We departed Cape Gloucester on the 23^rd June taking advantage of some lesser winds but enough to make an overnight sail to Magnetic Island anchoring in the north at 10am on the morning of the 24^th.

 

Magnetic Island did not fail to impress.  A great anchorage in the southerly wind conditions, and Lia’s favourite so far as it was very flat 😉. It has beautiful walks with koalas in the wild and WW2 historical sights.  We had a few fun catch ups with Lia’s boss and partner (Adam and Georgia) and an old buddy from Cromwell (Trudy) in Townsville.

 

We also did some serious planning while in Maggie Island. In hindsight we should have left Bundaberg a few months earlier, due to cyclone season starting in November, and the southerly winds and seas that WA is notorious for in the summer months … but hey, that is life. So we made the decision to push faster to get north with less stopovers, to give us maximum time in the Kimberly before the end of November.  

 

After a few delightful days in Maggie Island, we did another overnight dash in good strong southerly winds (18-24 kts) to arrive in Cairns. I haven’t been to Cairns since my Navy days in the 90s but Lia has spent quite a bit of time there over the last few years with work. Some familiar sights but a lot of build-up and changes.  We both caught up with old mates.  Great to see Nathan, Toby and the family, and Lia’s Topdeck mates.

 

It was going to be a 4 day stop to reprovision and catch up, but with me being me, I decided to pull the engine hatch cover off to look at a leak that had been annoying me for a while. If I needed parts, then Cairns was the place to get them.  But of course, it turned out to be a Pandora’s box. Once the cover was off, I found it had been delaminating for a while and the wood core rotten away.  So, 4 days turned into 7 days to rebuild cover.  It was some long days, but Cairns is a great place with lots of distractions in the evenings.  A huge thanks to Toby for the use of his garage and expertise advising the best way to rebuild the hatch.  Now it’s better than ever. 

 

With all completed, a last big shop (for 3 weeks until Thurday Island area) and some cocktails at Salt House, we sailed from Cairns on the morning of Monday 6July, for the Low Isles off Port Douglas and a few days on the reef before heading to Lizard Island.  We had one night in The Low Islands and a snorkel with the punters the next morning before sailing  few hours to Batt Reef for some fishing and an overnight stay on the 8th.  We found out this was where Steve Irwin met his match with that stingray.   Safe to say we just fished not swam 😉

 

This morning we move to Mackay Reef a few hours north as the open reef here and the weather made for a choppy night.   From there we push north to Lizard to hunker down before a predicted blow on the weekend.  We also have Nigel joining us on the 29^th July at Thursday Island so about 3 weeks to make it to the top.  Should be fun.

 

Also we have no idea about internet from here onwards.  Watch this space for the next post 😉