Wind  SE 10 – 15    Sunny  Low tide 4.28 pm                             15 nm

Left Woodwark about 11:00 and sailed towards Gloucester Passage south of Bowen with the main and jib goosewinged. We averaged 6 knts with a slight swell behind us .

 

 

 

 

 

The Abell Point yacht club were having a weekend outing to Montes ( a little bar on the beach just inside the passage) so we found ourselves amongst the flotilla. Jokes and stories and competions were happening over the radio so it became an interesting sail for us as we listened to their banter.

 

We arrived at the anchorage off Montes at about 2:00 and anchored fairly close to the shore just inside the second channel marker. We had about 1.8 under the keels and had about 2.5 hours to go to the bottom of the tide. As its a full moon there is about a 3 metre tidal range so we wont have much under the keel at dead low.

We enjoyed a late lunch overlooking the beach and other boats then dinghied ashore for drinks with Moor R & R at Montes.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The tide was a long way out so we tied up to a cable anchored to a palm tree that could be pulled in as the tide rose. I played ball with Morgan and went for a walk while she looked for fish.

 

 

 

 

Enjoyed dinner at on a table on the beach with the sand between our toes with the crew from Moor R & R and Back Friday.

The meals were excellent and the setting was idyllic with the sun sinking behind Bowen in the distance.

 

In 2005 when we visited Montes with Megs it was a dingy little room with a small bar, these days it has an excellent restaurant, a fantastic deck overlooking the beach, another room, tables on the sand and a fireplace on the sand. Each year the Shaggers rendezvous is held here and these days they get 3000 people supporting the cause so Montes has been able to upgrade its facilities on a regular basis.

Wind 15 – 20                                                             3.5 nautical miles

Time to head north again, so the morning was filled with the usual  last minute chores – filling the water tanks, washing the back deck, riding to the shops for any last minute supplies, packing the bikes up etc.

We cast off our lines at 11:30 and sailed north on the jib in light breezes to anchor in Woodwark Bay.

We were both fairly tired from last night so after anchoring at the head of the bay on 2 metres of water we sat down to lunch, a read and a sleep. John had watched the cricket till late last night after we got home and I made a Tim Tam cheesecake for tonight’s dinner.

Woodwark Bay is a large  bay with a 4000 acre privately owned property with an exclusive resort at the head of it. According to the write up , it offers exquisitely appointed accommodation for up to 14 guests providing a private lake for water skiing and fishing  , waterfalls and picnic huts surrounded by 50,000 acres of National Park. Included in your $15,500 per night between April and December then $19,000 per night from Dec to Jan are all meals catered by a celebrity chef, barramundi fishing, quad bike tour, rainforest walk and canoeing. Minimum stay 4 nights.

The resort caters for celebrities who want to get away from the paparazzi, amongst their guests they have had are Tom and Nicole cruise and the King of Morocco.

I don’t think Jenny and John Mulligan will make the guest list.

And of course we are not allowed on shore anywhere in the bay above the high tide mark.

We dinghied over to Moor R & R and enjoyed the scenery for free and a very delicious Roast lamb with all the trimmings and the cheesecake.

Needless to say we were home early and retired to bed at 8:45 especially as there was no TV reception for John to watch the Aussies play badly again.

Wind 20 – 25 knts

Woke up to a blustery day again. Morgan and I took a slow ride interspersed with ball throwing seesions along the path to the Fat Frog cafe at Cannonvale. John joined us an hour later and we enjoyed another lovely breakfast.

That was it for John for the day as his bum muscles were too sore for him to do anything, even the ride killed him so he retired to the couch for the day.

I hitched a lift to the supermarket with Paul and Kathy and stocked up on what was needed including six bottles of red.

The shopping process as follows is fairly tedious as we are so far from the car park and the trolleys are rather large :

• Go to office and sign out for a key to an allocated trolley
• Load groceries into trolley
• Take trolley along path and down steep ramp approx 500 metres
• Unload groceries
• Take trolley along pontoon and back up steep ramp to trolley parking area, another 500 metres
• Return key to office

Hope it doesn’t sound like I’m complaining as I’m not, I’m just explaining how chores take on a different meaning in the nautical world.

A call  from Whitsunday Home Hardware informed us our stripper arm had arrived ( not bad for overnight from Brisbane) so I rode to Cannonvale to pick it up, To look at it it doesn’t deem much but at $300 its a rather expensive item that we cant do without.

John was able to move enough to fit it back onto the winch so pulling the anchor should be much faster and less stressful execrcise. Fingers crossed!

Happy hour on Moor R & R turned into a happy several hours as it was possibly the last time we shall all be together for long while.

 

Rob and Lesley are staying in the Whitsundays till Sept when they head to the States for a sailing trip down the Intracoastal waterway with a friend. They will leave their boat in Bowen till the end of Sept. Deb and Bryan are going to Hamilton for a couple of days and Moor R & R will go north for a day or two then back down to the islands to take Kath’s sister and husband for a look around the Whitsundays.

Back to the cricket at 9:30.

 

Wind 25 – 30 knts

The fridge man arrived to inspect our cool box because even though John and I put a new thermostat in the unit is freezing up and not cooling the whole box. He thinks the problem was we didn’t insert the sensor low enough behind the coils. Seems to be working okay now, fingers crossed.

 

I rode to Cannonvale and picked up my computer and now have all my emails which is a relief while John sorted out the stripper arm parts in rediness for their replacement  which should be here on Friday. We are out of the marina on Friday morning so hopefully it will be here by then as they have no more room for us. We have spent enough time in  the Whitsundays and are ready to move on so we will start our next journey to Townsville on Friday.

John , Morgan and I rode to the Whitsunday Sailing Club for the $22 buffet meal. The fare was very pleasant with roast pork, lasagne and reef fish with a variety of crunchy fresh vegies, salads and sauces.

We were back on Ovive at about 7:15 in time for John to watch the start of the 3^rd ashes test. The ozzies haven’t started well though.

Wind 25 – 30 knts                               High tide 8:05   Low tide 2:20

The predicted weather came true and we woke to very strong winds. Through the night the anchorage had been very secure with minimal wave movement. After fish for breakfast we pulled the anchor up and headed out into the real wind. With only the reefed jib up we sailed to Airlie in a 25 – 30 knt wind getting up to 12 knts at times. The waves were going with us so it was a pleasant sail.

Most of the boats were hiding or motoring a short hop to their next sheltered destination leaving the Whitsunday Passage most unlike its normal busy self. The trip to Airlie was quick, we enjoyed keeping ahead of a Seawind that had full sails up and John reckoned one motor going.

After tying up in the marina we had lunch up at Barcelona’s while the washing did its stuff in the marina laundry behind the restaurant.

After lunch I rode  my computer back to the repair shop in the hope of the repair fellow retrieving the remainder of my emails which he hadn’t retrieved when he replaced my failing hard drive last week.

 

On dusk we walked and pushed our bikes along the boardwalk to dinner at The Breeze Bar with the crews from Moor R & R , Back Friday and Bojangles. The meal was small and tasty,  though the prices for the wine were very expensive.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was an amusing trip back as Paul , Bryan and John rode the bikes with the help of the water dog come husky. I was surprised there were no accidents as the speeds and antics in the dark left us listening for the inevitable.

 

We almost got home without  until John came down the ramp onto our pontoon and his handlebars came loose and he fell off as he braked. Now he has a very saw arse muscle and suspects he has torn it. ( Don’ t laugh, and no I’m not going to massage it.)

Wind 10 -1 5 knts                               High tide 7:15   Low tide 1:30

Just another lovely calm morning although there was a ripple on the water making coral viewing more difficult as Morgan and I paddled the kilometre to shore. We did see a turtle though and three black stingrays dash across the bottom. ( I wonder if they were Stingys mates, Abe?)

Back on Ovive John caught a medium sized Collared bream which would have been thrown back had he not been greedy and swallowed both of Johns hooks, one was in his belly and one in his mouth.

By the time I got back breaky was ready. Today it was red emperor with a garlic, sweet chili fish jus. Very delicious.

Pulling the anchor was slow but manageable then we motored down to Esk Island opposite Whitehaven beach for lunch. Our stripper arm is not due in Airlie till next Friday as it has to come from New Zealand, we will probably have to get it sent further north.

Morgan and I paddled ashore to explore while John read Shane Warne.

Esk Island is roughly a tiny  20 acres of Hoop Pines, ferns and rocks with a lovely little beach stacked with dead coral. It would have been a great spot to pull up and watch the filming of the Pirates movie last week. By the way the coconut palms have miraculously disappeared off Whitehaven.

We left Esk Island and motored through the turbulent Solway Passage between Whitsunday and Hazelwood Island. The passage was swirling eddies and opposing currents and we dropped down from 7 to 4 knots.

Heading down the side of Hamilton we reached Gulnare inlet at 5:30 and anchored in 2 metres of water. Gulnare is an excellent anchorage in strong winds which is what we are expecting from midnight onwards. The forecast is for 15 – 25 knots tomorrow going up to 30 on Wednesday so we are booked into the marina at Abell Point for two days before we head for Townsville.

Fish pie for dinner and with the left over pastry blackberry parcels for dessert.

 

Winds SE  10 – 15 knts sunny  HT 7:00 am

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A paddleboard over the coral started the day off for me, I didn’t take Morgan as she would think we were going ashore and would be disappointed.

The coral was very average, some plate and anabranch corals had some colour but a lot was dead near the shore. Some of the soft corals were pretty. I think the coral close in takes a beating from the swell as Pinnacle Bay not as protected as some of the other bays.

After a delicious breakfast of fish with onion, garlic, pepper cream sauce cooked by my seafood chef we lowered the waterproof camera down below the boat.

 

The coral colours down deep were quite spectacular with brilliant oranges and the fish were plentiful, obviously out deeper the coral is in good condition. The camera cable is 18mts long and we were lowering it to 14 metres. The bottom was uneven so we had to be careful the camera didn’t hit the coral as the boat was swinging with the current and a slight breeze.

The Whitehaven express arrived to disgorge 40 people for a snorkel and suddenly our quite anchorage was full of shrieks and squeals. The boat comes daily from Airlie and takes tourists to three destinations, Pinnacle or Manta Ray Bay, Hill inlet and Whitehaven Beach. A good way to have a quick look at the Whitsundays.

We departed about 10:30 and sailed round the top of Hook towards Airlie then tacked back to Hook passage. We dropped the sails after passing through the passage as the wind was on the nose. John put the lure out and caught another Tuna mac, when will we catch something different?

We motored south to Peter Bay ( I’ve renamed it Dad’s Bay, he would have liked it here), and anchored in roughly the same spot as before in 7 metres water.

We put the lines out and fish were on the bite as soon as the bait hit the bottom. We caught quite a variety with some large fish to keep. John was very excited when he hauled in his favourite fish a Red Emperor, he has been waiting a while to catch one.

Predominantly we caught Sweetlip and yellow finned bream, the latter being to small for the pan so they were thrown back. A couple of very large fish broke us off.

As it was Sunday we had a  chicken, pumpkin and potatoes roasting on the barbie . I was happy to cook dinner and fish at the same time as the barbie is on the back deck.

A game of scrabble after dinner with an unusual result as I won, I think I just got lucky.

Wind Variable to 10 knts sunny

Woke up to a lovely calm morning so Morgan and I took the paddle board ashore.

We paddled over coral bommies and isolated soft corals on the bottom but hadly any fish and no turtles.Morgan ran along the beach while I explored.

Back to Ovive for breaky then a swim. The water was lovely so I scrubbed the starboard hull as it was getting a bit dirty along the waterline.

 

As we pulled the anchor up we marked off the 10 metre marks with cable ties on the chain, as we had forgotten to put markers on it when we put it in the chain bay after we bought it .At the moment its very slow to bring in without the stripper arm and it tends to wrap itself around the gypsy instead of peeling off into the chain locker.

There was an 8 knot breeze so we hauled up the main and sailed up through Hook Passage with no idea of where we wanted to go. It was slow going through the passage due to the opposing currents and eddies, we got down to 1 knt. The once delightful little resort and observatory on Hook Is was closed which is a shame as it was a lovely spot.

We still couldn’t make up our minds on a destination so headed north east and opted for a fishing and whale spotting cruise. We were rewarded by both.

John caught two Tuna macs which we kept one for bait as we had no bait and to my delight spotted half a dozen whales. It was a very exciting afternoon.

At 3:30 we turned back towards the mainland heading for the top of Hook Island. The plan was to cruise along the anchorages until we found a spare mooring buoy. Anchoring in these top anchorages is usually rather deep so a buoy was much preferred especially as its such a job to get our anchor up at the moment.

Luckily as we rounded first inlet, Pinnacle Bay one of the two mooring buoys was vacant so we picked it up and secured it to the bow.

Went ashore to try and walk up to the little lighthouse but the tide was up and we couldn’t pull the dinghy up because the beach was covered. We chose another little beach and searched for shells and interesting dead coral formations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Took the dinghy round the point out of the green zone and fished, with John pulling in a lovely 2 lb sweetlip for dinner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Back on Ovive we enjoyed happy hour on the back deck. One of the most scenic happy hours yet, four whales were frolicking just out of the bay for quite a while, then they headed for Manta Ray bay next to us. They must have gone in really close to the anchored boats, what a treat for them.

Fresh fish and chips for dinner. Excellent tasting fish, it rivals coral trout.

The mooring buoy gave us grief in the night it kept banging against the hull., John getting up several times to solve the problem.

Wind 10 – 15 knts partly sunny 15 nm

Rode with Morgan along the boardwalk towards Cannonvale for breakfast at a lovely cafe named The Fat Frog. The cafe overlooks the beach and the bay looking eastwards towards Abell Point and the food is interesting and tasty.

It is better than the usual Eggs Benedict with salmon etc that seems to be all the go elsewhere.

I had a stack with roast capsicum, avocado, chorizo, bacon and grilled haloumi on spinach topped with a hollandaise sauce and John had coconut porridge with almonds, bananas and yogurt. He said it was delicious. The cafe was very dog friendly going to the extent of having three meals at the bottom of the menu for our K9 pals.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We departed Abell Point at 11:00 and had a fantastic sail doing 8 – 9 knots in 15- 18 knots of breeze. Mays Bay on the western side of Hook Island was our destination. John was pretty happy as we out sailed the other yachts heading our way. We dropped anchor in 7 mts of water at half tide as we didn’t want to anchor near any coral. Last time we anchored here in Crusader we went in too close and had to re anchor. There was a slight roll at anchor but not much to worry about.

A dinghy ride to reconnoiter with the depth sounder for coral and likely fishing spots showed no coral, it must be too deep or further over.

Bernie’s Beach looked too rocky for pulling the dinghy up so we motored further north to a pretty little beach with a sandy landing.

John gave the cast net a few throws but could only produce 5 small fish to keep for bait.

Morgan had a good time regardless.

With four stubbies, bait and fishing gear John and Morgan headed off to Lion Point for a fish. No luck there so they tried further north, still no luck so returned home without breakfast. He put the lines out off the back of O’vive and caught two small reef sharks and two small trevally which he returned to their watery home in the hope of catching an emperor for breaky.

No such luck looks like bacon and eggs.

Wind 10 – 15 Knts – sunny

We have decided if the marina has room for us we will stay an extra day to complete all our tasks . They can fit us in tonight but are very busy over the weekend so that works out well.

Morgan and I walked along the boardwalk and path to Cannonvale so she could have a play with other dogs. The walk was enjoyable but the 2 dogs she chose to play with totally ignored her as they were playing fetch with a ball despite the fact that she ran round and round them like a puppy.

 

 

Managed to do two loads of washing up at the laundry while John got the paper and replaced the torn mainsheet with 35 metres of new double braided rope.

The afternoon was spent washing the boat as a shag had sat on the top of the mast two nights ago and crapped all over the boat. Hope he doesn’t come back tonight !

Pumped up my new paddle board that arrived by courier from Maclean Outdoors via Hobie. How good is it to ring up your brother in law and order one to arrive in Airlie Beach no hassles. Thanks Doug and Sandra.

Before the sun set we rode to Airlie for milk, bread and butter, John had a beer at Magnums bar while I grabbed the supplies at the new Woolworths in Airlie then we rode back to Sorrentos for rib cutlets for dinner.

Weather is good for departure tomorrow , however it is Friday, we just won’t take bananas or suitcases or whistle on board.