Andrew Dwyer – The Cast Iron Cook

The Bradleys are a family who do enjoy their sleep ins on holiday. Far be it for me to begrudge them that, I am cursed with the opposite affliction and rise with the chooks, even on holiday which on occasion has driven my darling wife Jane to distraction.  There is a quiet time to be had on deck, for after all, the space on a cruising yacht is somewhat confined. It also allows me the opportunity to write my blog, and attend to office work. Roberts head appears out of the v-berth at around 9.45. which signals the start of activities, the first of which is brunch; fresh coffee, muesli, stewed fruit, toast and spreads. Today is Robert and Felicity’s 31st wedding anniversary, so Aimee and I are taking a hike up to the lighthouse to give the happy couple some time for quiet contemplation.

East Cove with neighbours and jetty in background

We get away around 13.00, and run the tender up on the beach next to the East Cove Jetty. We drag it up the beach and anchor it safe from the incoming tide. There is a steep sealed track that leads up the hill to the lighthouse keepers residences, some fifty meters above the bay. At the first switchback there is a wooden seat facing out towards Murray Pass. Engraved into its back is the cellphone connection signal and three bars.

The reception seat

I pull the iphone out and give it a bell, and sure enough, three bars. The seat is just in line with the gap between Erith Island and Dover Island, known as The Swashway, and a weak signal from Wilson’s Prom sneaks in. There are rufous wallabies everywhere, quite unafraid of humans, as well as Cape Barren Geese.

Cape Barren Goose

The lighthouse residences are a good 40 minutes walk from the lighthouse itself. There are several buildings, some dating back to 1848, when the Deal Island lighthouse was first commissioned. Nowadays, since the light was decommissioned, the complex is managed by the Tasmanian Parks service. We had our first whiff of bureaucracy as we left the beach, a sign telling us that if we wish to bring our car here it will cost us $60 per annum. The complex is managed by volunteers who do three month stints year round. There is a lengthy waiting list to get a gig. We head for the caretakers residence, one of the more modern buildings in the complex to pick up the key to the lighthouse. I knock on the door and a woman’s voice from inside calls, “Come in, come in, would you like a cup of tea or a glass of water?”  Meet Mary and David, the current volunteer caretakers. They have been here for the past six weeks. “Today marks our half way point”, she says, handing me a glass of rainwater. The house is well appointed, not really different from any older farmhouse, but the exception is the view, out of every window breathtaking vistas of Deal Island, cliffs, ocean and forest. It is simply gorgeous. The kitchen is set for Devonshire Tea. Mary tells me she has made scones for our neighbors, the family anchored next door to us, who are currently walking back from the lighthouse. She promises us the same. David gives us directions and the key, and we head off down a farm track through the tussock grass.

David, Mary and yours truly outside the Caretakers Residence

Years ago there was stock grazed on Deal, and there are remnants everywhere, old water tanks, the odd longhorn cattle skull and dilapidated fences. The track starts to climb, and we soon enter the thickest casuarina forest I have ever walked through. The wind whispers through the phylodes just like it does through Desert Oaks in the outback so far away.

Casuarina forest Deal island

The last section of the climb is quite steep, and at last we come out in a clearing, with the Deal Island lighthouse standing before us.

Deal Island Lighthoue

We have climbed 250 meters. Attached to the main lighthouse is a generator room which is still operational. We open the door to the tower and ascend a steep iron spiral staircase to the light room.

Looking down sprial staircase

The bannisters are clammy, and there is a dim roar from the wind outside. As we ascend there are windowpanes offering a glimpse of the spectacle to come.

The light room looks as if it is till in operation. Heavy canvass sheets cover the windows to protect the prisms. The control panel is still there, as well as a wind up telephone, and operational instructions. Apparently the light was fired up by enthusiasts in 2000 to see in the new millennium. We open the door and step out onto a little balcony that circles the tower.

View back to East Cove from the lighthouse balcony

The view is incredible, but the wind is howling so hard it feels as if we could be blown off. I get signal and ring my Dad, I know how much he would love to be here. Down in Squally Bay I see a lone sea eagle circling, as bullets of wind etch a pattern on the turquoise and deep blue water. Just beneath the lighthouse is a little grave marked by a whitewashed wooden cross and a circle of stones with the simple inscription “BABY”.

Unnamed infants grave at Deal Island

According to Max Huxley, who was an assistant light keeper in the 1930’s, his mother’s grandparents, Robert and Mary Jackson, were assistant keepers in the 1890’s and lived up near the lighthouse, and here they buried their baby daughter. I guess tragedy happens every day, but it somehow always seems so much more poignant in a remote place.

The Deal Island lighthouse was decommissioned simply because it was too high, it’s light regularly obscured by cloud and fog. We descend back down to the old lighthouse keepers house, which is now a museum. The first lightkeeper was here for 20 years and raised a family of twelve children. We sign the visitors book and head over the the caretaker’s residence for the hotly anticipated Devonshire Tea.

Devonshire tea with generous hosts David and Mary, caretakers at Deal Island

The table is laid, and we are greeted with fresh scones, jam, and pressurised faux cream in a spray can. The caretakers must assemble all the food they need for three months, as there is no resupply. Mary brought along  40 liters of cask wine and dozens of cans of cream, the latter to treat the yachties and kayakers who risk the pernicious nature of Bass Strait weather to worship at this most hallowed of shrines.  They are both people of generous spirit, who retired to live aboard their 45 foot yacht when they are not house sitting or minding lighthouses. I mention the first light keepers’ numerous offspring, and David quips, “Well, thats what you get when you don’t have any telly.” I wonder how he whiles away the lonely nights while the wind howls up from Murray Pass. When I mention we have a copy of last weeks Australian on board, his eyes light up. They agree to meet us at the BBQ on the beach later on, and we head back to the boat.

East Cove, the clearest water I have ever seen

Back onboard, Robert has prepared all the goodies for the BBQ, so we load it all into the tender and transport it back to the beach. There is a sizable swell surging on the beach. The boat ploughs into the sand with a jolt and I end up on my arse in the water. No problem, because the next wave comes over the transom and Robert cops it. All fair in love and war, and we both traipse up the beach wet but happy. The neighbours have already lit the BBQ. The wood is provided by the caretakers, who collect it from Winter Cove on the east side of the island. The tidal movement seems to wash lots of driftwood up there cast aside by merchant ships. This would have to be one of the most scenic public BBQ spots I have ever cooked on. The coin-in-the-slot numbers on the banks of the Yarra are grand, but they have nothing on this.

Yours truly turns the sweet potato on the BBQ at East Cove

There are visitors as well. There are rufous wallabies everywhere, a couple of “naughty boy” brush tail possums are eyeing off our food, ready to strike, and just as the last light from sunset fades, the armies of fairy penguins arrive on the beach and start waddling up to their roosts. The cove contains is a sizable penguin rookery, and looking about, they are clearly the best dressed amongst us. After braving a fairly heavy sea, or at least thats how it seemed from the tender, we scramble back aboard Escapade. All night long we rock and roll on the anchor. It is a good thing the holding is good, because surf is breaking on the rocks just 100 meters behind us.

Gentle reader, my apologies for the lack of “blog” for the past few days. The weather has seen us holed up at Deal Island where there has been no internet reception. I have been busy writing, but unable to publish, (a common problem in the creative pursuits).
It was Bob Dylan’s “outrageous” wind that blew all night, sweeping down the hills and raging across the bay. I look across to the island and notice a couple of moving dots on the beach, and in the scrub beyond I can just make out the slope of a roof. Someone has built a shack on Roydon Island.

Roydon Island

There are shacks on many of the rocks and island throughout the Ferneaux Group, where people have luckily discovered their own piece of paradise. It was not always so. The first men to build shacks on the islands of Bass Strait were to come to be known as The Straitsmen. They were a motley mob of renegades, escaped convicts from the penal settlements of Van Diemens’s land and castaways. To survive they fished, and slaughtered seals, trading the skins to passing ships. They shunned outside attention for obvious reasons. A few strong men, with colourful names like Mauritian Jack and Long Tom established small feudal societies, but the majority were loners. They would form raiding parties and sail to the mainland or Tasmania to kidnap Aboriginal women to help slaughter their seals, clean their fish and satisfy other more basic urges. The hard reputation these men enjoyed saved them from the gallows, for King George’s navy diverted its eyes. As long as these wild men controlled the islands of Bass Strait, other foreign powers, namely the French, would be deterred from claiming them.

This proved an astute decision on one occasion when the Straitsmen fought a pitched battle against a fleet of whalers from Nantucket, who had discovered the rich bounty the strait had to offer. The ferocity of the assault sent the Americans packing, and they retreated to the waters off Western Australia, where the locals were a little less hostile.

Here at Roydon Island, the modern Straitsmen appear to be engaged in less desperate pursuits.  An aluminium dingy is bobbing on the water. Four sea kayaks appear around the head, and a solitary power boat can be seen pushing a wake across Marshall Bay. Skipper has decided to wait and see if the wind abates a little before attempting the crossing to Deal Island. At present it is blowing from the north at around 20 knots, we would be sailing straight into it. I use the down time to work on the Diamantina website, and at around 2.30 Robert calls us to make ready to sail. Fifteen minutes later, cabin secured, gas off, lee cloths up and anchor stowed we are motoring around Roydon Island. I set the course to 310 degrees. Our passage to Deal Island is 35 nautical miles. We hoist the main and unfurl the headsail, and Escapade settles onto a gentle heel. The sea state is nowhere near as rough as we had expected, it is most pleasant sailing. Whilst we are making around 5 knots, our speed over ground is only 3.5, as we are under the influence of a tidal current surging around the top of Flinders Island. Whilst this is pushing us to the east, what we loose now we will gain later, as the tide is about to flood, and the current closer to Deal will run in the opposite direction.

It is a tight thing. It is now five o’clock and we still have eighteen nautical miles to sail, which will have us arriving at Deal right on sunset. Robert trims the sails for maximum speed. The wind has swung slightly to the east in our favour, and the swell has picked up a little. We are now making six and a half knots. Life is good.

The mountains of Flinders Island gradually fade into the blue afternoon mist and the cliffs of Deal Island rise before us, we can now just make out the lighthouse.

Deal Island

The wind is picking up, the light waning, and as we close on the island we encounter a strong easterly current. I twice adjust the course accordingly. We furl the headsail and come up into the wind and lower the main at the entrance to Murray Pass, the narrow strait that separates Deal Island from Dover and Erith Islands.  It is a violent stretch of water. The tide runs back and forth at five knots, and the high cliffs loom menacingly on both shores, drawing the wind in and accelerating it twofold. Strong wind against tide creates standing waves. In here, standing waves are said to rise to a whopping six meters! We motor away from the tidal stream and into the sheltered waters of East Cove. In the last light I can just make out tiny heads bobbing in the water, mobs of little penguin coming home to shore after a days fishing. There is one other yacht moored in the bay. We drop anchor amid the cacophony of sea birds settling themselves for the night. Robert cooks pasta for dinner and immediately after I hit the quarterberth. Goodnight, sweet dreams, the world is well…

I am woken by the buzz of squadrons of mosquitoes buzzing about the cabin, those same hitchhikers from the Bay of Fires. In the murky light just before dawn I climb up the companionway and sit on the coach roof. There are no mosquitoes up here, and no wind, and beneath the still water I can make out the ghostly shapes of schools of skipjacks swimming against the current. I wander down the jetty, past the stock loading yards and the honesty box for berthing mariners to pay the harbourmaster, past the silent fish processing factory and the tennis courts. Lady Barron is waking on sleepy sunday morning. At the tiny Anglican church a parishioner is busy washing down the doors in anticipation of this mornings service at 11am. I pause outside the Aboriginal co-operative. It is a bleak building, clearly designed by the same people who built municipal offices, health centers and social security outlets in the 1970s, and is festooned in the usual pamphlets advertising this or that government service. There is a sad and brutal underlying history to the Ferneaux Group, the forced home of the last Tasmanian Aboriginal people, but this is not the forum for that discussion. It is just another reminder of the horror that lurks behind all this beauty.

In 1833 the last surviving Tasmanian Aboriginals ( a mere 160 people) were exiled to Flinders Island, supposedly to protect them from the abuses of the white settlers in Tasmania. The place was named Wybalenna, meaning “black mans house”, but in reality was more like a prison. Most died of homesickness and illness, and just 14 years later the place was abandoned and the remaining 47 Aborigines were sent to Oyster Cove on the Tasmania’s east coast.

Sadness etched on the faces of Tasmanian Aborigines at Oyster Cove

I climb the hill to the General Store, and mercy of mercies, they are open, and they have a coffee machine and the weekend papers. Max the affable proprietor introduces himself. He tells me he has quadrupled the take here in just a few years. I ask him if he knows my friend Wendy Jubb, who has a house on the Island. Not only does he know her, but he seems to know her entire family lineage. The coffee is good, and the location perfect for watching the passing parade. Bleary-Eyed locals recovering from the excesses of yesterdays Music at the Vines festival are arriving in a steady stream, pouring themselves out of rusty cars.  Nearly all the cars are rust buckets, victims of the salty island air. Max tells me he’s going to sell a lot of coffee today.  Everyone seems to know everyone, which is comforting, it reminds me of Jamieson. I struggle to turn to the next page of The Australian in the force 5 gale coming in off my port beam.

A group of four young couples we met in the tavern the previous night roll up. They have come over to the Island from Hobart, bringing their vehicles, boats and their good nature with them. Today they are off to Babel Island for a spot of fishing. Matthew Flinders named the Island “Babel” due to the cacophony made by the millions of sea birds that he encountered nesting there. This lot will feel completely at home, but they are dressed as if they are in Bali. The guys are in board shorts and thongs, and the girls in sarongs.  I feel decidedly overdressed in my pullover and wind breaker, but it is not warm. I decide it must be a Tasmanian thing, after seeing the sunbathers at frigid Wineglass Bay the other day; some kind of auto suggestion method that if you dress for summer you can convince yourself  it is summer. But it is not, it is bloody cold!  The laconic Max has a simpler answer. “If I had a body like them youngins I’d be getting around like that too.”

Max reckons there isn’t much tourism on the Island. “Too expensive to get here”. He tells me the younins have spend a staggering $1000 per couple in travel only. To cross Banks Strait on the ferry it costs $800 per vehicle and $100 per person. It still works out cheaper for them than hiring a vehicle, they start at $90 per day. But Max says they have been good customers, spending their money freely. They were certainly doing that at the Ferneaux Tavern last night.

Maureen comes and sits down next to me. She is Wendy Jubb’s neighbor, clearly she has been talking to Max. She tells me she married a sealer and moved here from Sydney 40 years ago, and kindly offers to drive me up to check out Wendy’s Place at Badgers Corner. I decline her kind offer, as Robert’s arrival is imminent, and we need to take on fuel and supplies for the next leg. Max kindly lends us his Landcruiser to cart our fuel and shopping down to the wharf.

At around 2pm we put to sea, motoring out of Lady Barron following the leads, which are a whole lot clearer to me today than they were yesterday.

Lining up the leads at Lady Barron

We clear Little Dog Island and raise the main.

The channel runs right next to the rocks at Lady Barron

There is a breeze of around 10 knots against a 1.2 knot tide. While everyone is above decks and the hatches are closed I let the hitchiking mosquitos have it by emptying most of the contents of a can of insecticide into the cabin. WIth a bit of luck we will get a good nights sleep tonight. The sea is smooth and the scenery breathtaking as we glide beneath the Strzelecki Range. It is magical, pure beaches of white sand, slopes clothed in dense Melaleuca sweeping upwards to massive granite tors over 700 meters high. We motor in to Trousers Bay and drop anchor at the northern end of the beach.

Trousers Bay

The National Parks Service have kindly installed stainless steel BBQs on the headland, so dinner is Greek BBQ squid with Lemon and Fresh Oregano, Fried Potatoes and Onions and a green salad.

Squid on the BBQ at Trousers Bay

We retire early, but just after midnight a howling Katabatic wind descends from the range. Escapade has slipped her anchor with the change in wind direction and is drifting precariously towards the rocks.  In the darkness we scramble on deck to move anchorage a few hundred meters to the south, and anchor holding I fall back into a deep sleep.

Escapade at anchor Trousers Bay Flinders Island