Not shipwrecked or mutinying, waving - from the Abrolhos Islands

[JohnM]

Back to the vessel for lunch and a short move to a different location in preparation for a shore excursion to Pelsaert Island (Pelsaert was the captain of the Batavia).



Yee-hah! Hold onto your hat! Excellent excursion boats with front steps.

 

[JohnM]

Masses of common noddies, stirred up by a sea eagle. The nesting season is over and most have migrated. Still plenty of stragglers, many of which will probably be sea eagle and osprey food over the next few months. They perch on top of the scrub.

Wedge-tailed shearwaters (aka mutton birds) have burrow nests.



Several species of tern.



Shell beach on one side, corral rubble on the other. Wading shoes are a must.

 

[JohnM]

Back on board and moving on to the next anchorage. Drinks and fishing time.



Nice baldchin groper. Excellent eating.



The skipper had carefully positioned the vessel over some lumps and watched happily as the haul came in. Strict limits on size and numbers, naturally.



For @drron.



Some Abrolhos Scraps™ for dinner. Grilled crayfish with garlic, chilli, chive and lemon butter and Baldchin groper fish cakes. Help yourself to as many as you like. They just kept coming…

Wrap-up and outline of the next day’s purgatory.



Plan up for the next day. It’ll be a struggle, but I’ll try my hardest to enjoy it.

Next morning’s cray top-up, including a few jumbos.

 

[JohnM]

Moving on to the Easter Group of Islands and preparing for a landing on Wooded Island. It was a cloudy day with a few patches of rain about but none that impacted us.



I omitted to mention above in the cray frenzy that we were carrying seven pots on Ocean Diver. They comfortably yielded our running quota of 80 crays.



Australian sea lion.

 

[JohnM]

Wooded Island has a grove of mangroves and internal lakes that are a unique and important habitat for the very rare Australian subspecies of the lesser noddy. I would be surprised if this is not closed to visitors in the future.



Resident white-bellied sea-eagle keeping the place under careful surveillance.



Larger lagoon and open ocean; sea-eagle nest.

 

[JohnM]

We went for a snorkel at the tip of the island, drifting on the rather strong current around the corner. The cloudy day and the stirred-up water were not so good for photos with the basic waterproof Lumix camera I bought for the trip.

 

[JohnM]

After lunch we did a cruise-by in the tenders and Ocean Diver of Roma, Little Rat and Big Rat islands to see how the cray fishermen live – or lived, as most of the infrastructure dated back to the ‘early days’.

The skipper’s family once had a cray fishing boat on Big Rat Island and he spent much of his childhood during the cray season, I think about March-June as they operated then, living and going to school on the island. Fascinating first-hand history.

As you might imagine, as the cray fishing industry began to develop commercially after WW2, many of the fishers came from places like Italy and even the Scandinavian countries. All put their characteristics imprints on various islands.

I was completely surprised by the sheer numbers of dwellings and jetties throughout the archipelago. Some are unused and falling into disrepair and gradually being removed. Some are still active on a larger scale than the past but with operations suspended, there was little activity. Nevertheless, it was all fascinating.



All stacked up, at $100K + a pop, but nowhere to go.



One big cray boat tied up; new mooring pylon with artificial enclosure to encourage sea-eagle or osprey nesting. The raptors keep away the gulls and reduce their fouling of the jetties and structures.



Old stone jetty.



Back to the vessel.

 

[JohnM]

The bridge while the skipper was carefully positioning over some lumps for fishing. Drinks on the top deck that evening.



Abrolhos ScrapsTM for dinner was beautifully light beer-battered fish, which I omitted to photograph, and sensational pickled cray. I guess it was the combination of ultra-fresh cray and very sensitive pickle with chef’s secret herbs and spices, but it was so deliciously mild, tasty and tender. Brilliant!

After dinner, watching the fish swarm and a dolphin hunting at the fringes of the squid lights built into the hull of the vessel under the waterline. Then the white floodlight above was turned on.



Next day’s purgatory to endure. I joined the pot pull for my second outing doing that activity.



Next day’s purgatory to endure. I joined the pot pull for my second outing doing that activity.



This guy tailed us for a while.

 

[JohnM]

Back from cray pot-pull, breakfast done and moving on from near Big Rat Island to Leo Island on a perfect day. Towing the tenders and Ocean Diver following along. Nice break at the back of Leo Island where the hut of ‘Yum’ (the cray fisherman’s nickname derived from him having a speech impediment that caused him to pronounce ‘rum’ as ‘yum’) hut one for his deckie are the sole dwellings. Idyllic. Apparently, the only rule for being a deckie for Yum is that you must surf. I have no idea why…



Paul making sure this was captured for posterity. Very shallow bay, so Yum has a pontoon with a smaller boat to get to shore from his cray boat.



Tranquillity and an osprey.



Paul’s good friend. And coming over to make friends with me.



Remnants of some ‘red tide’ coral spawning.

 

[JohnM]

Bull sea lion giving us the tip: stay clear. Hmmm…, now why would that be?



Aaawww, sooo cute. The big fella’s little tacker.



And there’s mum around the other side of the jetty.



Yum’s boat ramp. Common Abrolhos style of two lengths of poly pipe. Walking around the bay to a lagoon.



Very lush samphire for the foragers – or just the sleepy.

 

[JohnM]

Open ocean side and looking back across the lagoon.



This is what we were looking for in the lagoon – a couple of resident estuary cod lurking under the weed.



Phwoarrrr…



Yum’s surf-spotting tower.



And it was then back to the vessel for lunch before moving on to Morley Island.

 

[JohnM]

And it was then back to the vessel for lunch before moving on to Morley Island under glassy calm conditions. Gorgeous – just gorgeous.



Still a little red tide about.

 

[JohnM]

Then some snorkelling.

 

[JohnM]

 

[JohnM]

Returning to the vessel and the chef and engineer still aboard had been busy. A couple of nice ‘pinkies’ – pink snapper.

 

[JohnM]

Sometimes, when stranded on a Larson-esque island, one just must show plenty of photos to convince others of the purgatory and suffering being endured as the subject of a cartoonist’s derision.

Life just sucks…

All I wanted to do was to crawl out of this primordial slime, go home, and sit down to watch TV… (apologies to Norman Gunston). In the unlikely event that @Daver6 hasn’t already lost concentration , he can look that up on the new-fangled Internet-thingy…

 

[JohnM]

Back to the vessel and dinner had an Asian theme – based on cray, of course.



Next day’s plan and sunrise.



Breakfast. And the boys preparing crays for chef to prepare lunch.

 

[JohnM]

Now to some Batavia historic stuff. It’s very rare to be able to snorkel or dive on the wreck site. We were not lucky.

Going ashore at Beacon Island, which is withing sight of the Batavia wreck location and was one of the close islands the castaways settled on. It’s an historic site with restricted access. We had a permit.



Any cray fishers’ shacks have been removed and there have been periodic archaeological digs. Some graves of mutiny victims were found under the removed shacks. Mesh screens are in place to prevent mutton bird digging.



The wreck site is out there.




And back to the vessel for lunch.



Mmmm, mmm; and the shells pile up…

 

[OATEK]

I remember reading Island of Angry Ghosts many years ago, which was a gripping account of the wreck of the Batavia and later events.

 

[JohnM]

After lunch, we slowly motored in the shallow-draft glass-bottom boats across the area between E & W Wallabi Islands to visit the Wiebbe Hayes stone fort, where the soldiers sent by Cornelius and his fellow mutineers discovered water and defended against raids by Cornelius from Beacon Island until Pelsaert eventually returned from Batavia with a rescue ship.

Gripping history, well worth reading about. You couldn’t make it up.

Eg. Barbarism and brutality: surviving the Batavia shipwreck - Australian National Maritime Museum

Here’s the schematic map of the full voyage.



And from Google.



We came in to W Wallabi Island between Seagull and Oystercatcher Islands and Pigeon, Little Pigeon and Alcatraz Islands. Again, more fascinating views of the cray industry, albeit not flat-out like they would normally be. In fact, that date, 15 March was traditionally the first day of the cray season back when the industry operated by defined seasons. Ironic – and sobering.