Townsville to Whitsundays

Well we made it! Hello the Whitsundays, the world famous cruising grounds off the East coast of Australia. Although we did have a few challenges on the way. We started this little leg south from Townsville to Airlie a week ago by having an unexpected reunion with our Wharram Catamaran friends before our departure.

Getting away at 2 pm, a bit later than hoped, thanks a lot to Australia Post, who have managed to lose a book posted to Anna in the post (and we learnt they lost it again completely by the time we got to Airlie Beach), we needed to make reasonable time to get to our first anchorage.
Once we did arrive to the first of the capes that separated us from the Whitsundays, Cape Cleveland, around 6pm that night, we decided we could save a day if we sailed under the full moon, and made it to the following Cape, Cape Bowling Green the following morning. So instead of our now normal customary procedure of relaxing and watching the sunset, we instead quickly made some hot soup for the thermos (which rob managed to consume all of before Anna got a chance) and a quick Anna stirfry special to keep us going while we still had a bit of sunlight. As only two nights before we had witnessed the lunar eclispse, we were lucky to get the moon rising almost at the same time that the sun set, which was rather handy in keeping our nav accurate as we slid between a couple of rocky islands and the headland just on dark. It was then a gorgeous night and 15knots of wind to get us down to the next cape, another 20miles southeast. Rob did the first shift at the helm, using the adventure racers not so secret diet of lollies, chips and some more lollies to stay awake. At which point Anna was to awake from her slumber (somewhat later than planned...). From here, Anna had the glory of sailing around the 2nd of 2 capes, Cape Bowling Green as the sun dawned, but not before waking Rob to ask about a boat at anchor that had its full navigation lights on (we couldn’t work out where it was trying to go!).
From here we sailed close by to a very long 35mile stretch of sandy cape towards the final Cape of the 3, Cape Upstart. We arrived here around 4pm after passing the normal 3 or 4 boats heading north, very fast, under full spinnaker. Not satisfied with doing one all night sail, we decided to press on past Cape Upstart towards Bowen and Gloucester Island over night to hopefully arrive there around midday the following day (at this stage I was sure Anna was really missing adventure racing). So leaving Cape Upstart around 6pm, Anna took the helm again to claim the “rounding of the 3 capes” title before I took over for a few hours as we snuck down the side of this cape towards Australia’s biggest Sugar cane exporting port. With the helm changed at midnight to Anna, which coincided perfectly with the person who had to try and sneak across the channel between huge ships (that are scaringly fast!). Anna managed to do this with relative ease, before we finally made our way towards the sheltered Bona Bay off Gloucester Island. So we finally arrived, 48 hours later and over a 100 nautical miles into the wind. We were anxious to get some relaxing done, which was easy to do at the serene spot we had chosen. From here we sailed an excited 12 miles to Woodwark Bay where we managed to sail into 20knots of wind and through a narrow reef- littered channel. I also managed to catch a 15kg Tuna and a got a cut finger to boot, although the fish was released as it would have taken a week to eat it, and we don’t have a fridge!
I have also secretly captured and included Anna’s 3 step guide to launching a dinghy from the beach (not always the quickest method, believe me!). 1st, push until tired or hungry, whichever comes first, 2nd inspect that the manicure has not in fact been damaged, and 3rd proceed by pushing, not pulling, much more elegant...