Liberated from Enforced Stop
Well, after contributing an unexpected and generous sum of money to the Townsville economy due to our unhappy engine we are underway again. We left Townsville on Sunday at 0730 and motored (no wind) about 48 miles to Little Pioneer Bay on Orpheus Island, part of the Palm Group where we arrived at 1350 and picked up a public mooring. We stayed the night, very calm and pretty. Saw a small sharks swimming by and later a very large stingray feeding on the out going tide.
Next morning (Monday) we left at 0625 and motored (no wind) to Mourilyan Harbour, on the Moresby River, near Innisfail (which is the nearest town inland). What a lovely little harbour. It has huge sugar sheds and loading wharf, plus fishing boats but no town or houses. Very quiet and peaceful, really pretty. Another good nights sleep.
This morning we left at 0740. We optimistically raised the sails thinking we had 8-10 kots of breeze from the WSW but of course it went away the moment we popped the sails up so we are motoring again.
Good thing is the engine seems to be happy. The scenery since we left Townsville has been excellent, passing pretty islands, and the mainland is surprisingly rugged/hilly/craggy and green with dense rainforest type vegetaion. No major ribbon housing as one sees along the coast further south.
Hope to arrive in Cairns late afternoon, early evening.
08 June 2008
Cairns and Haulout Blues
We are anchored in the river at Cairns after our haulout at Norship. Not a great experience. The yard specialises in doing Customs, Navy and Fishing vessels and really isn't set up for yachts, especially deep draft yachts. The yard was dirty, junk all over the place, toilet and shower facilities dirty (although the shower head at at least provided a lot of hot water).
Then when we went back in the water, we found that the carpet covered block of wood between the side of the cradle and the hull of Musketelle had scratched the gelcoat. Due to the Im sorry to say no care, no responsibilty 'yardies' wrapping a "protective" course carpet square with dry encrused paint around a block of old pallet wood with gangnails in it and using it as a chock in the cradle so that when the weight came off the slings when Musketelle settled the hull was damaged. We only noticed this damage when she was lifted out of the cradle to splash.
Needless to say the captain gave the travel lift guys a broadside in solid kiwi terms only to be matched by the Aussie yardies who raved on about "f.... yachts". They clearly only want that big government business. Apart from the mechanics at Townsville, we have found the Queensland Aussies to be lazy, lacking initiative, and surprisingly unfriendly.
To add insult to injury (or in this case to add injury to insult) we have been savaged by midges and mozzzies, and our arms and legs are covered in bites which are so itchy that it is impossible not to itch even though that makes it worse. We look like the sort of people one would not want to stand next to in a queue in case one caught something.
Anyway, we will spend another day or two in Cairns to do some final shopping and then head north. We are not behind schedule which is good and we kept seeing other yachts who are also heading to Darwin for the rally.
Biggest problem B has at the moment is finding places to stow things aboard. Problem solved then it all gets pulled out again when we need something at the bottom of the stack. We need a shed !!
18 June 2008
Feels Like the Real Thing
Our current position is 15 degress 56.853S 145 deg 29.210E.
Well we are finally on the move again. We really feel that this is the first day of the resumption of our cruising lifestyle.
After the summer parked up at Scarborough to avoid the cyclone season, we had a nice interlude in the Whitsundays with Deb and Gary sailing short hops between anchorages relaxing and looking at the scenery rather than rush up the coast.
Next we moved onto Magnetic Island only to spend have the enforced week at Townsville getting the engine fixed before motoring to Cairns (with a couple of nice one night stops en route) where we spent 10 days with the haulout and hanging out in the river. Finally 4 nights at Yorkeys Knob, we met up with Christchurch friends Eddie and Jenny on Te Wai Pounamu, who have joined the Indonesian rally at the last minute and are still completing their pre-departure bits and pieces.
We left Yorkeys Knob at 0630 this morning which means we were too early for a stop at the Low Isles and too late for Hope Island so we will sail through the night to Lizard Island which is the subject of glowing reports from fellow cruisers. However we may decide at the last minute to detour into Cooktown in the dark and go onto Lizard the next day. Not sure yet. (it is currently 1630 on Wed 18 June).
19 June 2008
Cooktown Tide Rules
Well we did decide to call into Cooktown, getting there about 9pm in the dark, a narrow but not bad entrance, well beaconed. However the anchorage area was very shallow except by the commercial wharf and the best spots were already occupied. We sat on the bottom at low tide and as the low tide at lunchtime the next day was to be even lower we decided discretion was the better part of valour and left at 0815 in the morning on the high tide. Since then we heard the port official on the VHF telling a fisherman that no ships were expected for the next few days so if we had called him up he probably would have told us we could anchor nearer the wharf. We would have liked to have gone ashore and looked around. Oh well, another day, another anchorage.
20 June 2008
The Lizard Blows
We then sailed onto Lizard Island Had an excellent sail, wind South East 15-20 knots, On arrival Lizard it then piped up to 25 knots plus as we prepared to furl the sail and anchor. Typical!!.
There were 10 other boats in the anchorage, most of them yachts on the rally. By the time we left there we 21. All waiting out the weather which had not dropped below 25 knots and persistently howled at 30 knots, highest we noted at 41.7 knots. Being Wellingtonians we are used to gutsy wind, but even Wellington has variety - this was constant wind for 24 hours a day.
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| Anchorage Lizard Island |
A Week of Brilliant Sailing Riding the Brisk SE.....
24 June 2008
We finally leave Lizard on Thursday at 0730, still in the SE gale. P notes that South East is the direction of Wellington......One good thing about the wind is that the sailing is FAST!. We really have been moving at a good pace....we sailed to Flinders Island, anchoring at 1730 - a distance of 80 miles. Top speed surfing off a wave was 11.7 knots.
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| The SE'er swept us past some magnificent rocky scenery |
Up anchor at 0700 for another fast sail to Morris Island - not exactly an island but a small flat blob with one coconut tree and a huge reef. The reef broke the swell but gave no wind protection although the holding was good. Another nights sleep in the gale.
26 June 2008
Next stop Portland Roads, which is described in the cruising guide as the last outpost of civilization going north. No shop, a part-time post office and one solar powered public telephone. Still windy. 10 people, one a kiwi woman from the Hutt Valley.....K1w1's are everywhere.
27 June 2008
Today we departed Portland Roads at the civilsed hour of 0840 and sailed a brisk 50miles to reach Shelburne Bay just north of Cape Grenville putting the pick down at 1345. A large very shallow bay, we motored in for over a mile in less than 5 metres of water to get some lessening in the swell. Still windy 25 knots plus. The hills ashore seem to be snow capped but in reality it is silica sand.
Big fish news... Today we landed a huge but huge yellow fin tuna. He was 700mm long and weighed 18kg. Quite a job hauling him in while sailing at 8 knots but even harder to slow the yacht down in a running sea boosted by thesE endless SE'ers.
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| The Evidence |
28 June 2008
Departed Shelburne Bay early at 0600 heading for the aptly named Escape River and the prospect of viewing crocodiles as we have our sundowners on the aft deck....and to prepare for the biggy - Cape York. Will keep you posted.
30 June 2008
Cape York Ticked Off
Hello from Seisa on the west side of the York Peninsula.
On leaving Shelburne Bay early we had a great run up the coast, so great we got to Escape River well before planned so decided to continue straight on to the Albany Passage which separates Albany Island from Cape York the northern most point of the big country. Seas on the approaches to the passage were getting very big and we were surfing at 10 knots. Now this may seem small beer to the uninitiated but let us tell you this is as good as it gets sailing with winds at 30+ knots, tide in our favour and endless swells to ride. We went thru on the flood tide in the afternoon (about mid flood) and got a real boost from that. Think it was about 4.00 pm when we entered the eastern end.
The channel is about a bit narrower than Tory Channel but more spectacular with steep rocky faces on each side and about 2 miles long. It was very very windy approaching the Passage and seas in the last mile or so approaching were standing up.
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| Entering the boiling waters in the Albany Passage, Cape York to port Albany Island to starboard in distance |
We talked about opting to not go through but instead going around Albany Island but a yacht in front seemed ok so we made the decision to go for it. We checked the preventer rope to ensure the boom was firm as we had our mainsail out but no headsail. Captain P promised B it would be a breeze....yeah right, moments later we gybed when the wind backed the mainsail as we surfed down a wave and broached. At the same time the snap shackle on our preventer exploded and the mainsail gybed violently across from port to starboard with a hell of a bang and crash.....(B notes: P was taking photos at the time and not concentrating on steering!!).
We recovered from that with P starting the motor to get Muskie back on course while B got a replacement shackle and repositioned the preventer line on the otherside. All this in 2 minutes which seemed much longer and we were still charging through the pass. We congratulated ourselves on the recovery team effort even if the blood pressure had gone up a notch or six !!
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| Chart Plotter approach track to Cape York |
We were totally pooped and were thankful for our first quiet anchorage for weeks. Think we got 11 hours sleep before motoring Sunday morning the 7 miles to Seisia where we currently are. Seisia is the port (ie it has a wharf) for the aboriginal town of Bamaga and is a little red dusted village with a good supermarket and a library but not much else about 10 miles south of Cape York. Six yachts at anchor (one Norwegian, one Pom, one Aussie and 3 Kiwi), rusty coastal ship at the wharf and ashore dozens of grey nomads at the camping ground, driving Toyota LandCruisers or campervans on the ritualistic pilgrimage to the Cape. Lovely dry 30 degree heat and the beach is pristine white but no swimming because the crocodiles are definitely about.
Now focussed on getting across the Gulf of Carpentaria to Gove and around our next major cape, Arnhemlands Cape Wessel. Will depart tomorrow morning Tuesday at 10am local time on the 350 mile hop to Gove.
