Our Swirling Vortex of Christmas Death!

Fake lips and plastic moustaches.
God bless cheap Christmas crackers!

The trip from Curlew to the Duke Islands was great in comparison to some of our recent legs back south. We got an early start on Christmas Eve, raising our anchor a little before 5am. The wind had lots of south in it and the tide was strong enough to help us keep our south-east course. We had decent wind (20-25 knots) and waves (to 3m) for the first couple of hours but then the wind and waves dropped off and we had quite a pleasant sail for the next few hours.

Before the carnage.

We were at the Dukes during spring tides, when there is a big difference between tide heights at high and low tides. On top of this, the tides around Shoalwater Bay are renowned for their insanity and I can't recall noticing springs as much as we did at the Dukes. It took us a few tries to find an anchorage and we ended up in a nice deep bay on the south end of Hunter Island. We spent the afternoon there preparing for Santa's arrival and noticed nothing unusual. Shortly after bedtime however the wind picked up and with it the waves. We were rolling like a crazy rolly thing, and sleep for me at least was impossible, although Shane was fine. It calmed down after an hour or so and I nodded off eventually. After pressie-opening the next day, the rocking kicked in again and we went upstairs to discover that we were in a swirling vortex of Christmas death!! Shane calls it "tidal disturbance" but he is very good at minimising. The vortex was small, only 30m or so across. One side of the bay was an island that at low tide was joined to Hunter Island, but at high tide the water coming over the causeway was quite wild - it was the craziest bit of water in the whole massive bay and we were in it. We paused Christmas lunch prep and relocated (because we can!) to a delightfully turtle-infested bay near the cattle station on the west side of Marble Island. It was calm and lovely and we had a fantastic afternoon that involved lots of eating, drinking, reading, card-playing and snoozing. Santa was very kind to everyone - the kids did particularly well although Santa was perhaps a little mean giving them each a Wii game that they can't use until we're home.

Under spinnaker, me at the helm.

From the Dukes, we continued south and on the way managed to do another all-nighter by accident. The wind swung north and we had a fantastic run to Island Head Creek - so good that we decided to chuck the spinnaker up and keep going to Port Clinton. Shortly before arriving at Port Clinton, Haydee and I evicted Shane and Cam into the dinghy and they took some photos and videos of the boat sailing under spinnaker - something that is hard to get.

Port Clinton is barred and Ex-TC Fina kicked up a wicked 3m south-east swell creating massive breakers over the shallows that meant crossing the bar could have been potentially catastrophic, so we didn't. After another family vote (do we night-sail or anchor overnight and head off again in the morning?), we anchored behind a big rock that mostly-protected us from the swell, had dinner, got ready for a night sail and waited for the incoming tide to turn. We set off again just after 10pm and got to Keppel Bay marina a little after 5.30am.

From here, we have less-than-ideal weather to sail south-east but good weather to sail east and so will head to Herron Island via Great Keppel Island then down to Lady Musgrave via Fitzroy Reef to see some turtles nesting and hatching, we hope!!!