For some reason, a monument that reminds us of captain James Cook's visit is a pyramid made of rather large pebbles. Nice, prominent place on the hill above creek's entry, about 10-minute walk uphill from the beach where dingy can be easily landed.

This, as it turned out, was just the beginning of many a memento to captain's  incredible voyage up the uncharted, treacherous, often hostile cost.

Makes you wonder - how in the world did they find the place and safely visit and leave without casualties and all that without having GPS, C-Map charts (not even paper charts), precise tide tables, Lucas' Cruising Guide To NSW coast ...

Perils of the anchorage in the creek became evident a few hours after our entry.

Luckily, we had paper charts, C-Map charts, several working GPS units, detailed time tables, Lukas' Cruising Guide To NSW coast, and we used all that information to deftly anchor in a proper gutter with deep water.

Some unlucky fellows chose the wrong gutter.

Some even more unlucky fellows chose the wrong end of the wrong gutter.

Well, there is always another flood tide to wait for ...

Sunset was indeed beautiful, and it helped to ease our concerns of excessive anchor-sailing when evening wind fought incoming tide.

Concern turned into mild panic when in the middle of dinner we saw a neighbouring boat being pulled by their anchor upstream ... Strange, indeed. Boats do not follow their anchors upstream, so we deduced that it is not them moving. Movement being relative, we further deduced that it was likely us who are moving (downstream, dragging our anchor behind).

Our trusty beloved new ROCNA is dragging!

Engine on, nav lights on, search light on and fun of re-anchoring at night in a swift tidal stream in confined creek space. As we lifted the anchor, we found that its tip has pierced a ball of some spongy-like rubbish material (in the dark it resembled a piece of insulation foam wrapped in blanket encrusted with shells) and therefore never really penetrated the bottom, instead just sliding over it. As soon as that was cleared and anchor lowered, ROCNA bit into the mud and held us there steadily for another 4 days.

At high tide, though, water is about 2m deep and that is when the boats cross at The Crossing.

Almost makes you yell "Moooo..."

We skipped the opportunity to visit Rockhampton and instead opted for a direct ride to Great Keppel Island.

Many a known boat was at Great Keppel. Some were going North, like us (Africat, Promise II ...) while some were already sailing south, back to Tasmania from Whitsundays (Roseanne, of course).

Most were anchored of Second Beach while we went for a far less crowded and larger Leeke's Beach. There was some swell to pay for that seclusion, but not intolerable and nights were dead calm.

Leeke's Beach is perfect for long walks in warm sand.

It also provides a handy entry to a trail that leads uphill to the Mt Wyndham, 174 m high summit of the island.

We did both.

The beach and the summit. Beach three times.

A bit of history: in 1770, quite long ago when one thinks of it, captain James Cook visited then un-named place, a creek giving shelter to weary mariners of the time. Time passed, memories remained. At one stage (more recent history), people started to feel nostalgic about history and concluded that the place needs a name. After long community discussions (rumour has it that Parliament itself was involved), a compromise was reached and the un-named place visited by captan James Cook in ad 1770 was aptly named 1770. Not to miss on township's historical importance, we visited at the beginning of August 2015. The rest, as they say, is history ...

We like to over-do our creeks, so next day we used a single tide to exit 1770 and to enter the near-by Pancake Creek. This new anchorage was in a way much nicer - no commercial craft (those big catamarans that ferry people from 1770 to Lady Musgrave Island and back, had a nasty habit to pass about 2 meters from us), no jet skis, no hustle-and-bustle of over-populated camp. Just a creek with some very swift tidal flows, some 4-5 knots at springs, and yes, the times were of spring tides. The first evening, during dinner, the anchor dragged again.

Time to move on. From Pancake Creek we sailed to Gladstone's busy harbour and entered the marina, we needed some food provisioning, water tanks filling, sound sleep (to forget nightmares of midnight wind changes in swift tidal creek with very little space to move). There we started examining Lucas again - the adventure of passing through the Narrows was calling.

The Narrows, as everyone knows, a channel between Curtis Island and the mainland, is dry during the low tide, and that is when cattle cross at The Crossing.

Hexam Island, another picturesque place, where we met Tibao, an aluminium 30 ft cutter. At the time we only exchanged brief pleasantries (a wave after successful anchoring at safe distance), but sometimes a smallest of friendly gestures produce the most memorable results. Later on, we met again in Mackay marina, and there were pleasantly surprised by the visit from Libby when she presented us with a couple of photos of Harmony taken at Hexam.

At the time, we didn't yet have davits, and dinghy up/down procedure was complicated enough to make us reluctant doing so when having only one-night stopover.  Photo of Harmony at Hexam Island would have never existed if it wasn't for Libby and her crew from Tibao.

Even more precious was another photo, taken next morning as we were sailing towards Percy Isles while Tibao was taking longer course directly to Mackay.

Harmony under full sail, wing-a-wong with southerly wind pushing. Sunny skies and all that. Perfect. Thanks again, Tibao!

Unfortunately, roll of the boat brought back by now familiar dreadful thumping noise. Back to the bow, disassemble the bunk and uncover the mast step, and yes, temporary wedge temporarily un-wedged itself. We temporary wedged it back again.

That is when we started meeting whales in great numbers. One was tired and asleep right on our path, we swerved to avoid him and passed less than 50 meters from his huge body.

Pilgrimage to Middle Percy Island, to Percy Hilton, to join other cruising tribe members and leave the memento of our visit in the sailor's shrine.

This was the first pinnacle of our cruising life and as such will always stay in our memory. We are true sailors, now.