Moving Along, Next Island Please | Brampton – Show Us What You Got

Our next stop was literally just up the road. Another power couple: Brampton and Carlisle Islands. We were set to leave Keswick Island with a glorious forecast of 10-15 knots of wind….but come on now, did you really think we would be that lucky??

Bring on the wind!

A gusty 25 knots pushed us all the to Brampton Island.

Why is the forecast always wrong?!

We planned to tow Poly which turned into what I’ll call an “interesting adventure”. As it turns out, he doesn’t tow particularly well in a 25 knot sea state.

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The Brampton Island anchorage was a welcome sight after what I’ll call a minor ordeal. On a brighter note, these southern Whitsunday Islands are just insane. We couldn’t believe it was another shut down resort! I mean, I’m not complaining that we can have these places pretty much to ourselves… but why wouldn’t everyone want to come and stay on these beautiful islands?

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Both Brampton and Carlisle have fringing reef off the islands with a shallow passage between the two. As soon as we dropped the anchor, another cruising couple warned us of a couple of large bull sharks they had seen around their boat…

Perhaps swimming activities will be saved for the shallow waters.

The paddle boards seemed shark proof enough for us so we set off to explore the islands. The water was super clear with tons of sea life. There were black tipped reef sharks, turtles, fish of course and some absolute monsters of rays.

Cruising in stealth mode on the paddle boards makes for the best kind of aquarium experience!

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The little island off Brampton has a long sand runway that almost connects it at low tide. We could paddle-walk-paddle-walk, as we crossed over sand bars separated by clear shallow water.

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We paddled past the old resort and across the channel to Carlisle Island. There were TONS of sea urchins on the bottom of the channel. We need to figure out which ones are edible before we go risking stab wounds to taste the so called delicacy. Feel free to let me know if you are some kind of sea urchin expert.

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We are also now haunted by giant queenfish. There are definitely worse things to be haunted by, but if the fishing Gods could just let us catch any other species for a change.! Anything else will do!!!

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Brampton is also a national park with a couple of walking tracks on the island. We tackled the one that took you to a lookout at the top. I think I have said this before, but walking uphill after living on a boat feels soooo good!

Ohhh yeah, nothing like a good incline to get the heart pumping.

The view at top makes you believe you are in New Caledonia. The prettiest blue water with fringing reef, right in Australia’s backyard.

Give me a lock down in Queensland any day.

The blue tiger butterflies have been everywhere up the coast ever since we left. Hiking through swarms of these beauties makes you feel like you are on another planet.

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Aside from the bull shark scare we were pretty chuffed with this place. We had to get moving though. While we were at Keswick living our best lives, one of our engine brackets had gone as snapped through. Not ideal. I guess there is more boat work in our future. We made a pretty sturdy fix which will hopefully see us through to Townsville but we want to get there sooner rather than later.

And I’m sure you can guess what our next passage looked like…

Someone better let him know we are getting close to our next stop!

Until next time.

Xx