Cruising the Kimberley – Careening Bay and the Prince Regent River

After a relaxed morning on the boat waiting for the tide to turn, we set off and headed west. We left a little bit too early so pushed some tide for a while, before the current shifted and began assisting us. We were slowly sailing south into Port Nelson when we heard Terry’s voice on the radio. Sens de la Vie were somewhere nearby! It was so nice to hear his voice and we were both buoyed by the thought of seeing our friends again soon. Not long after, we heard Brian from Sealeaf on the radio too. It seemed we’d all be catching up at Careening Bay. So exciting!

Anchored in Careening Bay, we spent the following morning on the beach impatiently waiting for our friends to arrive. There is an interesting history attached to Careening Bay as it is the site where Phillip Parker King careened (ran the boat onto the beach at high tide) his boat, the HMS Mermaid, in 1820, when she began taking on water during his expedition mapping the Kimberley coastline. The crew spent ten days on the little beach repairing the hull, and during that time one of the carpenters carved the name of the Mermaid into a little boab tree.

This same boab tree is now 12 metres in diameter, and the inscription ‘HMC Mermaid 1820’ can still be clearly seen today. It’s fascinating to see how the letters have stretched and swollen as the tree has grown, yet they are still completely legible.

At this time it was six weeks since we had left Darwin and we were running low on unleaded petrol. Unleaded is used to run the tender motor as well as the generator. The generator allows us to charge the batteries on the yacht as well as run our watermaker. We figured that if we could collect some freshwater when possible, then that might just help us to eke out our supply of unleaded until we were able to purchase more fuel at Dog Leg Creek, which we estimated was still about two weeks away.

So we’d taken a water jerry to shore here in the hope of finding the fresh water creek that the guidebook mentioned. Unfortunately we found the creek to be dry. During our excursions to shore throughout the Kimberley, we’d noticed how difficult it would be, at this time of year, if you were reliant on collecting fresh water. Many of the creeks were dry or were just a trickle. I was always so grateful for our Rainman Watermaker and the sense of security it provided us in knowing that we could always make drinking water. Not to mention how much easier it was, than constantly filling and lugging water jerries to and from the boat.

We weren’t too concerned, however, as we still had plenty of water for the time being and were fairly confident that we’d be able to collect some quite easily at our next stop, the Prince Regent River. So we spent the morning wandering along the shore, and I collected some lovely little shells.

Finally we saw the mast of Sens de la Vie coming towards us and headed over to say Hello. It was wonderful to see Terry and Leonie again and we gabbled away as we caught each other up on our Kimberley adventures. Brian and Sandra arrived not long after on Sealeaf and the gang was back together again! It had been four weeks since we’d left them all in the Berkeley River and Matt and I were really happy to see them again. Dinner and drinks on Sealeaf turned into quite a big night but we managed to get back to Cool Change safely.

The following morning we hoisted our tender and left our friends behind again, as we set off for Saint George Basin and the Prince Regent River. The others had decided to bypass this section so we would catch up with them a few days later. Motoring out of Careening Bay just after low tide, the current started to assist us after about an hour and soon we were picking up speed.

We were flying along as we hit Whirlpoint Point and with the throttle at three quarters, we were travelling at nine to ten knots. (Our usual speed at full throttle is five to six knots). Cool Change was twisting and turning as the huge eddies pushed and grabbed at her, but we had plenty of room and the water was deep so I just held her steady. In this section, we were in around 100 metres of water, so you can imagine how surprised I was, and slightly panicked, when the sounder suddenly dropped to 2 and then 0.3 metres. But it was all ok, it just seemed that the swirling water of the eddies appeared to have confused the sounder. Phew!

Safely through the whirlpools, we made it past Strong Tide Point and up to the entrance to the Prince Regent River. Motoring up the river, which we found to be a lot deeper than indicated, we decided to stop at the first anchorage in Purulba Creek. A very inquisitive little croc, who we called Elvis, came up to welcome us and we spent the afternoon on the boat, wondering about tide times and trying to plan our approach upriver.

As we were discovering, in many parts of the Kimberley, charts are often incomplete, unsurveyed or inaccurate. Timings of low and high tide are not documented for every single location and need to be estimated, and in a river there can be several hours difference in the tide from the entrance to further upstream. The tide gauge on the electronic charts tells us what level the high tide will reach and at what time, and it also tells us the low, at a specific point. The problem is that the tide gauge can be many, many miles away so there is some estimation involved. All this makes navigating in the Kimberley quite the challenge. And in a river like the Prince Regent, with its sandbars and shallow sections, getting it wrong could mean getting your boat stuck and being stranded without water.

We had decided on a time to leave that should give us enough water to get all the way upstream to the anchorage near the King Cascade Falls. As we were waiting in the creek, we saw a charter boat, the Reef Prince, coming up the river. Matt jumped on the radio and had a chat with the Captain who confirmed what we had worked out. He also had a draft of two metres so we decided we’d follow him up the river. A second boat, Discovery One, followed soon after, and we could hear the Captains on the radio, commenting to each other on how shallow the water was. Seems even the professionals can be surprised by the tides too!

We pulled out of Purulba Creek and began following the charter boats as they zigged and zagged upstream. They were a fair bit faster than us, so I kept zooming in on our chart plotter and marking their positions ahead of us, until we had a nice set of waypoints for Matt to steer us along, all the way up the river. Still, it was slightly nerve wracking, as we were essentially navigating blind so our eyes were glued to the chart plotter instead of our incredible surroundings. There were a few nervous moments as the water shallowed alarmingly under us, but soon enough we were there, searching for the hole to anchor in.

Later that afternoon the wind died off leaving the water super still and glassy. With the charter boats gone, it was just us and another catamaran in the river for the evening and the next morning. It was incredibly beautiful and peaceful.

We invited Robyn from Kathmandu over for a drink. We could see that she was travelling alone and thought she might like some company. Plus we wanted to meet this woman who was sailing the Kimberley solo. Robyn is an amazing lady, older than both our mothers, who was tackling this challenging journey on her own and we found her to be incredibly inspirational. She was delightful company and we arranged to go up and see the falls together the next day.

Up early, before the tide went out, we tendered the short distance upriver to the King Cascade Falls. From the main part of the river you can’t see the falls, and it’s not until you enter the narrow little entrance to the basin, that the falls suddenly appear, stretching across a wide expanse of rock and vegetation. It’s quite a majestic sight.

We floated around in the basin for a while, soaking in the incredible beauty and imagining how it must look in full flow during the wet season. It was serene and peaceful, just us and Robyn in this ancient place. We were grateful to have this time here alone, without the tourist boats that we knew were sure to come sooner or later.

Then we set to the task of collecting water, using Robyn’s bucket to fill up our jerry. We both got completely saturated, but it didn’t matter, we were loving being under some strong flowing water, when most of the other waterfalls we’d seen were merely a trickle. We both stripped off and had a wash, luxuriating in a long fresh water shower. Bliss!

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Later that day, on the next high tide, we were back at the falls and hiking up to the top with Robyn. Although there were some rock cairns to mark the trail, they seemed to be erratically placed and the track was hard to find, winding up and over little gullies and through that horrible scratchy spinifex.

But we made it up to the very top and peered down at the basin and the falls, watching as several charter boats ferried in their passengers on tenders. We spotted a big croc swimming in the shallow waters, and Matt radioed the staff to alert them.

There were lots of ledges and mini waterfalls and we clambered down a few levels to see them. Putting the drone up gave us another perspective of the sheer size of the cliff and the falls.

On our way back down, we came across passengers and crew from the True North charter boat. The staff had put a rope ladder down to a deep hole near a freshwater creek. We could see people on the other side of the pool, wandering up the creek and sitting under little waterfalls. But how did they get there? The piles of discarded clothes, towels and cameras told us that they had swum across. Guess there aren’t any crocs in this pool then! We weren’t going to give up the chance for a proper swim, so we stripped off and hopped in, swimming cautiously through the deep water. I have to admit that it was a very strange feeling and I was quite relieved to pull myself up onto the rocks on the other side.

We had a lovely time sitting under the mini waterfalls and chatting to passengers and crew who could give us some news of what was going on in the world. Swimming back across the pool with the others, we bade them farewell and made our way back down towards our tenders. We noted that it was nearing dusk but weren’t too worried as we figured that if we were ahead of the True North crew then we should have plenty of time to be back before dark. Well, turns out that they obviously had a much shorter route back down the hill, because by the time we had negotiated our way back the way we came, it was right on dark, and they’d already reached their tenders and were heading back to the ship.

We managed to get in our tinnies safely, with no sign of the resident croc and sped off back to our yachts in the dying light. It had actually been quite a close call. Slightly too close for comfort!

The Prince Regent River had turned out to be quite an adventure. We had successfully negotiated the shallow waters, pushing our boundaries, and we had met an inspirational new friend. I was glad that we had decided to come.

If you are not willing to risk the unusual, you will have to settle for the ordinary.

Jim Rohn