Another pre-sunrise start to the day.  Today we were picked up at 8.15am by a minibus & taken to the Derby airport to catch a seaplane out to the horizontal waterfall.  The seaplane looks very ungainly on land, sitting so high up on wheels attached to the bottom of the floats.  There were eleven passengers & I got to act as co-pilot on this flight, they need to get as much weight forward as possible.  The flight lasted around half an hour & was very interesting, the mudflats around Derby have complex fractal patterns on the surface as the water makes channels when flowing out with the tide.  The different rivers flowing out into King Sound are very muddy & the Kimberley scenery is very pretty from the air.  The pilot flew over the Horizontal Falls so that we had a good look at them & understand how they worked before seeing them by boat.  The landing on the water of Talbot Bay was very smooth, it was our first seaplane adventure & we were a little excited.

They have a very good setup, with a large pontoon & mother ship where the seaplane docks & the other boats that take us to the horizontal falls tie up.  We transferred straight onto a 12 seater speedboat with twin 250hp Yamaha outboards & went the short distance to the falls.  It was just on low tide so we were able to go through both channels very easily as there was hardly any flow.  The first gap is around 20 metres wide & was very placid, the second gap is around 12 metres wide & was flowing well & Ryan, our boat driver, gunned the boat up the waterfall & into the feeder bay.  There are actually two horizontal waterfalls, caused by the tidal flow into & out of two bays that are otherwise landlocked.  The tidal rise & fall of around 12 metres ensures that the tide rises or falls much faster than the gaps allow water to run through them, causing a massive build up of water on one end of the gap compared to the other & there can be up to 5 metres variation in height between one side of the gap & the other.  The water really roars through.

We headed back to a well set up flat boat called “Cyclone Creek” for morning tea that was moored close to the falls, then headed out on a fishing trip to turtle reef, a reef that is exposed at low tide & has a hole in the middle of it that has fish trapped in it.  We moored right on the edge of the exposed reef & walked around 150m over the reef to get to the hole, looking at all of the clams, fish, sea cucumber & other sea life up on the top of the reef.  We only had around 40 minutes at the “Blue Hole” before the rising tide forced us out again, most people had a turn at fishing & John won the prize for catching the largest fish, a blue line emperor of around 1 & ½ kilos.   A sea turtle was also swimming around in the hole & popped up for air every now & again.

The tide was rising fast & starting to cover the reef again as we got back to the fishing boat & headed back to the “Cyclone Creek” where Ryan & Celine prepared a nice BBQ barramundi & salad lunch.  During lunch we motored slowly back to the mother ship, then after lunch it was shark feeding & patting time.  There is a shark cage set up at the back of the mother ship pontoon & around half a dozen large lemon sharks respond to the feeding (as well as a host of other fish, including garfish, yellowtail, trevally) & get a pat on the head, although you do have to watch out for their teeth, they are very sharp.  Celine wasn’t quite quick enough & got nipped on her little finger, drawing blood.  Tereza fed the sharks & had a lot of pats, though she was very cautious about being bitten.

The next boat ride was an exploration of Cyclone Creek itself which got its name from the pearling luggers that holed up there during cyclones, it is a very sheltered location with high mountains all of the way around the anchorage.  This is where Ryan & Celine sleep, in a converted pearl shell seeding hut, a pontoon with a roof on it & one end closed in for sleeping.  A very rudimentary lifestyle. The pearling industry has shut down significantly after the global financial crisis & this pearl lease is currently not being used. Ryan showed us the pet batfish that they have around their “two story house with swimming pool” & caught one with his bare hands to show us what a batfish looks like.  We went a little further up Cyclone Creek & looked at some of the folds & bends in the exposed rocks.

Next it was back to the horizontal falls where by now the tide was in full swing & both the falls were really working hard.  We took time to take some photos then Ryan gunned the boat up the outside falls & it was an exhilarating ride through, very bouncy but not as wet as I had thought.  We then motored over to the inside falls & it was really working hard, there was an amazing amount of water rushing through the narrow gap & dropping around 5 metres whilst doing so.  Thankfully Ryan considered a ride through too dangerous to attempt, so we just went close for some photos, then turned back & had another exhilarating ride back down the outside falls, it really is such an adrenaline rush.  Back to the mother ship then back onto the seaplane for the return to Derby.

We flew back a different route & went over the top of a barramundi farm & saw all of the growing pens plus the island that they base the operations from & live on.  Apparently the workers there call the island “Alcatraz” as there is no escape, it is really remote.  The township of Derby looks a lot bigger from the air (or maybe we were very low) & the wharf looks better with water all around it.  The landing on the airstrip by the seaplane was just as smooth as the water.

We celebrated a great day with some cheese & bikkies & a nice cold sparkling Seppelts shiraz & sat around chatting for ages.  After such a big barramundi lunch plus this, dinner was definitely not required tonight.