We had a beautiful sunset over Hinchinbrook Island, had a feed and were then fast asleep for an early morning departure at 0 dark 30. We covered the 65 miles before dark making Mourilyan Harbour on the slack tide, averaging well over 6.5 knots as we did the 65 NM in about 9 hours.

We found the new gennaker easy to launch and recover, the only problem winds most the way to Cairns have been in the 25-30 kt range and well out of the 15-18kt range for our gennaker.
 

We left first light for the final 50 miles to Cairns, in 25kt winds and were doing 7-8 kts most the way, we came down the channel into Half Moon Bay Marina with the wind howling on our beam and it was quite hair raising. We made it in OK but it was not for the fainthearted. We made it into the marina, and our assigned spot was right at the entrance. We were quickly berthed and then the pressure was off to just relax…..not…we had some maintenance issues, had to clean the boat but before long we were in the Yorkeys Knob Boating Club having a feed and relaxing.

Our berth in Half Moon Bay Marina, you can see the entrance right behind Crusoe.

We have 7 days to explore, rest and catch up with old friends, then we head to Norship to haul out Crusoe for a quick bottom paint, then back to our berth at Half Moon Bay. I will have another few weeks then back to work. We rented a “wreck” for the remainder of the time I am here, so we are mobile. When I return from work next hitch we will have 8 weeks to make it up the N. Queensland coast across the Gulf of Carpenteria to Gove where we will clear customs then through Indonesia and to Northern Borneo Malaysia, where we plan to hang our hats for awhile.

Well we never were too enthused with crowds of yachties  and the Whitsundays have no shortage of them. We spent a night in Cid Harbour and received a perfect weather forecast for proceeding north, so we made a command decision on the spot to continue to Magnetic Island, north around 130 nm. So we headed out to 15-18 kt SSE wind that saw us sitting on a comfortable 6kt average… until around 2am when we were confronted head on with an opposing tide that slowed us to about 4.5-5kt. However we were treated to what the news is reporting as the “super moon” rise that was simultaneous with the sun set, and it was during perfect sailing conditions on a perfect night so we were happy with our decision to head north.

    
These 2 pictures were taken 30 seconds from each other, the sunset was off the bow and the moonrise off the stern!

  
The first hoist of the new Gennaker!

The arrival into Magnetic was nice and uneventful and it was nice to drop the dingy in the water and go ashore.

We like to keep our family and friends up to date with our progress, but we welcome all visitors and comments.

We woke at first light and headed for the Whitsundays, since we were making a good 6-7 knot average we decided to do some sightseeing and take a route that weaved us through the Islands, winds were 15-18kt. We passed outside Shaw and Lindeman Islands and headed for the passage between Whitsunday Island and Hamilton Island, we had to watch for “Surprise Rock” but it was low tide on arrival and it was clearly visible. Coming down the narrow passage was lovely at a leisurely 4-5 kts, the resort at Hamilton became visible with the high rises and parasailers.
                         
Keswick to Whitsundays                   Hamilton Isn. Resort

Undeveloped side of Hamilton (previously owned by ex Beatle George Harrison)

We safely navigated the narrow channel and rounded the corner into Cid Harbour, dropped the anchor and watched a beautiful sunset with an amazing moon rise over the hill off the bow of Crusoe, a very visually stimulating experience.

Moon Rise over Cid Harbour

Plan is to cruise here for the next couple days and leave for an overnighter to Magnetic Island on Thursday 10th as the breeze is forecast for 20+ kts and will make for good time for the 125nm run downwind. We will head to Stonehaven anchorage today, just a short hop to the next northerly island (Hook Island) then Hayman Island the following day. As the winds will be light we will break out the new Gennaker and practice hoisting and flying it…next post.

Raewyn with her Spanish Mackerel caught while approaching the fairway bouy at the north end of the Sandy Straits.

The next day timing was everything as in the sandy straits the tides reverse direction mid way so if you time it right you head into it with the rising tide and get the tide going out the other, we hit it perfectly and had a couple knots extra both ways!

We headed for Masthead Island in the Capricorn Group, however we had a forecast for winds in excess of 33 kts and the anchorage would have been too animated so we sailed past it, and kept moving north. All in all it was two over nighters to NE Percy Island, where we spent 2 very blusterous nights tucked into “Blunt Bay”

Approaching Blunt Bay NE Percy Island                          Tiare Taporo III In NE Percy Island

We discovered our generator was not sending out AC voltage to our distribution panel so rather then continue cruising the Percy’s we decided to head to Mackay a day early to fix the problem, to do so we had to lift anchor at 0400 to make Mackay before dark (and wind 25+kts). I am writing this from the dock in Mackay, and its blowing dogs off chains right now, so we are happy to be tied to land for the moment.

On the way to Mackay we were visited by a small pod of dolphins including a very young calf, who never missed a turn or jump with mother, it looked like a small social group of about 8 .

We want to mention a cool product the coolest thing since sliced bread! Tree Frog Pad www.treefrogpad.com. We approached them to purchase some to hold our computer from sliding on the boat, and they sent us a package of several sizes to try for free, really nice people, and the product is absolutely the cats (frogs) meow. We 100% recommend this as we had our laptop on a flat chart table while rolling from gunnel to gunnel for two days of intense downwind sailing, and not once did I even worry about it falling off the table.

    
The Tree Frog Pad

We zig zaged our way through anchored freighters into Mackay, and tomorrow we will try to sort out the generator, luckily they have a Northern Lights dealer in the marina boatyard.

Day 1 in Mackay, we had Rod at “Boat Power” Diagnosed and removed our Generator for rewinding. It was fortunate we were close to Mackay when this happened as Rod knows his stuff and we are confident he will have us powered up again soon, estimate is 7 days, but we are hoping we can get it done before the end of the week, fingers crossed.

We took it apart in bits to get it out of the tight engine room, removed the door, together they were about 200kg all up, but the two main pieces pictured were about 100kg ea, so we just muscled them out.

Day 2 Mackay:

We got all 4 laptops (yes 4) all working with Nobeltec and AIS (automatic identification system) working with the help of Nick at MME, it was a challenge as the Comar AIS says to use different settings than the Nobeltec does, but perseverance paid off, once one was done we knew what to do with the other 3. So now if we loose a computer to theft or damage we can pull out a spare, we also have a dedicated fifth computer that is 13 years old running windows 98 that runs the cruiser version of C-MAP and Sailmail, (this computer runs on it’s own dedicated GPS), so we actually run two computers at all times. This allows a check and balance with each other, and we always have paper charts on hand. It is important to know your position at all times. In the o’ll days (Odds Bodkins - or Tayanna 37) we only had a sextant and if we were within 4-5 miles we were happy, so the modern technology of today opens a lot of doors, however we always have a sextant on board and up to date sight reduction tables and nautical almanac, in case we loose all power and are unable to get a fix by GPS.

Day 3 Mackay:

Rod from Boat Power is bringing the Gen set back this morning apparently all sorted, to re-install, so we could be on our way again tomorrow. Here is Rod arriving and me supervising:-)

When I finish this tour I have a one day diversion to Lagos to do a HUET or “Dunker” training (Helicopter Underwater Escape Training) I have to complete every 3 year’s, then 2 days of traveling before reaching the boat in TCB.

More later, anyone heading the same way (North to Gove/Indodesia/Malaysia) who would like to compare notes, please get in touch.

We had a new North gennaker (Cruising Spinnaker) made and we have been installing all the hardware for it, a much bigger job than expected, new tangs being fabricated, new snatch block for the tack line and new blocks for the sheets. We will undoubtedly have some nice pics of the gennaker in April when our journey begins again.

     The new Gennaker attachments we installed today.

We also changed fuel filters, serviced all the winches on-board (8), and are preparing to do a cut and polish on the topsides, the work NEVER stops on a boat, when it does it goes down hill fast. In addition we installed an AIS (automatic Identification system) this will show all vessels in our area on the chart plotter. We drained the bottom of the fuel tanks to eliminate water contamination, this was after several boats discovered the “Black demon”, it is a bacteria that feeds on water in diesel, we had a little water, nothing serious and added “Fuel Doctor”. We also charged the refrigeration (and found a loose nut that was leaking gas) and added a thermostat to enable us to travel for a few days on land and not worry about the reefer staying cold, in the past we had to turn on a switch. While cruising we will turn off the  thermostat, it is basically for use while on shore power. We also took out the Sea Recovery watermaker and serviced it, replaced the mounts (one of which was broken) and the high pressure pump had a plastic cap broken which cost $110 NZD to have sent to TCB!.

    We super glued it together until the new one came.

And in our spare time we keep crab pots set up the creek and we are blessed with lots of mud crabs and blue swimmer crabs, we have of late become a bit over indulged in crabs and have not set the pots for a while. This all while dodging insistent rain, sometimes very heavy in T-Storms, still a few months of wet season before it dries out.

The newest plan is to have a leisurely sail north to Cairns or Port Douglas, taking in lots of cool anchorages we have been to several times in the past, and some new ones as well, we will have six weeks to do the trip before I again return to work.

On the next trip back to Cairns from work we will make a serious move North to Gove Northern Territory, clear customs and off for Indonesia, and our main destination of Kota Kinabalu, northern Borneo Malaysia. We will have 8 weeks to complete this trip at a leisurely pace. We have the entire trip planned with all waypoints already on the chart plotter. More on that in the next post.

For those following us we will plan to depart for “North” around April 21st and sail to Mackay Marina to do a fast pit stop and paint the bottom again as we want two things 1) to be able to get into a marina in Darwin while I return to work and 2) get 2 years before the next haul, and not worry about it in Malaysia for awhile, maybe by the time we are ready to haul out again we will be sailing for Langkawi where there is a first class haul out facility.

Our new gennaker is ready for delivery and will be tested on the sail north, should be downwind most of the way north.

As the anchor drags………………….

She won’t be able to get past the spreaders until I get there, then she will crank me up to do the other half. This process takes all the oxidation off and preserves it as well, very necessary as they are bare alloy.

They have been tested overnight with 20+ kt winds as a front just passed through Tin Can Bay

Raewyn had covers made for the new fenders, we used the same one’s on our last boat and helped save the paint.

We awoke this morning in Garry’s Anchorage to fog - this is “Dragonfly 3″ owned by Jim and Anna from Brisbane, they are about 100 meters off our stern in this picture.  We plan to leave for Tin Can Bay on the tide this morning.

Here in the Sandy Straits we have caught fish & crabs, seen dugongs, dolphin and turtles.  Once the fog lifts we will retrieve the crab pot (hopefully with crabs) and weigh anchor for Tin Can Bay, with an overnight along the way at Pelican Bay so we can go into Tin Can Bay Marina on the high tide the next afternoon.

Sheridan Flats Bounty

Fishing the banks

Sunset

We’re off to pull up the crab pot, fog is lifting now, we have about 3 hours before the tide is favourable for our departure today Monday 19th September 2011.