Repair of the Mermaid 1820

Careening Bay was named because this was the place Lieutenant Philip Parker King chose to beach the ship the Mermaid for repairs. His name has come up a lot during this trip and he seems to have traveled extensively in this area. The word careening means to turn over a ship for repair. The crew spent 90 days in this area repairing the Mermaid and then they continued on their journey. While they were here, they carved into one of the Boab trees, the name of the ship, and the date. I could only think looking at the tree and given that this was carved more than 200 years ago that the tree at the time would have been quite old, unfortunately it's very hard to date bowab trees so we don't know how old this one is. It is still alive.

This was not one of the most exciting onshore excursions, but it was nonetheless interesting. This is a very tidal area, at high tide the water comes up several meters and we see evidence of where the water has been. The walk takes us past mangroves which because the tide is so high small sharks hide in them. In order to land zodiacs however we must land at low tide. Most mangroves I have seen have been quite low growing here they are tall with roots high above the surface reflecting the high tide. There are dingoes in this area and our guide shows us tracks.

It is quite an arid area and yet there are flowering plants growing out of the rocks. A bower bird has built a bower well inside the mangroves. It is an amazingly large curved Bauer made of sticks with a large pile of rocks, shells and pieces of coral in front of the bower. It is surprising because the bird itself is quite small. The eagle eye of one of the passengers spots the bird high up in a tree. In another tree high up, the guide points out a dark hole. Inside the hole is the golden-backed mouse, we see a picture of the mouse in one of the presentations. I use my binoculars and I think I can see something but I'm not sure. It's nice to at least know that it's there.

The evening concludes with a glorious tropical sunset.Lue lisää