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Camelot has now safely arrived in Perth and has been spending her time sailing to lovely Rottnest. Theres a trip to Busselton and Geographe Bay planned for after Xmas and a trip to the Abrolhos in April. 

It took us all morning to make our way to the Lacepede Islands. These lie just South of Cape Lévesque.  They are four small, low spits of sand and coral and support Western Australia’s most important turtle breeding ground, as well as a sizable breeding ground for Frigatebirds and Boobies.

The Lacepedes have a rather fascinating past, having been the site of an international incident. In the 1870s, the mining of guano (bird droppings) was in full swing as it was highly sought after as a fertiliser (phosphate), and the islands were attracting large numbers of trading ships from as far away as the Americas. After a while, some shipowners started to get a little greedy for the rich source of guano and this resulted in an altercation, which in turn lead to the raising of the American Flag and the claiming that it was an American possession.  This forced the Western Australian Government to station a representative at the lonely outpost and reclaim it for Australia.

The Lacepedes were also the site of numerous shipwrecks. In February 1877, ten large sailing ships were destroyed in one of the most devastating cyclones on record. By the time the guano began to run out pearling luggers from Broome started to arrive in search of pearl shell and Aboriginal divers and deckhands – a practice known as ‘blackbirding’. They hunted down the Aboriginal people, chained them,  and held them on the Lacepedes until they could take them to have them signed officially as labour for a particular pearling boat.

But all this was in the past and by the time we got there, things were relatively quiet – that is if you excluded the millions of noisy sea birds and what seemed to be thousands of fornicating turtles. This was obviously the pre-game entertainment before they hit the beaches to lay their eggs at night. Not only did we see heaps of couples going hard at it, but we also witnessed quite a few threesomes. 

But I think the funniest sight we saw was a bird sitting on top of a fornicating (male) turtle shell for at least ten minutes – not really Earth moving stuff.

The beach landing was reasonably challenging due to the combination of a bit of a swell and some rocks below the waterline at high tide. Once ashore, we set about circumnavigating East Island – the largest of the four cays. We wondered past lots of shells and nesting birds, frigate birds on the beach side, boobys on the rocky side. Royce and Deb found a few dead turtles that didn’t quite make it back to the water – it looked like an exhausting crawl up to their nesting sites. If you didn’t know it was turtles, you would have thought that a four wheel drive convention had been on the beach.

We left the Lacepedes in mid afternoon and set out for Broome. For some reason, unlike just about every other day on the trip, Kim didn’t declare an “alcohol free day” and as a result, nobody had anything to drink – what a strange coincidence.

As we got closer to Broome, we turned on the TV and caught up with news that we hadn’t seen since Darwin. We were hit with a deluge of news about the US Elections – up to that point we had no idea if Obama had won or not. After 10 minutes, I felt like turning it off again – it was a little bit over bearing after 12 days without hardly any contact with the outside world (except for the occasional Satellite Phone call).

The sail down the Coast that night was magical – the shimmer from the moon danced across the top of the waves as we passed numerous pearling leases. Sitting on the side of the cockpit, the occasional spray would hit you gently in the face, the wind and the swell just right for a relaxing night sail. I was well and truly hooked on the freedom and the cruising lifestyle. As we got closer, the lights of Broome started to appear in the distance.  I really didn’t want to get to Broome – I was quite happy for this to go on for ever.
 

The alarm went at 5.45am on the Raymarine and I quickly went down to wake Royce. Royce doesn’t wake easily or quickly after a late night at Squatters Arms but he did eventually rise and off we went on an outgoing tide to try and make it into Crocodile Creek before too much water ran out. We got their just in time and Royce brilliantly navigated his way through the narrow channel, avoiding the rocks and the shallow sections to get us anchored and tried up to the rock wall behind the waterfall. By this stage most of the crew had managed to wake up and were amazed to see where we were. The creek bed behind us was starting to dry up and we were effectively trapped until the 10m tide filled up the creek again.

Still weary from the night before, we made the world’s shortest dingy ride from the back of Camelot to the ladder that went up to the top of the waterfall. We rigged up ropes so we could just pull the dingy back and forth easily and quickly.

Our first task was to tie up the buoy that had carved out “Camelot – Nov 2008” at the shelter on top of the falls along with memorabilia from other boats that had visited the shelter. Jane had skilfully painted Camelot’s logo on the buoy and it was quite a work of art. The ceremonial proceedings over, we then went on a walk up second waterfall and along the ridge to get a money shot of Camelot against the waterfall, landlocked at the end of a dry creek – what  a  sight.

We came back down, had a swim at the top of the first waterfall and got back and board and watched a bit of “Monty Python and the Holy Grail” to reacquaint ourselves with the origin of “Camelot”. We also tried to see if we could get TV reception from Koolan Island as the Melbourne Cup was on – no luck there.

The tide eventually came in – we watched it until it covered the rocks that Royce pointed out, which meant we had enough water to exit the creek and we were off to Silica Beach. We managed to do a bit of sailing as we tacked between Cockatoo Island and the mainland, but eventually had to motor sail as where we were going was on the nose.   

We tacked our way between Cockatoo Island and the mainland, eventually turning on an engine when the tide started to run against us. Everything is about the tides in this part of the world. We got to Silica Beach on Hidden Island in mid-afternoon. It was a pretty little beach with pure white squeaky sand. Having Beached the dingy, we decided that it was a white wine sort of beach so back we went back to Camelot for some Sauvignon Blanc and some glasses. Another perfect afternoon in the Kimberleys.

From there it was sailing time as we set off across King Sound on our way to the Lacepede Islands. As we sailed across the sound, some of us went up the front behind the tramps and let the odd wave wash over us as it broke through the trampolines.  This is the life.

Day turned into night as the moon came up with Venus close by. It created a nice shimmer across the water as we made our way supposedly south, but quite often towards Africa as we tried to get out far enough so that when we tacked we’d miss a couple of reefs on the way back. Well, we eventually tacked and found we still didn’t have enough room so on came one of the motors.  That put an end to a wonderful nights sail as the motor stayed through the night.  

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. 

We got up early (very early when you consider it was a Sunday) and made our way out to Montgomery Reef. We got there just on low tide, which was the best time to get there. The reef was very exposed and there were numerous waterfalls flowing from the pool of water on top of the reef. A strange and wonderful site.

We parked Camelot near a channel in the reef and took the dingy in, parking it near a waterfall. On the way in we saw five or six very large turtles and lots of fish. Rob decided he was unlikely to encounter a croc out here – especially after Royce said the charter boats go snorkelling here – so he took his snorkelling gear with him and jumped in the water whilst we explored the top of the reef. We had a great time with our cameras – it was like doing underwater photography but on the surface as we snapped away at numerous clams, a blue spotted stingray, anemone and various soft and hard corals. Meanwhile Rob was busy building on his own photo collection snapping away at a Trevally, a reef shark, angel fish and batfish. After half an hour exploring the reef we wandered back to the dingy and explored the channel as the tide quickly came in. We had a great time photographing turtles as they swam all around our dingy. We found a deep trough in the bottom of the channel with lots of batfish and a grouper – we threw Rob over the side for some more photos as we floated above the fish. Occasionally a turtle would flash past through the channel underneath our dingy in the clear water.

Back on Camelot we took advantage of the tide to motor along at 9knots with a following current. Half an hour into our journey we came across a mother and baby Humpback, which came in quite close as they made their way across our bow. Kim thought he had died and gone to heaven after watching the whales broach a couple of times.

We got to Raft Point at about lunch time just behind My Sharon, a large power boat from Europe, heading back to Brisbane and then over to the Carribean by Dockwise. The Pommie skipper liked Europe better than Australia – not enough people to talk to in Australia.

We had to park around the corner and take the dingy around to the path up to the Aboriginal Art. Te walk up was quite hard in the heat and took us about 20 minutes to get to the ledge in the range where the art was. This was the most spectacular of all the art we’ve seen with large pictures of dugongs, x-ray fish and men with two penises (according to Kim) – I think he was a bit disappointed to find out he only had one – everyone else seemed to have two.

The ride back to Camelot in the dingy was rather rough and we took in quite a bit of water coming round the point. Royce and I decided we needed to empty the dingy by driving really fast with the bung out down some crocodile invested river with mangroves closing in on either side. Royce took some video as we had fun zooming down the narrow waterways. Still no crocs but!  Finally finished our fun and went and took some photos of Camelot set against the spectacular headland of Raft Point.

Coming out of raft point we hit some amazing steep waves as we rounded the corner. There was a mad rush to shut all the hatchways as we took a lot of water over the tramps and the roof. This lasted for a couple of minutes before we were through them and then we had a great sail as we headed towards Talbot Bay. Everyone agreed it was a great way to end a great day. However it was a long one for Royce and Deb as we made our way through a myriad of islands, pearl leases and reef to get to the Horizontal Falls just after midnight, in preparation for tomorrow.  

For some reason (which I need to look into), the airconditioning only comes on with the genset, so we didn’t usually run it when we are motoring. Hence it quite often only came on around midnight or so – at which point we would hear what became a rather familiar refrain from Kim as he (loudly) uttered "Thank f**k for that!!" as the air conditioning kicked in.  

Woke up on Saturday morning and it was 36.5 degrees with 60% humidity at 8am, with not a breath of wind. We quickly had breakfast and then went ashore to see the inscription in the Boab Tree, which read “HMC Mermaid 1820”. Phillip Parker King who was leading an exploratory expedition was instructed to leave an inscription, which he dutily did. Mermaid spent 16 days being repaired at Careening Bay as a result of using Iron Nails in her construction. The Boab Tree is easy to find, as there was a marker and a clear track up off a creek. There’s a couple of DEC signs there explaining the Tree and Philip Parker King’s expedition. We went looking for water in the creek behind the tree but it looked like we were a month or two late.

Back on Camelot the wind picked up and we motor sailed south, passing at Bat Island and Bat Bay which were impressive enough to once again pull out the cameras.  Most of the rest of the day was spent motor sailing  South, heading towards our anchorage at Deception Bay. We had an interesting time getting through the narrow passageways near Augustus Island, where we struck 6nm of tide going the other way. We had both engines going and we were barely doing 1.5 knots. The sea was alive with whirlpools and wind waves hitting the current and Eric the Autopilot didn’t cope very well when he hit a whirlpool. Even Royce got caught from time to time as Camelot was pulled around by various whirlpools. We evidentially made it through into Camden Bay, turned off the motors and had a great sail for a couple of hours. As the sun began to set, we saw our first whales on the West Coast, a mother and calf heading South. We’d just got over our excitement when we saw another vessel on the horizon. We called them up and found out they were Paspaley 4 on their way to Kuri Bay. Should have asked them for some off cuts. We finally sailed into Deception Bay in the dark at 8.30pm and went to bed in anticipation of a big day tomorrow.   

Rob and I were are watch as the sun rose across the Sea. We were heading towards Shelter Bay on Prudhoe Island. This is where Royce sheltered in the cyclone back in 2000. Looking at the Bay he should have stayed there. We took the dingy ashore after breakfast, with crowbar, hammer and screwdriver and proceeded to extract some beautiful whitish clear crystals.

Next stop was Wary Bay on Bigge Island, where we saw some more amazing rock art, different to Jar Island, with a lot of “Contact Art” depicting Dutch sailors. Went for a walk along a short beach, a clamber up some rocks and a quick dip in the ocean in the shallows next to the dingy, before getting back on Camelot and heading off to the Maret Islands, which were an hour and a half offshore.

On the way, we heard over the VHF  “This is Australian Warship requesting to board”. Couldn’t hear the other side of the conversation (if there was one) so we didn’t know if there was any further drama. Heard the same conversation several times with significant gaps in between.

The FSC Cruising Guide describes the Maret Islands as some of the most beautiful offshore islands in the Kimberleys. We stopped in Brunei Bay, and on the way into the beach saw a couple of very large turtles mating. We walked along the beach picking up some shells and watching the sea eagles hover above. Royce then dropped us back on Camelot and once again took off in the dingy to some other bays with us following behind in Camelot.

Re-docking the dingy without tipping anything out, we turned off the motors and had a great sail. Kim celebrated his alcohol free day by downing quite a bit of beer as well as both red and white wine, whilst wearing his “Drive in Moderation – Frequently” T-Shirt. Looking forward to when he resumes drinking tomorrow. Royce through some lures over the back and lost one pretty well straight away.

Just before midnight the wind dropped and we motored the last little bit to our anchorage for the night at Careening Bay, some 40nm from the Marets.

Today we awoke to an amazing sunrise. Got up at 5.30am, took three or four photos and went back to bed. Eventually got up and we motored out of our anchorage and towards Vansittart Bay. Royce’s local knowledge was invaluable as the charts were wrong as we passed through a narrow passage near Middle Rock at over 9 knots with the current bumping us along very nicely. The FSC Cruising Guide notes that the charts are in error but doesn’t give any waypoints or the exact positions of the rocks. I now have both of these off Royce.

It took us several hours to get down to our first stop which was on the mainland near Jar Island, where we went ashore and walked over the dunes, across a dry salt pan with a very curious dingo in the distance and up to the wreck of a WW2 DC-3, which was fascinating. Evidently it was carrying a heap of Gold when the Japanese shot it down. It tried to make the landing field at Truscott but didn’t quite make it, crashing in the bush. Rob managed to climb into the cockpit and was just about to have his photo taken when there was a shout of “Oh my God, there’s a bloody great big spider in here”. It got worse as he discovered a truckload of relatives had also come to stay as well. To his credit, he preserved in the naqme of a good photo opportunity and managed to come out alive. Shades of Indiana Jones and his aversion to snakes there.

Fresh from our morning adventure, we hopped over to Jar island and tasted some freshly cooked bread for lunch, before setting off into the interior of the island to see some incredible aboriginal rock art that is 28,000 years old and still very visible. There are pretty well concentrated in one area of the island and are very distinctive with long figures, pictures of animals and children clearly visible.       

We left Jar Island at 3.30pm and headed out to the top of Vansittart Bay and into Freshwater Bay, supposedly one of the best anchorages in the Kimberley. On the way, we came across an extensive Oyster Farm just off June and July point, which are between August and September points – work that one out. Still no sightings of any long nose, short legged, long tailed terriers – must see one shortly.

We gave it a good shot at Freshwater Bay when we arrived at 5pm and lowered the dingy. We needed to go up a narrow creek through some mangroves to get to the waterfall and then get off. Jane and Kim took one look at it and thought their books were a much better idea so they stayed on Camelot. The rest of us piled into the dingy and before we even got to the mouth of the creek we’d pulled up the dingy motor and got out the oars. We soon got to a point where we could go no further. Royce then decided that as we couldn’t get to where we were going, it was a good time to collect oysters. The rest of us stayed pretty close to the dingy – the sound of the music from Jaws ringing in our ears – wait a minute Jaws was about sharks, not crocodiles. But wait, there it was a small sand coloured shark following the path of the dingy looking for whatever we’d stirred up no doubt. I was standing in ankle deep water when Mr Shark took a bee line for my feet. I was pretty sure (a) the water wasn’t deep enough for the shark to swim in and (b) reef sharks that small are pretty harmless. Nevertheless, I chose © quickly made it onto solid ground as I was pretty sure he wasn’t going to do me any harm there.

We finally got Royce and his oysters out of there and made our way back to the boat where we cleaned up the oystered, shucked them (I’ve always wanted to use that word) and served them raw as an entrée, followed by some nice mackerel that was pulled from the freezer.

With dinner done, we decided that we would do an overnight run to put some miles under our belt. The night was jet black with absolutely no moon. Royce had the get us through some real tricky sections as we literally weaved our way through islands and reef.    

We left our anchorage shortly after dawn and made our way back up the King George river. Took us an hour to reach the mouth again and along the way we were delighted with the early morning light on the sandstone faces of the rock. We managed a few photos with the reflection in the water creating a near mirror image. Coming out over the sandbar was very easy with an extra metre of water under our keels. We ran across a Nautitech 44 catamaran at the entrance, preparing to rush off South to Geraldton.

We were a little more leisurely and took our time calling into Calamity Bay where the M/V Koolama was bombed by the Japanese in WW2 and where the passengers got off and camped for the night before a bunch of them set off by foot to Drysdale mission, 75 kilometres away.

Coming ashore ourselves, we spotted crocodile tracks and droppings and Rob thought he saw a tail in the water. We didn’t need any more convincing to get back in the dingy and hightail out of there. Back on the boat, we headed for Cape Londonderry, the northern most point of WA. On the way, Royce decided he’d drop the dingy whilst we were still doing 6 knots and go and do some exploring along the coast. Royce had a “Love Me Tender” moment as things went awry with the dingy tipped completely sideways still hanging from the davits, with Royce hanging off the back of the boat and shoes disappearing into the ocean. We managed to restore order and Royce went off in the now upright dingy to retrieve the missing footwear. Amazingly we retrieved everything in the dingy except for one shifter (which we had in there as our main weapon against crocs).

Royce pulled alongside and then headed off with Deborah to explore some of the beaches and reefs as we stayed on board tracking the coast a couple of nautical miles out. Royce and Deborah came back to the boat with stories of turtles, great coral and dolphins as well as an unnamed island. After consulting the charts and confirming that it didn’t have a name, Royce declared it (some would say unofficially) Deborah Island. Deborah described her island as luscious and exotic with abundant food sources. She didn’t want to give away anything more as she didn’t want to attract any of the low rent types (see below). 

The rest of the day was spent cruising round Cape Londonderry and towards our anchorage for the night at Sir Graham Moore Island. On the way we were buzzed by a customs plane, who we called up by VHF and let them know what we were up to. Heading towards Graham Moore Island we passed by what could only be described as a low rent island called “Kim Island” (which Google Maps amazingly knows about). Kim tried to play it up into something it clearly wasn’t and immediately put it up for sale, rattling off some impressive real estate talk – the only one that got some bite was Kim Island came with its own mobile security force. Deborah was clearly unimpressed saying her island was clearly much better. This “my island is better than yours” banter went on for quite some time as we all sat up the front on the trampolines and watched the sun go down.

We made the anchorage a little later than we wanted to, about 10 minutes after the sun set beneath the waves and preceded to lower the levels of beer, wine and some Myers Rum that Deb had bought in Singapore. Royce worked out that Kim Island was 2.1 nautical miles away and the capital of Kim Island was 2.3 nautical miles away – he seemed quite chuffed we these facts. The night was hot and muggy and  air-conditioning soon came on so those down stairs could sleep. Didn’t make it up to Rob who had once again claimed the top of the cabin roof as his sleeping spot.

We woke to a sunrise right behind us and once again sighted Australia to the left, Cape Bernier to be precise, after a day without sighting any land.

As we made our way towards King George River, we passed through the a series of “sand waves” as the tide whipped up sand up to the surface. We rounded the corner and approached the entrance to King George River. The initial plan was to have a look at the sand bar as it was nearly low tide (0.6m – lowtide was 0.5m) and then come back later when the tide was higher. So with Royce on the wheel and Steve going up the mast steps and perching himself on the spar, acting we edged our way forward. The depth quickly dropped to under two metres as we navigated through with breaking waves on either side.  We kept creeping forward with the depth under the keels never dropping below 1m. We were through and into the river proper. We motored 3nm up the river in about 5m of water and stopped when we got to branch in the river. We tried our luck getting over the sandbars that block the entrance to this arm but ever the shallow 1.15m draught of Camelot couldn’t help us get across. So it was into the dingy and off to the falls at the top this branch. We had some nervous moments as the tide was now at its lowest and even the dingy was hitting the bottom at times as we edged our way past mangroves which had our imaginations running wind. We finally made it to the end where there was a waterfall that looked very spectacular, even though it was dry.  Sitting beside the waterfall was a rope climb, straight up. We tied the dingy up to the rope and one by one we all managed to get to the first ledge. At this stage, we had a pool of rampaging man eating crocodiles to the bottom of us and a near vertical climb above us. “I want to go home!!!”  Eventually we did all make it to the top of the climb and our reward was a wonderful swim in a freshwater pool at the bottom of another (dry) waterfall. Royce pulled out a bottle of red wine and some glasses and we enjoyed a leisurely swim and a wine. Everyone was a bit nervous about climbing down the rope and making the dingy ride back past the crocodile infested mangroves but it turned out to be a lot less stressful that we anticipated and we were soon back at the boat and having some lunch as we made our way through the stunning sandstone gorge that frames the King Gorge River for over 6nm. We stopped half way down and hopped in the dingy once again for a trip across to an interesting gorge that is normally chock full of bats. No such luck with either the bats or the swimming hole at the end, which had dropped and turned stagnant.   Back on the boat, we made our way to the end of the river, where we amazed to find two waterfalls each 100m high. We went right up to each, with 60m of water under the keels. We were so close we could have nearly touched the sheer sandstone wall. We lost contact with the GPS satellites, so close were we to the overhanging walls.

We came back from the waterfalls and anchored in about 9m. Another dingy ride saw us at the start of  a climb to the top of the gorge, where we were about to take some stunning shots of Camelot sitting way below. At the top of the climb we made our way to the river beds that supply the waterfalls. One of these was completely dry, the second still had a bit of water in it. Mental note made to come here in July/August to see a lot more water.    

Back at the boat we set about cooking up from frozen mackerel that had been caught across the top and taking out the torches to see if we could spot any crocs. What a day that was.