#38 Hamilton Harbour, Hamilton Island, Whitsunday Islands, Queensland, Australia 11-7 Bermuda Triangle?

4135 Some of the Whitsunday Islands.  In the distance the mountains are on the mainland of Australia.

4144 On The Edge catamaran.  For a sense of scale refer to the man in the green shirt on the gangway.  That is one tall mast but the boat is so wide that it appears short.

4170  The front half of the boat is elastic mesh stretched between the center deck and the pontoon.  Nothing under you but rushing water.  Only about four of us ventured out there.  It was a lot like walking on a trampoline.  Pretty cool.

4175  Hamilton Island Yacht Club.  The center, and highest, roof looks like a manta ray.  The lower roofline, starting on the far side of the ray roof and ending with the tall structure to the right. looks like an orca from the head to the dorsal fin when seen from the ocean.

4178  Popeye’s barramundi and chips.  Barramundi is a mild, firm, flaky, white fish with a great flavor.

 

Nov 7 – Hamilton Harbour, Hamilton Island, Whitsunday Islands, Queensland, Australia.  (That might be the longest location caption I’ve ever had in my journal.)  Today we have an unscheduled stop in Hamilton to use up the day we should have been in Papua New Guinea.  Hamilton is the largest inhabited island in the Whitsunday group.  There are several larger islands but they are completely within the National Park system and considered uninhabited.  Like the rest of the islands in the chain it’s a series of drowned mountains that used to be connected to the mainland until the end of the most recent ice age. 

 

Ecological Note: Shhhhhh, don’t tell Al Gore that climate has changed before.  To listen to him you’d think that our current situation is radically different and entirely caused by human activity.  Wander who was driving the cars that ended the last ice age?  Suppose it was T-Rex?  If there was ever a group that would have driven large, aggressive, gas-guzzling SUVs it would have been ole Rex and his buddies.  The arrogance of humans to expect that nature as we found it is the natural and permanent order of things is beyond egocentric, it flies in the face of the natural record.  Marine fossils in the middle of the desert and on the highest mountain tops are but one of thousand if not millions of pieces of evidence that things have not always been as they are now.  Drastic climate change has taken place before.  Species have come and gone throughout history.  Of course, Brother Al is also the nutcase that actually claimed to have ‘invented’ the Internet.  (I saw that speech live and could not imagine what he was taking about or thinking, for that matter.)  I’m sure his claim came as a great surprise to all the scientists, military personnel, and universities that actually set up the Arpanet, the real genesis of the internet.  I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find that Ozone Al has never even heard of this pioneering group of individuals.  Heaven forbid that a conservative should have made such a claim; we’d still be watching it on the idiocy that passes for the evening news.  I think the individual that said, “Those who forget history are doomed to repeat it.” was a little too narrow in his scope.  He should have added ‘or are likely to have charlatans foist it upon them’.  If it seems like I find a way to work this topic into every journal I write it’s only because I do.

 

The group is surrounded by the Coral Sea.  Whenever I hear that name I think of the WWII naval battle by the same name.  The waters are generally very clear and warm.

 

Our visit to Hamilton was a nice contrast to our previous few stops.  It wasn’t a huge congested metropolis or a hot and steamy jungle.  It reminded me of Bermuda.  That is to say idyllic and expensive.  Diana and I decided that this was the perfect setting for a little sailing.  Many on board were pleased to discover that the ship offered a trip to the Great Barrier Reef from Hamilton.  Actually Hamilton is part of the Great Barrier Reef chain but the good diving facilities are a few hours away.  If Diana and I hadn’t been there already we probably would have booked it.  But it’s a two hour ride both ways on a fast but not necessarily smooth boat.  The pounding we took getting there had a lot of the passengers and about a quarter of the boat’s crew seasick.  Not the best way to start a diving experience.  Fortunately, Diana and I escaped but it can strike anyone at any time, a history of not getting sick is no guarantee.  Under the right, or should I say wrong, conditions anyone can succumb to mal de mer. 

 

We’re trading in our large cruise ship for a small catamaran sailing boat.  Actually it’s quite a large example of the species, and a heavy one at that.  It’s almost as wide as it is long and the image of getting into the wind and having it rise up on one pontoon as it scoots along was a bit daunting.  When I spoke to the captain he told me that it had been designed so that it will not raise a pontoon unless you put it into a configand circumstance where it would capsize.  Not something a captain of a scenic tour boat would do if he wanted to keep his master’s license.  Its purpose is to provide a large sunny platform from which to experience the magic of sail and see the sights of the islands and it does that very well. 

 

Our ship was moored in the Fitzalan Passage that’s between Whitsunday Island and Hamilton Island.  It’s really a fair sized bay hemmed in by three islands, the two mentioned and Dent Island to the west.  We had another comedian’s fodder moment while waiting to get on the boat.  We had taken the short, 10 minute, and scenic tender ride from the ship to Hamilton Harbor.  As we were assembling on the grass by the yacht harbor I could look down the nearest dock and there was the ‘On the Edge’ our sailing catamaran.  Directly across from it, tied up to the same floating dock was an island fast ferry catamaran.  Now remember the description of our tour today started out, “Sail the beautiful waters of the Whitsunday Islands while…” and the title of our tour was “Hamilton Island Sail”.  I glanced around the assemblage and noted quite a few people with mobility issues.  I wondered aloud if some of the people might not be in the wrong place.  Someone asked why I would say that and I pointed to the ‘On the Edge’ and said, “To get aboard our boat you’re going to have to cross that portside pontoon somehow, I’m pretty sure there’s no hole in it to walk through.”  Whereupon I was told in no uncertain terms that the ‘On the Edge’ was not our boat; our boat was the two-decker, totally enclosed boat next door.  I asked where they kept the sail aboard that particular boat only to be met with a blank stare.  I shrugged and the conversation flagged.  English has an undeserved reputation for being an imprecise language.  It’s not the language that’s imprecise; it’s our sloppy, inaccurate and lazy use of vocabulary that’s imprecise.

 

The day was sunny, there was a fair breeze and the sail around the islands was great.  Our captain talked about the development of the islands, the failures, the eccentricities and the successes.  Much of the total area of the group is now part of the National Park and therefore not subject to development.  There are a very few lucky resorts that existed on an island before the park was proclaimed and they are allowed to operate and even update their facilities.  One of them, Dreamland, is a luxurious place that sets on the only private land on the whole island, access to the National Park right outside your door.

 

We sailed for about two hours in and around various islands in the proximity of Hamilton.  One small island, mostly a rocky outcropping with a large white sand beach that extended into a long sandbar, has an eagle’s nest among the rocks.  No eagles on it today but you can tell that a nesting pair has been coming there for quite some time.  It was a very impressive size.

 

After returning to the harbor, Diana wanted to look around town for a few minutes.  Town is mainly a long street that runs along the water with one road leading off over to the other side of the small island to the resort and Catseye Beach.  Shops are on one side of the street and the ocean is on the other.  Along the waterfront across from delis and restaurants they’ve got small pavilions with tables and chairs so you can enjoy your food next to the water.  It’s all very well planned and convenient.  The major mode of transport on the island is golf cart and you can drive around the entire place, stopping for photos and views, in a half an hour.

 

There’s a deli, restaurant, market, bakery, pharmacy and last but not least Popeye’s Fish and Chips.  After walking around I suggested that we split an order of fish and chips (fries in the US) from Popeye’s.  While we were sailing out of the harbor on the On the Edge I noticed the shop and asked one of the mates, Susan, if it was good.  She said that she liked it.  The serve barramundi for the fish and she suggested I get it ‘crumbed’ and not ‘battered’.  I like barramundi and so does Diana; however she’s somewhat hesitant to get fish and chips because it tends to be pretty greasy, especially as served in take-away shops in England.  It needs to be wrapped in newsprint to absorb some of the excess oil, as they used to do.  Alas, potential toxins in the ink and paper have ended that practice and now they wrap it in something like butcher paper, which does absolutely nothing to remove the greasiness.  That function is left to the chips.  You’d think all this would bother me but it doesn’t.  I love fish and chips from small cafes and take-away shops.  Diana said she wasn’t that hungry anyway so we could try it but I might wind up eating it all.  Actually, ok with me.

 

We found a table right on the street in front of the shop and I ordered the ‘crumbed’ fish and chips.  It took a while because they don’t have fish or chips setting on a hot table, they cook it to order.  When I was called to pick the order I discovered that it came in a box about the size of a shoebox for medium size woman’s loafers.  It was about 2/3 full of chips with a huge piece of barramundi on top.  In fact the fish was wider than the box and part had to be broken off to make it fit lengthwise.  When I saw the fish on top of the fries with no wax paper or anything in between I thought it was going to be a problem.  Amazingly, the fries underneath were dry and crisp on the outside with soft potato on the inside.  The ‘crumbed’ method was exactly like it sounds.  The fish is dredged in some sort of moistener, milk, eggs, not sure what and then dropped atop some seasoned crumbs, again not sure what.  The crumb coating had not absorbed any of the frying oil and the coating was thin, crisp and golden.  Diana was very pleased with the result and had her share of the fish and more than her share of the chips.  Astounding because she won’t even touch the chips that come with most fish take-away.

 

We walked back to the other end of town to the Post Office and mailed a post card to ourselves.  We try to do this in any new place we visit.  Then it was across the street to the tender pier, on the tender and back to the ship. 

 

Our entertainers for the evening were The Aussie Boys.  This three-man singing act was somewhat modeled after The Jersey Boys but using Aussie material.  Except for ‘Tie Me Kangaroo Down Mate’ and one Bee Gees tune I’d never heard any of them and they weren’t exactly exciting musically.  But they were energetic and seemed like nice guys so I guess it was ok.