It's Been A While

Haydee fishing at Island Head Creek

We've traveled a fair way since my last post from Port Clinton and a little over 700 nautical miles or 1300km all up. We're currently sitting out some strong wind, re-stocking and doing some maintenance in Mackay. After Port Clinton, we spent some time relaxing in Island Head Creek, a ridiculously popular spot with 30 or so other boats in there with us. While our fishing efforts there weren't successful, some blokes doing some serious fishing donated a rather tasty Golden Spotted Cod to us - a nice break from chicken and sausages, which was somehow the only meat we had left in the fridge at the time.

Shoalwater Bay was interesting although not on my Top 10 list if I'm honest. The tides in the area are big and fast-moving so movement and anchoring can be interesting. Having said that, we did discover the very beautiful Lingham Island in the Cannibal Group and the kids enjoyed Cape Townshend. Our depth sounder started playing mind games with us on the way into Thirsty Sound - we have a 1.7m draught, we could see lots of sharp pointy rocks around us and the depth sounder started telling us we were in 1m of water. It was the effect of air and mud churned through the water by the tide but it almost felt like we were blind. Shane was completely calm but I was working out where we were in the tide, how long it would take to float off again if we grounded, and where the kids and I would go to wait for the boat to float again (I decided on the local pub). We were, of course, fine.

Relaxing at Middle Percy

After restocking the fridge at Thirsty Sound, we headed 40 miles or so offshore to the Duke and Percy Isles. The Dukes are at the top of my Top 10 list - and possibly Shane's as well as the fishing there was great. We had a tasty parrot fish curry there (which Haydee ate and enjoyed unlike the Golden Spotted Cod at Island Head Creek which she named, patted and refused to eat). The stunning Percy Isles are revered as a cruising mecca and it was great to visit the hut and leave our own little bit of memorabilia (a small plank of wood which we engraved using Shane's soldering iron). The kids spent lots of time on the beach, playing with the poor wildlife that wasn't quick enough to get away from them. We originally planned to move from the Percies to Mackay via Curlew Island but a strong wind warning where we were and a gale warning further south prompted us to bypass Curlew and head straight into Mackay. Both Seasprint and I are happy in strong winds, and Shane was grinning like a crazy thing when we set a new boat speed record of 9.3 knots, 11 knots over ground, while surfing down a wave but gales I won't do so was it was good to get to a marina. From here, we will continue north to the Whitsundays - the part of the trip I'm looking forward to the most - avoiding, I hope, the craziness of Hamilton Island Race Week and the multihull equivalent at Airlie Beach.