stunning yellow patch

Yellow Patch on Curtis Island is such a unique location on the Queensland coast.  We were lucky enough to spend five days in this lovely place.  I think my photos will do the talking as my cameras got a big workout (hope I haven’t overdone it).

Why do we like it here? 

Our favourite spot … close to the sandhill

The scenery is stunning, especially at low tide looking across the sandflats towards the entrance. It’s such a spectacular view from high on the sand hill and of course even more stunning from even higher, from my drone. The yellow sandhill itself, it’s more orange than yellow, is such a distinctive backdrop with The Bossa at anchor. The tidal changes add such interest too, watching the sandflats slowly appear and disappear, and during this visit, we saw sandbanks we hadn’t seen before. Our anchoring space, especially in front of the sandhill, is disappearing.

It’s a photographer’s paradise!

On our first night, anchored as deep in the anchorage as we could, just in front of the start of the sandhill, we watched the sun go down from our bow.  Drinks on the foredeck.

The following day we climbed the sandhill at low tide. With little breeze and a clear blue sky we could see Hummocky Island and beyond.

Our view from the sandhill. The entrance to this anchorage is via a deep channel on the right-hand side of this photo.

This sandbar behind us was not here when we last visited Yellow Patch. Check out that colour!

Our previous visit to Yellow Patch was in 2022 when there was a forecast of strong wind on the way.  We decided to sit it out in Yellow Patch.  We were the only boat … bliss!! It’s tricky to find deep water if there’s too many boats in the anchorage.  With six boats and quite low tides during this visit, there was limited space so we had to drop anchor very close to the sandhill.  A ‘new’ sandbank has appeared restricting any anchoring further in, so it was a rather tight spot but knowing there was little or even no wind in the forecast, we were happy and we had the best position right in front of the sandhill! 

I’m standing on the ‘new’ sandbank. There’s not much water!

Then I got the drone up …

Looking north towards the ‘entrance’

Looking west, down the many tributaries. Where we caught our whiting!

This is the view looking south, even beyond Yellow Patch with the ocean in the background.

The view east to Cape Capricorn, the northern most tip of Curtis Island. I do love these sandflats.

Fishing is a popular activity here. We have a favourite whiting spot that we were introduced to by friends on Lionfish Safari some years back.  We’ve revisited this spot twice now, and always caught whiting. It was a haul of ten this time, plenty for two night’s meals.

It was a very foggy start with limited visibility, fortunately we knew where we were going. It was a slow trip back though as the tide had dropped. Lots of pulling and pushing the dinghy through the sandflats, our exercise for the day!

Waterfront joined us at Yellow Patch and on our last night we had sunset drinks on the hill.

Note: Remember, all these photos can be clicked/touched, to reveal a larger photo.