Jar Island - Bradshaw Paintings, Kimberley's

McGowan Island Campground to Jar Island

Tuesday - 11/06/2013

Up at 0500 hours radio sched not successful  so went out getting covers put away and preparing sails in hope to get some wind which does not look promising but we may motor sail.

Close to 0530 hours Peter called on the radio to tell us he was about to weigh anchor and we told him we were doing the same. When we cleared the bay we hoisted the mainsail and set it to get the apparent wind that we had, we also set the headsail and it did give us a little extra speed.

Once settled I grabbed the fishing trolling rod and put the line out we ended up catching a small shark but we let him go and we did not get anything after that. We headed up around Anjo Point and through the passage where the tide pushed us along by plus 2 knots, we now had the tide with us all the way to Jar Island. After getting through the passage we turned SW towards Middle Rock, as we neared Middle Rock Peter called and gave us a course to steer 121⁰ magnetic and a waypoint to head to  (listed below). John on 'Murrundi' also gave the waypoints he uses which at the end of the day the two routes run parallel and are within a few metres of each other. As I have mentioned before a lot of the northern waters are either not surveyed or unsatisfactorily  surveyed, these places are not on or around main shipping channels so are low priority.

(This is where Middle Rock is located on the charts but it is not located there in reality it is hundreds of metres away from this point it is that far away it is hard to identify it.)

 

Waypoints for Middle Rock passage:

(1) 13⁰ 55.471'S - 126⁰ 23.627'E                   Steer 121⁰ magnetic from this waypoint.

(2) 13⁰ 58.155'S - 126⁰ 21.027'E                   (3)13⁰ 59.275'S - 126⁰ 19.585'E

Middle Rock is nowhere near what it indicates on the chart the actual place the rock is shown on the chart has around 30 metres of water. After going through that passage we headed to Jar Island that gave us another challenge. Paspaley Pearls have pearl farms all through these waters and north of Jar Island down is quite a large area of pearling strings. When we got near the island Peter called us on the radio and said it has all been changed since he was here last. Peter tried to call the pearl farm without reply as it is currently unmanned. Then Captain Greg on 'True North' a tourist vessel that we could see in the distance called Peter and gave him directions around the pearling strings.

 

('Tryphena' headed around the pearl strings, yellow marker indicates a corner marker)

 

(Pearl farm strings, these will bend with tidal flow and or wind)

(Chart showing the track that we took to get to the SW anchorage, the black dots indicate the pearl strings the yellow markers are the radar reflectors and lights)

 

Anchorage - 14⁰ 09.717'S - 126⁰ 13.833'E with water depth of 13 metres it was good holding sand mud mixture)

Track in- (Please note that the pearl farm do rearrange the pearl strings from time to time they had moved these a couple of months ago). Head for the northern beach where there is a yellow marker.

Waypoints:

(1) 14⁰ 08.579'S - 126⁰ 14.440'E                   (2) 14⁰ 08.428'S - 126⁰ - 13.758'E

(3) 14⁰ 08.484'S - 126⁰ 13.654'E                   (4) 14⁰ 08.670'S - 126⁰ 13.556'E

(5) 14⁰ 09.761'S - 126⁰ 13.536'E                   (6) 14⁰ 09.699'S - 126⁰ 13.822'E

The pearling strings are marked with a yellow marker which is also a radar reflector and some have flashing lights, these are the corner markers, then each string has white and black ball type floats along the strings, you need to keep at least a boat length away from the ends of the strings as they are anchored and the ropes run about 45⁰ away from the markers, you don't want to get your keel, rudder or props caught up in those.

We followed the track in as listed below and anchored in 13 metres of water after we had all settled we then went ashore to a cave that has some of the Bradshaw rock art, it is named Bradshaw rock art because he is the fellow that found them.

Websites regarding Bradshaw Paintings.

http://www.bradshawfoundation.com/bradshaws/

http://www.kimberleyfoundation.org.au/gwion-gwion-bradshaw/

The area where we went has to be during the low tide times because the area where you have to walk floods at high tide and blocks the track.

 

We climbed up the rocks to the cave and the art work was amazing. We stayed and looked around for some time before heading back to the beach, the view from the cave was also wonderful.

 

(These are known as the Gwion or Bradshaw paintings because they were first recorded by Joseph Bradshaw in 1891, they are said to be dated many years before the Australian Aborigines, the Wandjina aboriginals first stated that they were rubbish paintings but in later years claimed them as their ancestors mainly in favour of land claims. There are some controversial issues regarding this art work and it is worth a read on the internet sites, I am lead to believe that there has been money allocated by the government to do further studies into this matter)

 

(Notice how different they are to the normal aboriginal paintings seen in other parts)

 

 

(Friends John, Barbara, Shannon and Peter at the rock art cave)

We all headed back to our boats then everyone came over to our boat for sundowners and we had another nice night with good company.

Cheers

Jar Island - Northern side and Freshwater Bay- 12/06/2013

 

The plan was to dinghy up to the northern beach and go ashore to look at the rock art there which is said to be better than what we have seen. We decided that we would take 'Alana Rose' there and anchor off the north beach then dinghy in from there. When we got around there the 'Orion' tourist ship was anchored there also and the shuttle service of ferrying the tourist to the beach was happening.

Anchorage: 14⁰ 08.727'S - 126⁰ 14.447'E Good holding sand/light shell bottom, beware that sometimes NE winds may kick in around mid morning putting you on a lee shore, we had this but winds were 10-15 knots and not that much of a problem.

(View from the island with 'Alana Rose' and the 'Orion' anchored)

 

We dropped anchor, (info below), and then we went ashore to meet the others and we also got talking to the people off the 'Orion'. We took coffee ashore and had coffee and biscuits before heading off in search of the rock art. The search was not hard with the tourist ships that have been in the area the path is well worn, Peter even commented saying that it looked as though someone had been through with a grass cutter.

(Anchorage north of Jar Island needs calm conditions although good holding Lat/Long as on chart)

We found that it is true to say that this rock art is better on Jar Island than what we had seen and I think it would be hard to find any better examples than what is here. After a couple of hours with the rock art we returned to the beach and the NE winds had kicked in so we headed back to AR, hoisted the dinghy and set sail for Freshwater Bay some 12NMS north of Jar Island.

(I have joined two photos here to get the full picture)

 

(Peter is probably laying where the artist lay to paint the picture below)

(Part of the picture that Peter is looking at I have tried to join two photos below)

(Again I had to join two pictures to get this, it is painted on the roof where Peter is looking)

 

 

We had the tide with us and we were sailing at around 5 knots as the wind was not that strong at around 8 - 10 knots. We got just over half way when the wind swung around to dead ahead, the sails flapped so we had to use the iron sail, (engine).

We arrived at Freshwater Bay that also has pearl farms but well to the north side leaving plenty of room for passage. We had some trouble with the anchor winch once again, because we have been anchoring in deeper waters and using a lot more chain, when we hoist the anchor the chain feeds into the chain locker and stacks itself in pyramid style then when the boat rolls in the waves the chain sometimes falls on itself so when you next anchor the chain jams. This happened to us whilst anchoring and rather than Nancy yelling out to me that there was a problem she tried pressing the  up and down button to try and free it and the winch did not like it and then would not work. I then went out and took the chain off the gypsy and turned the winch by hand and got it going again. The last time it did this I pulled it apart could not see anything wrong with it put it back together and it has worked well ever since. So it looks like a job for tomorrow.

The other two boats arrived later and it was decided that we would have a quiet night tonight and have sundowners on 'Tryphena' tomorrow afternoon.

Cheers