The Drama Continues....

Cooling off warm toes
in Upstart Bay

The weather since we were in Bowen took longer to clear than we would have hoped meaning we didn't make it back out to the reef unfortunately. When I last blogged, I said we'd take two or three days to head from Cape Upstart to Townsville, which was good in theory. We in fact did the 79 nautical miles - or 142km! - in one 13-hour stint. We made the almost never-ending trek across Upstart Bay and found, on rounding Cape Bowling Green at 4.00pm, that Bowling Green Bay was abysmal as a protected anchorage in strong south-easterlies so we made a communal decision to continue on to Cape Cleveland. Shane enjoys night sailing, which is fortunate as it was dark before we reached Cape Cleveland, 11nm from Townsville. Given we were so close to Townsville, we kept going and finished the long trip a little before 10.30pm after setting sail 13 hours earlier. I was overjoyed when Shane selected an anchorage that would see us in just 1.7m of water, with our 1.7m draught but, as usual, we were completely fine (and we made sure we were clear by the next low tide which was 20cm lower and may not have seen us fare so well).

Enjoying Reef HQ

We spent two nights in Townsville's Breakwater Marina, which was quite a good place to stay, taking care of the usual essentials before heading north to Magnetic Island where we had two lovely nights in Horseshoe Bay. Shane booted us all out of bed early this morning in an attempt to get us underway before 9am. The flaw in the "get up early and go" plan was Haydee's excellent eyesight. She spotted something odd floating about half a mile away from us. We went to investigate and found a tinny, half full of water, with no one in or around it. Shane hopped in, put a bung in it and bailed the water out before hauling up its anchor and, in turn, a fishing rod and bimini. We towed it back to Horseshoe Bay and handed it over to the Water Police who told us that they had found the owner safe and sound but that he and two mates had been capsized while out fishing. The police returned the boat to it's owner on Magnetic Island but I've decided that it is futile to get out of bed before 8am and will avoid doing it ever again.

On the way to Orpheus Island

Aside from a slightly delayed start and a lack of wind, we had a good day today, motor-sailing from Magnetic Island to the beautiful Orpheus Island where we've picked up a public mooring buoy in a beautiful bay on the western side. Our next stop is Hinchinbrook Island via the channel, a part of the trip I've been looking forward to.

Finally, can I mention that we have now caught 4 sharks and 2 more maybe-possibly-sharks (including the big one in Shute Harbour, Greg!) that we haven't landed. I haven't let the kids go swimming for ages but, strangely, they don't seem to want to.