We came out of the King George River at first light on the high tide, and with a fresh SE breeze started heading west along the coast. This western shore of the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf is fringed with high sandstone cliffs, with numerous deep bays. We moved on only a few bays to a large open bay named Seahorse Bay. Although large, it is quite shallow, and we had to anchor off a beach a couple of miles from the top end of the bay as there wasn’t sufficient depth for us at low tide. The next morning, with the tide high, we took a trip in the dinghy up the creek as the satellite images indicated that there may be a lagoon suitable for a swim.
The creek ends at a rock bar, and leaving the dinghy there, we scrambled over and around huge boulders in search of the lagoon that we had seen on the satellite images. These boulders are bigger than a double decker bus, and appear to have been tossed around like confetti, indicating that there must be a huge volume of water running over these in the wet season. As we approached the cliff, the boulders gave way to a huge lagoon, which is obviously very deep as a result of the scouring from water coming over the cliff. While it would be impossible for a crocodile to climb over the rocks as we have done, we could imagine that one could get into the lagoon when the water was high, and there was signs that there were enough fish in here to sustain one, so a swim was out of the question. But to just sit and absorb the atmosphere of this place made the effort of reaching it worthwhile.
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