Pancakes at Pancake Creek

Enjoying Judy's famous pancakes at Pancake Creek ... especially a big favourite with Mitch the staffy!

Island Head Creek to Great Keppel Island

Another long day’s sail and a bit lumpy into Island Head Creek where we caught up with “Bamboozle” for sundowners.  

Up again just before break of day to try to reach Great Keppel Island in one day.  Plenty of whales still around and pods of dolphins to keep us amused.  With a good downwind run we were able to sail at 7 knots until the wind picked up to 20 knots, then changed from screecher to genoa and the wind kept building.  Eventually we gave up on the main and still ran at 8 knots on the genoa.  When the wind hit 30 knots we even reefed the genoa and still arrived before scheduled.

Scawfell Island to The Percy Islands

An early start again for the long sail to The Percy Islands, accompanying Colin and Cheryl on “Decka”. 

It turned into mostly motor-sailing, despite much tweaking and trimming of the main and screecher.  As we rounded the last rocks and prepared to drop sails Peter hooked up a good sized mackerel.  Just made the anchorage in White’s Bay before dark and Cheryl invited us for roast chicken dinner, which was gratefully appreciated. 

Middle Percy is an island to rival any of the Whitsundays.  With white sandy beaches to rival Whitehaven and cliffs of coloured sands to rival Rainbow beach, the only downside is feral goats, which are playing havoc with the vegetation.  Yachties have been busy on the beaches collecting loads of plastics and piling them above the high tide mark.  We added a few more bits as we strolled along the sand.

Brampton to Scawfell Island

An early start from Brampton to Scawfell Island to take advantage of the SW wind, this was our first really dull, grey day, with grey clouds, little daylight and no sun at all.  The few drops of rain overnight had spread the dust over the deck and the solar panels.  After clearing the top of Carlisle Island the wind picked up and we did an easy 7 knots on main and screecher.  Then whizzzzzz… off went the lure with a nice spotted mackerel on the line, about 75 cm, yum!

On passing St Bees and Keswick Islands, dolphins were cruising all around.  As we watched they began doing circle work, rounding up fish.  We’d seen this behaviour on documentaries but never before a live show!  Amazing!   A few leaping whales in the distance added to the morning’s entertainment.  Then as we dropped the sails to come into Scawfell anchorage, hundreds and thousands of Tiger Blue butterflies swarmed around and across the water.  The first Scawfell anchorage is just beautiful and the water even clearer than Brampton Island.

Just when we thought we had seen everything marine, bait fish began dancing across the water and a school of tuna exploded out of the water chasing them.  It went on for half an hour or more all around the bay, but the tuna kept jumping, the bait fish by now were walking on the water and seemed doomed as they were driven towards the coral reefs, and then the sea-eagles joined the action to snatch a fish supper.  Anyway, whatever the tuna and sea-eagles are having for dinner, we had tandoori mackerel.  Yum!

You are not Welcome, Swallows!

It seems we have a family of cute welcome swallows hitching a ride with us.  Everywhere we anchor or berth, they appear.  Of course, we can’t be sure it’s the same pair, but it’s getting a bit spooky.  

Now anchored at Brampton Island, we thought it cute that they were landing on the tip of the fishing rod, only to realise they had a good view into the back of the boom... then we caught them carrying mud for nest building!  No something we really need: baby swallows fledging as we are sailing along.

Our solution:  some noisy beer cans; luckily, we had a few to spare!!

So Skipper Pete tied a couple of empty cans on a string below the end of the boom.  Boom!  

The noise eventually drove them to find another nest spot, although they were very insistent that this was their preferred residence.

welcome swallows on a mission...

beer cans blowing in the wind...

Well, it works and no-one was hurt in the process.

Catch of the Day - Striped Marlin

Hearing two taps on the trolling line, Peter started winding it in to check the lure, when a big fish followed the lure to the back of the boat.  We were sailing at 7 knots but this fish effortlessly leapt up and grabbed the lure.  Thinking it was our ever elusive Spanish Mackerel, as it was fighting hard, he wound it up to the back step, only to discover a Striped Marlin.  The fish looked at us and did another big leap and took off.

Broken Furler

Fridge and freezer groaning with more than a month’s food, we were ready to sail south when a loud bang on the jib furler made us rethink.  It was hard to determine the damage until Peter climbed the mast.  A section of the furler tubing had split, and it had to be right at the top; we may have inadvertently over-tightened the halyard.

Colin from Quadrant Marine and Greg Southern, rigger, were able to pull it all apart, add a new section and put it back together again.  It was a bit nerve-wracking when they loosened all the stays on the mast to release the jib halyard, but the mast stayed up.  At least we had a good berth for laying out the furler to work on it. 

Abell Point Marina were very understanding as we overstayed to get the job finished.  At last we are heading south and the jib furler works!  Despite the lack of forecasted northerly wind, we made Long Island before sunset.

loosening the main stays...

the broken furler section

making use of the long jetty

Good Morning Airlie Beach!  Lovely sunrise, but we are stuck here with a broken furler, hoping to find a rigger to repair or replace it.

Southbound

The reverse trip south is quite different; winds are lighter and fickle, so more motoring than sailing the first few days until we reach Airlie Beach.  We found Notorious the pirate ship at Cape Upstart and anchored alongside Cat Play and Catlypso.  The dodgy old trawler has sunk and now has a yellow danger marker, making it easier to see.  Leaving at first light, we had the almost-full moon to add more light.  Optimistically hoisted the main, then pulled out the screecher, but until we’d cleared the headland still had to use the “iron sail”.