Year 2 – 24th April 2025 -Keswick & St Bees Islands – Scawfell Island

It was another nice morning when we woke although the water was quite disturbed. I think this is a regular occurrence between these islands as it acts as a sort of funnel and the tide flows strongly. The birds were well awake with lovely tweeting’s which were occasionally disturbed by the squawking of the cockatoos. We had a nice breakfast of banana pancakes followed by the last of the toasted teacakes Paul had bought for Easter. The islands and trees and foliage looked lovely in the sun. We pondered how the houses on the island got their water and supplies. As we though this we saw a motorboat come which had a ramp which lowered and which went on to the ramp on the shore we saw at the end of the runway. I guess everything has to come by boat.

When we were ready we upped anchor and headed out of the channel between the islands and were soon able to put up the genoa and main. Our course was a sort of close reach/beam reach. The wind was relatively light 8-10 kts but we were soon whizzing along nicely trimmed at about 7.5-8kts. I started the generator which has not been used for a while to charge the batteries. I also took this opportunity to make water as the watermaker needs to be regularly used. This went well and over the next few hours we filled our starboard tank. The wind got up a bit more to about 13-15 kts and our speed increased and at one point we were doing 9kts and it was a cracking sail to Scawfell Island. The tide was pushing us East at about 2 kts so we were sliding a bit. Stormbird was enjoying this, as were we, and a bit of water was sloshing on to the deck. The photo of the day is of us sailing along toward Scawfell.   

Scawfell Island is part of the South Cumberland Islands and is named after Scafell (UK’s second highest peak) in the Lake District in the UK. It was initially named by Matthew Flinders as L Island in 1802 and renamed by EP Bedwell as Scawfell in 1879. It has a 397 m peak and is characterised by granite cliffs and a horseshoe shaped coastline. It is uninhabited and supports diverse flora and fauna. Captain Cook sailed passed in 1770 but did not name this Island. In 2021 when conducting a survey, they found a new species here called a leaf-tailed gecko which is endemic to this Island.

We approached the Island after a couple of hours of enjoyable sailing and planned to go to what is called Refuge Bay on its Northeast side. This is a large bay with two beaches and some mooring buoys and well sheltered from the South and Southeast. We saw through the binoculars that there were a few yachts here and as we got closer we saw a small beach on the west side of the bay and a large beach more east. We headed for the small beach and picked up a blue buoy which could take Stormbird. It was a beautiful spot and we were the only boat in this side of the bay. Th beach was a lovely golden sand colour and we could see in the water the different shades of colours of coral and shallower water.

Once we had moored we got the dinghy down and armed with our masks, snorkels, flippers and stinger suits we headed for the beach where we anchored in sand near the beach. We tried to snorkel here but it was not that clear and there was little coral. We therefore decided to move nearer the rocks and this was much better with a lot of good healthy coral of different types and colours. There was also a lot of different fish of all sorts of shapes and sizes. There was one huge piece of coral which must have been about 5m diameter. We snorkelled for a while here in our stinger suits (protects against jelly fish) even tough they are not the best fashion item!!. We looked out for sharks but luckily did not see any. After a good time, we returned to Stormbird and had a good prawn lunch. I later read that between October and May this island is renowned for its jelly fish!!

After lunch we had a siesta. It is so peaceful and quiet here and a lovely setting. A catamaran came in and anchored a way off. We decided to go and explore the other beach and we could see on our trip the outline of the reef around the bay. The snorkelling off the beach was not that great here although the beach must have been 2 km of golden sand. We returned to Stormbird and showered. We then sat and watched the sun go down where the light was stunning and we were just gently bobbing in the water. During the day we had seen several turtles come to the surface and breath and then dive down again. It is clearly a healthy environmental space.

I made a goat’s cheese salad which we enjoyed listening to some Tahitian music. It had been a lovely day and what a great spot.    

Need/Opportunity Year Two

I am in need of more crew from late June to Mid-July. In addition, there is one space from Cairns to Indonesia from mid-July - so if of interest do email me at  hine.nick9@gmail.com  

In year two I will be going from New Zealand to Sydney and hen up the Eastern Australian Coast, Indonesia and then through Bali, Singapore and on to Thailand to end year two about the end of November 2025.

The blog will continue as we continue the journey. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog then do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com