15th May- depart Blue Waters (Cairns) - Low Isles - sharks - depart Low Isles -

Wednesday 15^th May

This morning early Wonderful Barbara was here to get the Open CPN program running.  She had no success last night, although she concentrated long and hard.  Early morning sunshine…and there it is, all working on Pete’s cranky old computer.  Triumph!

Nicky says she is having commenting – others have the same issue.  Maybe they all get spammed and removed…WHY??  I do remove all the spam comments and they don’t even show the light of day.  These are the incomprehensible gobbledygook ones, and the ones who want to cure haemorrhoids as a sort of manic mission.  I love getting comments…but not these ones, which need to be removed because they are so very annoying and meaningless.

She also commented how radiantly happy Pete looks in all the photos.  And indeed he does…I do NOT put up any photos in which he looks *cough* less than radiant… Like this one…

This is how he looks when his computer/phone are giving him problems.  (Or when I drop gin overboard, or bugger up anchor winch remotes…Grim!)

We had a last chat with Rick, the marina manager, who has been here since the inception of this large facility – maybe 260 boats.  I said how nice it is that there are no rules – most marinas have huge lists of things which are FORBIDDEN.  Here there is just a pleasant note asking us to keep the bathrooms cabins clean.  But no!  He says there are hundreds of rules.  Rick’s Rules, written in very small print and kept in his office.  For example: no live-aboards, no pets.  I blinked a bit at this – at least 50% of the boats here have people very happily living aboard permanently, and most of these have a plump and happy cat or dog.  He laughed and said that these rules are there so he can kick people out if they are noisy, unpleasant, messy or disruptive.  Or if they just get up his nose one way or the other.  It makes for a very harmonious marina.

And we have left…after a very pleasant morning with Barb, Tim, James (another Tasmanian) all dropping in for coffee and chats.  I hosed down the boat and filled the water tanks – these watery jobs are my very favourite tasks on board -  and then when I pulled up the fenders – oh yucko, cacky khaki mud oozed all over my beautiful clean decks from wehre the fenders ahd been resting on the muddy seabed.  Then we went back up or African Queen creek, filled up the fuel tans at Yorkey’s Knob, and off to sea gain – at last.

It isn’t very far to the Low Islets; we left at 11.30 and arrived at 3.30.  All so pretty, with the beautiful mountains of the Great Dividing Range dropping down to the sea on our left. 

There are about fie other boats here, including Jim and Gina’s lovely NZ yacht, Tiare Toporo III, which left the day before we did.  I am not sure if Gina has been for a swim… She and I had discussed at length, while waiting for our washing in the laundry room, how desperate we both were to get back into the sea for a rejuvenating swim…

Just after we had dropped anchor – yes!  Using the new winch remote! – Pete gazed over into the water and said, happily, “Well I am sure there aren’t any crocodiles here, so you can swim safely!”  As I walked up to join him, he added, a bit startled, “But oh look!  Sharks!”  And indeed…the boat was being circled by many black-tipped reef sharks, so cute, most with attendant pups swimming along underneath their mothers.  They weren’t very big, no more than 1.2 metres, but…there were lots of them and I lost all of my appetite for a refreshing swim…

It is Attenborough World under the boat.  I have been staring through the hatch as a plethora of large fish cruise around, hoping for scraps.  (I did give them a bit of bread…probably not sensible but they were so very happy to receive a bit of a free snack, and they splishy-splashed around so fascinatingly that I couldn’t resist…)

We have left early (7.10) and we should at our next beautiful islands (Hope) by lunchtime.  And maybe I can swim...