Serious Travel Article 12: The Town of 1770 and the journey to Lady Musgrave Island

It was a crisp April morning in the town of 1770, a small port town on Queensland's "discovery Coast", so named as this was reputedly Captain Cook's first Aussie landing point, his ship sheltering in its estuary in the year of 1770. On that morning 241 years later, I sat beside the same estuary with a feeling of dread. My gaze was transfixed upon "the spirit of 1770", a catamaran, moored in the calm and sheltered water which lies adjacent to the Town. At dawn the air was still but now the wind howled, churning the sea beneath it.

The Spirit of 1770, docked at The Town of 1770, the only town in the world with a number for a name.

A picture of me loading luggage into the hull of the Spirit of 1770. The hull is filled with water with the luggage stacked precariously on a platform with no sides. In bad weather your luggage WILL fall into the water despite what the crew say. Do Not put anything valuable or electronic down there.

Before loading the luggage (1 tent, a few cameras, clothes, books, food and lots of water) I had taken some super strong anti seasickness tablets which by their own reckoning said "may cause severe hallucinations". Despite being excited about the prospect of visiting a tropical paradise, the hell of seasickness would come first.

A wise man once said, there are 2 stages of seasickness:

First stage (The OK one): When you think you're going to die.
Second Stage (The bad one): When you wish you would die!

I decided to sit on the top deck of the boat, with the sea breeze in my face and my eyes fixed on the horizon to minimize seasickness. But despite my best efforts, what came next was worse than anything I could have Imagined.

The calm waters that surround the Town of 1770's headland. They give a sailor false hope.

 As we passed the headland and with it the sheltered water, the water grew deeper, darker and more sinister. The wind began to whistle and whirl. Cloud swept over the sky, transforming what has been a an endless sapphire into a great grey slab of concrete. The waves began to lash against the boat and as we changed direction, we smashed our way head on through the growing swell.

As the continent grew smaller the waves grew bigger, smashing the boat high into the air. I began to regret sitting on the top deck. With each wave passengers were sent hurtling high into the air. Sitting on a bench at the back of the ship (so that I had a clear view of the horizon) was a poor decision. Those of us at the back were flung more than most, we held onto the railings for dear life, each wave bigger than the last.

While my hands were locked into position like a vice holding on, my seasickness medicine began to take effect. In the sea I saw dolphins racing alongside our ship, they distracted me from the pounding the relentless crashing up and down was giving to my ass, from the pain in my hands and arms and from my inevitable stage 1 seasickness. Turtles then joined the dolphins, leaping out of the water and smiling at me. My palms became sweaty and my whole body began shaking but the sound of vomiting around me once again focused my attention onto the aquatic circus which was before my eyes. Before I knew it platypuses had joined the turtles and dolphins, then enormous floating jellyfish which looked like hot air balloons, then crabs, then for some reason dancing sausages. Out of nowhere came a man running full pelt across the sea, so fast that his feet stayed dry with the water tension. I looked at his face and saw it was me, my likeness waved at me and I smiled back. All the time my body was being pounded by the waves, the sickness was engulfing my body, I wanted to be sick but I couldn’t let go of the rail, my sweaty hands had no feeling left in them but I had to grip, otherwise I would surely go overboard into the unforgiving sea the way each wave sent me up into the air then crashing back down again. To distract myself from the morbidity of my situation I followed the likeness of myself until I saw a small Island in the distance, at which point, my wonderful, albeit hallucinatory friends vanished.

A rather grey looking Lady Musgrave Island, taken with a seasick hand.

As we grew closer to the island, the waves lessened and the wind became a breeze. The boat moored at a day trip Great Barrier Reef pontoon. The passengers began snorkeling and those of us who were planning to stay on the Island long term disembarked, withered and shattered wrecks of people.

End of Part 1.......