all good. Now you have to get real close to this baby, just follow me and you'll be right - Over". The charted sandbar was easier, we could see it and then proceeded to navigate our way up the river in mostly 3M of water. "Good onya Robbie, your a Gem". The depth at the waterfalls is 55M, we sat there for about ten minutes before choosing our anchorage. It was so good to be in deep water and give the keel a bit of a treat. There are no barnacles on the bottom of our keel, probably no antifouling either. Last night we had Robbie and Tes over for dinner, we laughed for hours about the mornings events.

Anchored just up river from us was a Dutch couple on the Trimaran. He had built the Tri 5o years ago, raced it then cruised on it and now he say's it's their floating caravan. Sailing down from Darwin, they spend many months in The Kimberley, every year.