Salt Water Crocs in the Whitsundays

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by JPA Cate

I'd like to add that we saw two sailboats aground. After you pass the green on the Susan R. side, past the pontoon, there is a string of three red marks. The first sailboat, Supergoose, has dragged her mooring, and was well up on the bank between the 2nd and 3rd reds. The other, a smaller boat, had also dragged her mooring, and is on the south bank past the green after the 3 reds; her mast is broken, and she has been there some time.

Ann

If the ramp you are discussing is the one about 60m upstream from the N river head on the point, there is a big hole of about 14 -15 metres S off the point.

If you were not already aware of it there is a handy little shopping center about 1.5K up the road down to the point. It has a cafe with a porch overlooking the estuary which provides a nice elevated view. The walk up the hill passes through a nice piece of tropical forest and you get occasional elevated views of the Straits to the east as one walks along the road.

I stop there regularly for a walk, paper and coffee. The only downside is the ubiquitous sand flies so one needs to Off up occasionally.

[Mr B]

My Mate and his wife are currently in Mission beach,
This is the sign in the wash rooms,
Its just near Tully in Qld,

[AiniA]

Originally Posted by RaymondR

Crocks entering via the sugar scoop??

That's a vile slander, Queensland crocs would never enter a vessel via the sugar scoop without an invitation from the owner.

When we were on our way from Brisbane to Darwin we encountered another Canadian boat that had a croc encounter. They anchored in a river estuary just south of Cape York for the night - they were the only boat there. About 2 am they heard and felt a huge crash and thought another boat had collided. Turned a croc had jumped at their flag and quite neatly tore off the outer red band. Perhaps it thought it was a bird or something. It then landed on the sugar scoop (it was an Amel) and reacted by biting the boat and going through the gelcoat into the glass. They were asleep in the aft cabin so quite nearby when this all happened. They left the damaged flag up for the rest of their Oz visit and put up a new flag when they got to Indonesia where you might get killed by an earthquake or volcanic eruption.

When we were anchored in the same river a few days earlier we went ashore to visit a couple that run a pearl farm there. There were several crocs sunning themselves on the beaches. We asked the woman ashore if there was any problem with the crocs. She said not if we kept moving - I thought about our not very reliable Mercury 6 hp. I can see why the local cruising boats used tinnies.

[Jimmyhenry]

The basic rules for swimmers in Australia is to only swim with people who cannot swim as fast as you can!!

[daletournier]

Last year heading up the coast we pulled into the port douglas marina. There was a croc in the marina! Completely unafraid, it swam within 10m of the end berth. Apparently this is quite regular now.

Its a long walk down the dock at night, they arent very high out of the water. I would be worried if i had a kid walking those docks.

[micknor51]

Originally Posted by captlloyd

Got to go to Australia some day. So many things to kill you or just flat out eat you ! My wife doesn’t agree but this stuff makes life interesting.

In Oz we are used to living on the edge, it makes life much more fun. You could say we Aussies are edgy!

[micknor51]

Originally Posted by Jim Cate

Just went ashore at the junction of the Mary and Susan rivers this arvo. They have put in a really nice floating pontoon and refurbed the ramp, so it is now cruiser friendly.

And there, along with the inevitable "don't have fun" signs, there was a crock warning, stating that they are often seen in this area, ie Harvey Bay. The sign ended by saying "your safety is our concern, but YOUR responsibility". For a bureaucratic pronouncement, that actually made sense!

Those ugly buggers scare me (crocks, not bureaucrats) much more than sharks do for some reason. They are both peak predators, and have survived since way back when, but crocks just look, well, scary!

Jim

Oh Jim that is so sad to hear, you have been in Oz for some time now and I would have thought you had come to love all of our cute and cuddly animals.

[RJMRJM]

I sailed the Whitsundays for 40 years, ran a charter boat out of Hamilton Island for a while and I would NEVER swim in any open water along the Queensland or Northern Territory coastline.There have even been crocs in the marina at Roslyn Bay off the Kepple Islands Rockhampton area.Be aware that as others have said here a much bigger problem is the jellyfish.

[JasonL]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

They deserve more respect than they get. They actively hunt people, they are not just opportunistic. We should not be feeding them from tourist boats, if not allowed to shoot them we should be hitting them with cattle prodders or similar.

We used to go out and camp on the beach near The Wildman River NT near an old guy and his familys camp. We would buy the rum and he used to tell us some stories and his sons would show us around.

They used to hunt croc's for the skins from canoes with torches. They would shoot them with a 22 through the snout so they couldn't submerge, then harpoon them with straightened out shark fishing hooks tied to line. Then jump in with them and try to drag them to shore. All with Dolphin torches.

He told us of lots of injuries and two deaths. One while hunting and one, a woman down on the waters edge, the croc had been hiding in the bushes on top of the bank and knocked her into the water as it ran passed.

To anyone who does not knw "Dolhin" is a manufacturing brand name for a torch, may be a little worried that Australians light up once live dolphins, and use them as a form of lighting,,,,,

[haiqu]

Originally Posted by stillbuilding

And just a minor bit of info - there is confirmed sighting of a large croc pulling a cow into the Mary River upstream of Maryborough.

Not seen it myself but had to immerse to check my rudder alignment and i made sure to have someone on look out.

More worried about bull sharks really ( some big ones in the river) but mission accomplished despite the muddy water.

Until Google Earth updated their maps recently you could see a 3 metre croc in the Mary River right next to a block of land I considered buying. Needless to say I immediately changed my mind about that.

[Dave_S]

Originally Posted by Dave_S

They deserve more respect than they get. They actively hunt people, they are not just opportunistic. We should not be feeding them from tourist boats, if not allowed to shoot them we should be hitting them with cattle prodders or similar.

We used to go out and camp on the beach near The Wildman River NT near an old guy and his familys camp. We would buy the rum and he used to tell us some stories and his sons would show us around.

They used to hunt croc's for the skins from canoes with torches. They would shoot them with a 22 through the snout so they couldn't submerge, then harpoon them with straightened out shark fishing hooks tied to line. Then jump in with them and try to drag them to shore. All with Dolphin torches.

He told us of lots of injuries and two deaths. One while hunting and one, a woman down on the waters edge, the croc had been hiding in the bushes on top of the bank and knocked her into the water as it ran passed.

I read through that again and its not clear, I edited it a couple of times because it was a bit gruesome and edited out the point.

The croc that knocked her into the water did it deliberately to get her into the water so it could attack. It had been hiding, waiting for someone to come down to the waters edge. So don't just scan the water for them, have a look where one might come from above you.

[RaymondR]

Originally Posted by AiniA

When we were on our way from Brisbane to Darwin we encountered another Canadian boat that had a croc encounter. They anchored in a river estuary just south of Cape York for the night - they were the only boat there. About 2 am they heard and felt a huge crash and thought another boat had collided. Turned a croc had jumped at their flag and quite neatly tore off the outer red band. Perhaps it thought it was a bird or something. It then landed on the sugar scoop (it was an Amel) and reacted by biting the boat and going through the gelcoat into the glass. They were asleep in the aft cabin so quite nearby when this all happened. They left the damaged flag up for the rest of their Oz visit and put up a new flag when they got to Indonesia where you might get killed by an earthquake or volcanic eruption.

When we were anchored in the same river a few days earlier we went ashore to visit a couple that run a pearl farm there. There were several crocs sunning themselves on the beaches. We asked the woman ashore if there was any problem with the crocs. She said not if we kept moving - I thought about our not very reliable Mercury 6 hp. I can see why the local cruising boats used tinnies.

It must have had a problem with the way the flag was being flown. Whilst Australian crocs are very polite they are also sticklers for proper flag protocol.

[alanbe53]

No Crocs the sharks got them all. :-)

[StuM]

Originally Posted by RJMRJM

..I would NEVER swim in any open water along the Queensland or Northern Territory coastline...

Not even the Gold Coast?

[Lihuedooley77]

Dave S, and prospective OZ vacationers.

You are absolutely correct about the Tour boats feeding the crocks. A few days back when I started reading about the crocks, I searched the web and found videos of Tour boats feeding the crocks, the tourists were just a couple of feet away. Very close along the small boat's rail.

The guide had a short stick , with a line at the far end, that short line had a piece of meat of some kind tied to the end line. He put it over the side, and the crock came shooting out of the water, leaping and snapping. The guide quickly would yank on the pole to keep the crock from getting to the meat. And repeat and repeat that manuever.
One angry crock.

That crock had no fear of humans, and has learned that boats bring food and the guides use that piece of meat as bait to entertain the tourists. They bring in the money, and put humans as risk.

After thought...

We had two 30 day trips to OZ, sailing, diving, snorkeling, hiking, white water rafting the tulley river, class 5 of 5, drinking and meeting the aussie people and loved every minute.

Before our OZ holiday, as usual I purchased an excellent cruising guide and read it.

I also found that OZ had more things that can kill you than Vietnam. on land, in the water and in the air.

So, we planned our first trip to stop in Sydney for a few days to acclimate after the long flight and travel time. Wanted to get on local time a bit, before heading to Cairns, and bare boating the Whitsundays, and the dive boat for four days.

First trip, we stayed at the Rocks and took the ferrys to the zoo, and the aquarium. In addition to the fabulous presentations at both the zoo and the aquarium, I wanted to personally see the problem critters that we might encounter. I wanted to know what they looked like. Just to put as much in our favor as possible. Yep , we were tourists but wanted to be somewhat informed tourists.

We wore out light weight wet suits when snorkeling as a precaution against the boxies and iragangi ( sp) jelly fish. Narry a problem. Although, during our second 30 day OZ adventure, we did aid a young man from a paid charter vessel. He was off swimming from the beach of a small island, and I saw he was in discomfort. NO stinger suit. I put him in our dink and took him back to the charter boat. He was hurting. The skipper was chatting up a couple of tourist sheilas, and paid no heed.

Crocks : Only ones that I can remember, were up in Capt Trib. A long way off laying out on a beach.

Sharks: Coral Sea, diving from the Spirit of Freedom. We were briefed by our guides and told to stay along the bommie wall, and wait until after the feeding was over to swim to the feeding site a few meters away. These were gray whalers and good sized reef sharks. No worries. We followed instructions.

Snakes : Only saw one snake in the wild. We took a tour out in the bush with a local lady. Walking along a dirt track, a dark colored snake came racing across the road just in front of us. The lady began, waving her arms and flapping her fingers and jumping around, genuinely afraid of that snake. She knew that it was venemous, but the snake zipped across the track and into the brush. No problem.

Point being, in reading these posts, some of them might be bothersome to visitors who plan to go to OZ, Land or ocean trips. GO. DO NOT MISS THIS FABULOUS PLACE CALLED AUSTRALIA. Stay smart, and be aware, and listen to the advice of the locals .

The Aussies , are a hardy, and fun bunch, we had a great time with them. The eco style adventures were fabulous and supremely rewarding. Grand and happy memories that still remain with us to this day.

Proof of our good times, is that two years after the first 30 day visit, we returned for a second 30 day holiday vacation.

We loved the Whitsundays, and for some of the two week visit, we made Nara Inlet our overnight base, while doing day trips to Blue Pearl Bay, and other great snorkeling sites. In two weeks we covered much of the Whitsundays, and we skippered great sailing vessels from the Moorings and Sunsail.

Stay smart, have situational awareness, have grand time and remarkable adventures,

Enjoy a holiday in OZ that you will never forget.

Denny and Erica