Sailing Pancake Creek

Alan Lucas describes the pleasures to be found around Bustard Head.

The northern headland of Bustard Bay, famously named for the bustard birds shot, eaten and enjoyed by skipper and crew of the Bark Endeavour in 1770, Bustard Head has few redeeming geological features, but the creeks under its lee are amongst the loveliest on the Queensland coast.

Pancake Creek, on its western side, is a favourite wilderness anchorage whilst Jenny Lind Creek, on its southern side, is virtually inaccessible with its barred entrance and shoal interior. Both have sandy bottoms and beaches that contrast starkly with their azure water and mangrove forests. Best of all, the old lighthouse service-track, still with evidence of its corduroy road (timber battens that limit erosion and improve drive-wheel grip) provides easy walking up to Bustard Head’s lighthouse.

According to an early survey map, Bustard Head is an island clearly isolated by its two creeks whose streams met on a latitudinal line. Today, evidence of their union is lost in the entrails of mangroves and creeks that make commuting from one to the other by dinghy difficult, if not impossible. Nevertheless, a bright pink, ex-Army Duck manages to reach Bustard Head from the town of Seventeen Seventy, 12 miles southeast, loaded with eager tourists. It does the run regularly along the beach between the two centres, becoming a motorboat to cross Jenny Lind Creek and finally reach the lighthouse.

While visiting sailors appreciate the wonderful anchorages in Pancake Creek and the walk up to Bustard Head Light along the corduroy road, the lighthouse itself is the main target for tourists, especially since the two ex-keepers houses were fully restored and now function as a museum and caretaker/guide accommodation. The lighthouse was automated, fenced off and de-manned in the 1980s, after which years of government indifference led to the cottages deteriorating, then being finished off by two young troglodytes who spent a weekend smashing their cladding and reducing them to ragged skeletons.

The government ignored all talk of restoration and heritage listing until ex-lighthouse keeper (now writer/yachty) Stuart Buchanan, his wife Shirley and local tourist operator Des Mergard changed its mind. Then, by dint of hard yakka and support from numerous volunteers, the houses were beautifully restored and opened for business by the mid 2000s. The lighthouse itself remains closed to all but contract maintenance teams who periodically catch up on work that was once the constant occupation of lighthouse keepers.

Pancake Creek experiences tides of more than three metres high, guaranteeing access to most vessels whilst producing lagoon-like protection and good low tide depths when its central sandbank exposes to provide all-round protection. This sandbank also offers an alternative leg-stretching venue for those uninspired by hill climbing and lighthouses or whose tender is too heavy to drag across the beach’s intertidal flats.

Outside the mouth of the creek there is a roadstead useful for brief southerly weather stopovers, the slight swell often discouraging longer durations or, more likely, convincing visitors to enter the creek and stay awhile. Entering is no problem with lateral marks and leading beacons on whose transit depths reduce to around 1.5 metres low water springs. If working a critical draft into the creek, make sure the tide is rising, not falling.

Despite being one of Queensland’s most popular coastal anchorages, Pancake Creek can appear surprisingly under-used once the fleet is on the move, but come a trade-wind howler - especially when sailing south - as many as forty vessels might be holed up here awaiting a fair wind that can be weeks in coming. It all depends on how the seasons pan out, the southeast trade wind sometimes failing to open windows of opportunity for southerners heading home.

Twelve miles southeast of Pancake Creek, Round Hill Creek has similarly clear water and sandbanks but without the blessing of good depths, swinging room and good holding.

These truths often oblige southbound sailors to remain at sea until the Port of Bundaberg is reached, 60 miles south. West of Pancake Creek it is an easy 30-mile run to the industrial City of Gladstone, whose Harbour Control demands that vessels over ten metres report in on VHF 13 as they approach the harbour from any direction. This obligation is becoming a common phenomenon in ports with long, dredged approach channels, and whilst port rules must be obeyed, the fact is that small craft can usually navigate quite safely outside such shipping channels.

Back in Pancake Creek, mobile reception used to be satisfyingly mediocre, obliging one to take a break from technological dependence to just enjoy nature, walking, visiting friends or getting more and more creative in the galley as food supplies diminish. But recent improvements mean reception is now excellent.

Despite the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef lying directly offshore from Bustard Head, no coral of any consequence will be found in Pancake Creek, but if a great anchorage is the name of the game, then it’s hard to sail past. To those dedicated souls who fought the bureaucrats and brought the old light-keeper’s dwellings back to life, and to mother nature who created this sailors’ delight, hearty congratulations for a job well done.