17th June 2017 - Blue Water marina to High Island

Saturday 17^th June 2017

17 degrees 09.185S

146 degrees 00.239E

High Island - Frankland Island group

7.7m – mooring buoy

No problems to report today.  The new anchor chain is gleaming on its winch; we left Blue Water marina in Cairns easily, and glided down the coast in bright sunshine with very little wind and obligingly small waves; all is well!

We thought we would stop at Fitzroy Island, but that is a discouragingly small distance from Cairns – 8 nautical miles.  Not much of a start to a fairly long trip to Hamilton Island.  We consulted our guru, Alan Lucas (Cruising the Coral Coast) and he said it MIGHT just be possible to shelter at one of the Frankland Islands, with a bit of luck and not much wind.  So we continued and arrived at High Island at the very civilised hour of 4.30pm. 

High Island

And it is just beautiful!  And - even better – there is a mooring buoy, so the shiny new chain can stay pristine on its winch.

Tomorrow we will leave at a decent hour and should arrive in Mission Beach in the late afternoon.

On our last night in Blue Water marina a few months ago we met a very nice man called Ken, with his off-sider Scott.  Scott’s name is Scott Cam, and he is just as charismatic a character as his very famous (in Australia…) cousin Scott Cam the TV builder/renovator.  Our Scott says he gets very preferential treatment in restaurants, and in airport queues.  Until they see him…he doesn’t look like the TV Scott Cam.  But we were very charmed by him, and enjoyed his stories and his cheeriness very much.  I took a photo of him telling us about the crocodile which lives close by – he and his wife and kiddiewinks have a house in the Daintree.  He swears it is THIS big – six metres!! (AAGGHHHH!!)

16th June 2017 - Blue Water Marina Cairns - new anchor chain

Friday 16^th June 2017

Today was all about The Chain.

Creak croak

The 2XS anchor chain is completely…well, buggered is the most polite word.  It is rusty and dusty and falling apart. Well not falling apart YET thank God.  That would have been a total…bugger-up.

So Pete disappeared this morning to buy a shiny new chain.  (*Cough* *splutter* $1400…) while I went shopping at Rusty’s Market with our friend Barb Richardson.  Last time we saw Barb and Terry was in in the Louisiades last year.  Very nice people.

• ·      They gave us 2 kilos of cheese (I nearly wept with joy)
• ·      Terry had a festy leg ulcer and they had to race back to Cairns
• ·      On their last night their dinghy went missing (lost stolen or strayed; possibly stolen)

So Barb and I went shopping.  I bought glorious vegetables and made a big curry for all four of us.

Pete in the meantime dragged a shiny new chain back to the marina in a small hired Hyundai.

Old chain - rusty!!

I helped him get the boat turned around and the new chain on/old chain off.  This was not fun but…we did it!

New chain - shiny!!

And now we are ready to sail off tomorrow morning, heading south.  All things being equal…

15th june 2017 - Hobart to Cairns - back on 2XS

Thursday 15^th June 2017

We are back on 2XS again, again, after many happy weeks back in Tasmania. 

We have left it all behind for four months…Winter in all its glory;

Dark MoFo and all its dark charms.

Our families and friends….

Time for another bit of a boat adventure, followed by some serious Northern Hemisphere gravelling.  Time to reactivate The Blog!

But maybe not a very long blogpost today…It is only 5pm but I am totally exhausted.  I got up at 4am and rushed around briskly washing sheets and finalising departure preparations.  We were at the airport by 5.15 (thank you poor sleepy James.)  The plane was due to leave at 6.10 but…at 10am we were still sitting, slumped, at a table in the Hobart airport.  Every now and hen we would get a Qantas pep talk.  First they apologised profusely because we were delayed one our – fog on the runway in Sydney.  Then, mysteriously, another hour delay due to “crew sickness.”  Then…nothing until they loaded us onto a Virgin plane at 10.  It didn’t really matter; we still got our connection to Cairns and we still got here at 4.30.  Not sure why we are exhausted… probably because we went through security so many times as they changed their minds about our Hobart-Sydney flights.  Maybe the scanners drain human energy!! 

So at the moment we look a bit like this….