QLD: Going Troppo: Humpy Island camping trip, 100km on AIs

[RedPhoenix]

Battery... where's the battery. I know it's here somewhere..

It was Tuesday morning, and the 4wd was pretty much packed.
The yak was on the roofracks, the rods were packed, the clothing was ready, and the tent was stowed.
.. but where's the bloody battery? Gotta be here..

Ahh that's right.. I left it charging - still in the garage. Good stuff. That completes the jigsaw. Chuck it in the car..
Jeez.. where am I going to fit all Derek's gear?
She'll be right.. it'll work. It's gotta work.

Took the 4wd down to the barge ramp, in the hope of getting a slightly early barge across to the mainland. I was booked for 2:40ish, but thought I'd try for a 11:00ish barge instead. I was too jumpy to do any more work for the day.

Made it on, and chatted to Ricky, barge loader extraordinairre , about Humpy Island - he put in a request for a couple of crayfish if I manage to do some snorkeling.

Humpy island. It's a small island, around 15k's off Emu Park, east of Rockhampton - a tiny bit south of great Keppel island; google reckons it's around a 10 hour drive from victoria point to Emu park.

http://maps.google.com.au/maps?hl=en&q= ... 2&t=h&z=12

I've heard some good stuff about it, in terms of scenery, but not a lot about it's fish population... though some ominous reports highlight August as the worst potential fishing month for the region, so my hopes were not high from a piscatorial perspective.

http://www.yeppooninfo.com.au/archives/humpy-island

Drove in towards Brisi to pick up Derek + yak + gear. We spent the next hour or so loading everything into the 4wd, then sat down to an excellent dinner, before pulling out and heading up towards Caloundra, where we'd stay the night in an attempt to slightly reduce tomorrow morning's drive.

Made it to Caloundra after a hour and a bit on the road, then attempted to drop off & get some sleep for the next day.
Dunno how successful I was, but managed to wake refreshed regardless.



Day 2

Up at 5:30am, a quick brekkie, and then on the road.

Trip up was pretty easy. 2 tanks on the Prado, so we didn't need to stop much.
Driving past Monduran and Awoonga dams (home of big barra), was a little tough.. but we managed to fight our way past the turnoff in both cases.

Paused on the eastern outskirts of Rocky for a hamburger. We were offered the choice between a 'normal', and a 'jumbo'.
We both went for the normal.. which in retrospect, was probably a good idea - the 'jumbo' wouldn't have fit inside the bloody car door!
These massive slabs of meat, coupled with more greenery than a tasmanian wilderness, and surrounded by a bun that would have taken a basketball team sized group of bakers just to mix the dough... were pretty hard to wrap your laughing gear around.

I reckon the jumbo burgers would probably have been at risk of collapsing under their own gravity, and forming a black hole, had we put two near each other.

Arrived at Emu Park at around 2ish, checked into the backpackers/motel thingie, and scouted out the local area. Had we arrived an hour or so earlier, I suspect the yaks would have been in the water, but we decided to play it cool, unpack the gear, and get everything ready for the next day.

Emu park silhouette

Popped down to the local pizza place for tea - pretty good pizzas; went down pretty well.

Back to the accommodation, alarm set, and ready to roll for the next day.

<More coming.. including a bucketload of photos - but I'll hand over to Derek for his input at this point in time>

[Gatesy]

Tease, come on damn it

[scater]

Unacceptable Red! More details nownownownow

[wongus]

Great read Red.... I'm drooling in anticipation for the next installment...

[andybear]

Great read Red.... I'm drooling in anticipation for the next installment...

Ditto......Double ditto

Cheers Andybear

[Zed]

Terrible.

"So there I was, stumbling to my bed after an evening of debauchery, when all of a sudden I realize I have a naked nubile waiting for me there. Well the next few hours are that of legends..."


But I'll tell that later.

[Decay]

I don't really want to give too much away for the next installment. Just a few comments to make. Humpy is, as Red mentioned, about 15 km off the coast of Emu Park, yet we clearly clocked up over 100km each. This is a typical decoy by Red, "Ahhh, its only 15 km, it will be a breeze" and like a trevally chasing a shiny object I get suckered in, 15 km becomes 100km, damn it, last time he said "Moreton is ohhhh about 25 km" That trip panned out to over 80 km.... seems I don't learn but all I can say for now is bring on the trips.... they are fantastic! Ohhh, and anybody who's ever tried to keep up with Red, Yep, he did it at full speed ahead! I should be out of physio later this week.

It probably took us about a month to prepare for this trip and I'm not sure I should mention the other people (sorry Andrew and Al) that unfortunately had to drop out in the process for work commitments, but during the preparations I mentioned this trip to some other people and it's amazing, doesn't matter what colour their kayak is, they all turned green when they heard what we were doing.

Back to the action days Red....

[RedPhoenix]

Oh allrighty.. I'll throw a few of Dereks photos in with mine then.

Day 3

Alarm set for 5am, but neither of us made it there. Wandered down to the common room at around 4-something-or-other, where we encountered one bleary-eyed backpacker who was probably just heading to bed, as we were getting up for the morning.

We were tempted to do a bit of crashing and banging around in the kitchen to repay our night-owls (I suspect they were actually making up new notes; 'Waltzing Matilda' in H-minor, is a sound that makes you want to hide under your pillow).. but we decided that poor hungover backpackers were too easy to target, so we quietly ate our brekkie to the sounds of calling tree frogs.

Collected the yaks from where they were sitting in the hotel manager's yard next door (nice guys - even lent us some squid jigs for the trip), and commenced the walk down to the launch point.

The barest hint of morning light greeted us at the ramp, with a few sleepy stars still poking their heads through the increasingly obscure veil of earth's atmosphere. After a bit of stuffing around to finalise preparations, and to wait for the light to be 'just right', we launched the yaks into the water.

Medium range wind predictions from seabreeze told us that the first day would have a bit of wind hanging around - maybe around 12 knots or so. That'd give us a reasonable bit of assistance out to the island.

As it was though..

Red, heading out

Decay, decayed

Ahh well - such is life. Looks like the mirage drive's going to get a bit of a work-out today.
Derek made contact with Keppel Sands coast guard (We'd sent them an email a few days before, with contact details, trip plan, and so on), and logged in for the trip across.

Looking out on the horizon, it was pretty obvious we were going to get a bit of fog, so we made sure that the GPS was fired up, and that we had a compass bearing for Great Keppel (Humpy's a little bit small a target, from this distance), and set out.

Smooooooke, on the water...

.. and fire in the sky

I had two rods trolling, and one with a SP for a bit of reef work on the way. One trolling rod had a nice big egg beater, with 40-odd pound mono. The other had 6 pound braid, and 10 pound leader. A trifle underdone for your average pelagic, but I thought I'd give it a run.

We had just started to settle in to our stride, around half an hour out or so, and were nearing Pelican Island ( http://maps.google.com.au/maps?hl=en&ie ... 5&t=h&z=15 ), when we were startled out of our reverie..

Bang..

the light rod gets yanked backwards, nearly jumping out of the rod holder..

Bang! The heavy rod thuds in the holder, making the kayak ring, and slew slightly sideways.

Sh*t!

I grab the light rod, since that was the one that had practically jumped into my hands, and reach across to tighten the drag on the heavy one slightly - both reels sounding like crazy summer cicadas, screaming away.

Then, the light gear inevitably gives way, with the fish chomping straight through the leader, and heading off into the wide blue yonder.

It's about this point that I notice that Derek's rod has buckled over, and he is now frantically grabbing for the straining broomstick. A fish launches from the water behind him, trying desperately to grab his other trolled lure, which is now flailing around on the surface - but misses, and continues south. Tuna.. it was a tuna. You ripper!

I toss the light rod into the holder, and desperately grab for the heavy gear, in the hope that it's still connected, and feel that sinking feeling as I realise that both fish have made it off. I quickly bring in the remaining lure, and go for a quick wide circuit around Derek's yak, in the hope that the school is still hanging around.. but they've gone.

Mongrel.

I bring in all the gear, and fire up the camera to record Derek's fight.

Up... up you mongrel..

No.. no .. don't you dare go under the yak.

Nearly got ya..

Change of position

Success!

There's no way we can eat that fish. Hell.. at this stage of the trip, with all our gear on board, there's no way we can even CARRY that fish! So after a brief camera pose or two, back into the water she goes, to belatedly join her mates on their way south.

We continue on towards Pelican rock, with the fog gradually closing in.

Red, with Pelican Island in the background

<Day 3, part 2, coming soon, detailing the remainder of the trip out, plus our arrival on Humpy...>

[jayman]

awsome read so far guys. I love trips like this cant wait for the rest of the report.

cheers jay

[Zed]

Whew, I need a smoke.
I hope you didn't regret releasing the early edible. Hate when that happens.

Waiting on MORE,

Z

[Decay]

As you can probably guess, fog was about to be an issue. We were oblivious to it at the time of launch, are heads were foggy with lack of sleep and the sun wasn't really poking it's head through the clouds.

Is that a hint of fog around Emu Park as we bid the mainland goodbye

Red carefully selects his weapons of choice for the cruise to Pelican Island

Final look around to check gear and give the thumbs up to leave the harbour

First real idea of how bad the fog would be was when I logged into Kepple Sands Coast Guard.... something like:
"bla bla, two kayaks heading to Humpy Island"
silence
"did you say two kayak heading to Humpy Island?"
"Affirmative"
"Can you see anything?"
"Yes we have about 5 km vis"
"I can't see the harbour.... and its 50 meters away. You guys are gonna get fit today"

The lady had a good sense of humour which had me chuckling for a while.

When the Tuna struck my mouth was a little slack, Red was in front (gee that's unusual) and I was puffing my lungs out trying to keep up. I was looking at his kayak when I saw the rods bend to almost breaking, one of them almost being pulled out of the holder, his kayak was quickly bias to one side as one fish was obviously applying a lot of pressure, I heard Red yell out "Double" and in that moment I had time to reflect, 4 lures in the water and he gets hook ups on 2 of them, then my kayak takes a surge sideways as I get a strike on my heavier line, I'm reaching for the rod just in time to see, from the corner of my eye, my other lighter rod nearly snap in half and out the back of the yak a massive tuna leaps out of the water about where I imagine the second lure was. Luckily or unluckily the second tuna did not hook up and I battled the first. The kayaks were heavy with gear, not even space for a 5 cent coin in my hull, yet the tuna swung my kayak around and had its way with me while I settled in for what I imagined was going to be a protracted battle. I tried to keep it on my port side while I took short breaks to reach out and reel my other line in and was fortunate enough to see my lure come out of the water just as my tuna zipped under the kayak and I started to do battle out past the outrigger with the fish taking line under the yak, he was deep and the thought of fowling my mirage or dagger board didn't cross my mind, not that I would have been able to do anything about that, my hands were full and I was just holding on at this stage, the tuna was calling all the shots at this stage. Eventually I started getting the upper hand and got him under control and brought him back to the port side, there was no way I could have moved to the starboard side, the fish was pulling too hard to maneuver my rod around my mast. I was also getting tried, I was puffed before the fish struck now I was exhausted. Eventually he yielded and started to circle under the yak, deadly head tugs, which usually are associate with hooks coming free. But I thought I had won, there were the occasional runs that had me hopping over the boat to manage the situation and then the head came out of the water, a bit more maneuvering and I had the fish pliers onto him up on the tramp for a quick measure and quote, he came in at 77 cm, weight in my hands, felt marginally under 1 tonne! my arms were about to drop off. A happy snap courtesy of Red (thank you), hooks out and safely back in the water. Stunned it sank into the depths, 2 meters, 5 meters, then I realised how clear the water was, ~ 7 meters and a flick from the tail, a small trail of blood from outside the gill and he shoot off to the South-East.

I looked at Red with a big smile, he cussed back at me and I realised his anguish.

A quick look around to get my bearings and I realised the fog was settling. We could no longer see the mainland....

[RedPhoenix]

And as the fog rolled in, and the wind calmed down even more, we were caught inside an awesome patch of serenity, with absolutely no visual references available.

Derek, with rod percher.

Fog

Modern technology is a wonderful thing, with a dedicated GPS, two GPS-capable phones, a couple of compasses, VHF radio triangulation, and a GPS capable EPIRB available to locate us, if things really turn to custard... but it's very eerie to be moving along, without any landmarks to guide you, for kilometers at a time. Most of the time, the fog was so thick, that even an east/west bearing using the sun, was impossible.

The silence was complete.

Not even wind or waves to disturb the serenity.

The occasional "bear right", "slightly to the left" from Derek (with assistance from the GPS) was about the only noise for miles around.
You really get a feeling for how utterly small, and insignificant, a kayak is on the ocean, in circumstances like these. I caught myself wondering, how the Inuit coped when a ocean fog rolled in, up around Alaska. They didn't have a GPS, a compass, or other techno marvels to back them up.

After a fair chunk of pedaling, eventually, a dark shape started to congeal out of the fog.

Humpy island - we'd hit the right spot.

Of course, the fog chose that exact moment to start breaking up, and the island, and surrounds, opened up like a flower to reveal a breathtaking seascape, with crystal clear blue water, magnificent coral, sandy beaches, and foreboding rocky shoreline.

Coral reef

We'd found our little slice of heaven.


We dragged the yaks up the sandy beach, and started unpacking the gear.

View from the camp site.

At that point, I decided to do a little under-water exploration, while Derek checked out the area around the island.

Beautiful fringe reef, with staghorn coral dominating the edges, whilst plate coral fills in the shallower areas.
I wandered along the reef edge, admiring the various types of tropical fish. Most were reasonably small, with only the slatey bream, parrot fish, and the occasional well-ensconced-in-a-hidey-hole coral trout, offering any reasonable size. The locals reckon that the reefies don't tend to start hanging around for another month or so though.

I eventually settled on a couple of nice leatherjacket as dinner targets, and bought them back to shore (just using a hand spear).

These were cooked (well, mostly cooked... it was hard to get them really toasty with the wind that popped up that night, using the little liquid-fuel stove) with a couple of spices, and went down pretty well for dinner.

Came back to find that the local crows had decided to peck our food bag to pieces, and managed to get away with a couple of morsels. Ahh well... we'd better make sure we catch a few fish to make up for it.

Derek finished his circumnavigation of the island, and decided to see if there were any squid just off the reef edge.

Derek out chasing squid

Unfortunately, no squid that night.

<more to come - Derek will fill you in on his circumnavigation, and the start of Day 4>

Red.

[sbd]

Take the afternoon off boys, we need the rest of this report. Lovin' it so far...

[perk]

This is an awesome report so far fellas. Cannot wait for more.

[madfishman]

Take the afternoon off boys, we need the rest of this report. Lovin' it so far...

ditto that.