TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

We woke early at 6am to find ourselves parked up just outside the Horizontal Falls. It was a beautiful sunrise as we lowered the dingy and we went one by one across the falls with Royce. I was first and we made our way over the bubbling water towards the gap in the rock face. There were whirlpools everywhere with water going in all directions. We were at mid-tide so the water was draining from the inlet behind the falls at a very rapid rate and with a steep drop. As we got close, I heard Royce say that he didn’t think we would be able to go up them. Then all of a sudden we were up and over them and into the flat water behind them. We had a bit of a look round and then made our way to the second set of falls, immediately behind the main first set.  Had a look at these and both decided they were too steep and narrow to get through. So back we went and down through the falls to get back to Camelot.

Rob was next and he experienced Royce nearly loosing the outboard off the back of the dingy as it shook loose. Royce gunned the motor to hold it hard against the dingy but in doing so somehow stopped and they got washed back over the falls. With the motor now firmly in its correct place, they made a more successful crossing the second time without drama. One by one the rest of the crew took their turn, everyone coming back exhilarated with smiles a mile wide.

With everyone done, we pulled anchor and took Camelot in for a closer look. Camelot was pushed and pulled every which way by the whirlpools and moving water, with Royce skilfully manoeuvring to keep it out of any danger.

With our morning adventure out of the way, we heading back out of Talbot Bay, taking a shortcut through some uncharted water, with Royce helming and me on the roof checking out any shallow water. Back in charted water, we headed against the current through “The Gutter” and onto “The Drain” before passing Koolan Island and its mining operations.

We then called into Dog Leg Creek to take on some diesel at a fuel barge there. At $2.50 a litre (cash) it was quite reasonable, especially since we only bought 100 litres (The last customer took on 5000 litres). The old barge looked decidedly unseaworthy by held 100,000 litres and was topped up often by a larger barge on its way to Koolan Island. 

With enough fuel to more than get us to Broome, we headed up the next creek, Silver Gull Creek to catch up with Phil and Marion at Squatters Arms. We had planned to spend the afternoon there but ended up staying to midnight. Phil and Marion are lovely people who open up there place to 3000 visitors a year. They have a wonderful shack, a shop and a tank with a hole looking out into the creek with water continuously running from a spring. You can see why we stayed longer than planned. Because of the “no pee” rule, the hole in the wall allowed the blokes to stay a bit longer without the need to get out of the tank and go to the loo (which incidentally is open air looking across the creek as well).  There’s a bit of rubber tubing on the bottom lip of the hole, which was to stop any injuries to male members’ members so we were told.

Phil we are told hates wearing clothes but he did dress up for us in some of his best Rio undies (and nothing else). Marion told us stories of how she went from growing up in Geraldton to the swinging sixties in London working in high fashion. She even went to the 1966 world cup in London, wearing Mary Quant mini squirt and Helena Rubinstein perfume. Rob (who brought along his collection of England shirts) was impressed to actually meet someone who was there. They still invited us into their home, fed us some great home brew and let us use all their facilities even though they were leaving for Bali and Phuket the next day. Marion’s best line of the night came when someone asked her whether she was more worried about sharks or crocs. Hr reply was a gem …. “ they’re all pretty much the same but the one good thing you can say about sharks is that they can’t chase you on land”.

Also there were Sandy in his cat called Faze Two – he was a sparkie from Derby and his wife and their friends. Phil was helping them put away Faze Two in a cyclone proof creek for the wet season.  They were good friends and Phil and Marion and had been coming to Squatters Arms for years. We had a great BBQ with fish, steak, mud crabs and sausages (plus of course lots of salad), drank lots of beer and wine and retired to the tank for more beer and wine. Meanwhile Camelot and Faze Two were both parked on the dry creek bed as the tide went out and came back in. It wasn’t until about midnight that we had enough water in the creek to get back to Camelot in the dingy as the tide came in.

What a great place Squatters Arms turned out to be.