At Long Last...

April 2017

With the house sold, all our belongings we don't (think) we want or need on SOL in storage we are now on our boat full time.

Excitedly, yet somewhat nervously we flew up to Townsville on Wednesday 12th April 2017 to begin our sailing adventure, we were leaving our very normal lives behind and stepping out into the unknown. 
On Thursday we undid all our cyclone prevention and got SOL ready for departure, Friday we made sure all systems were go and Saturday we sailed out to Horseshoe Bay, Magnetic Island. The weather wasn't picture perfect - it was pretty windy so we had 2 reefs in the mainsail but we were happy to be getting underway in our own boat. 

SOL at anchor, Orpheus Island

From Magnetic Island we sailed north to the Palm Group, a small group of islands with a big lot of history - back in the 1920s, Queensland Aboriginal and Torres Strait people were forcibly moved to Great Palm Island from throughout Queensland, nearby Fantome Island was set up as a hospital catering initially for patients with venereal disease, then tuberculosis and was expanded to include leprosy, the hospital closed in 1973. During World War II, Palm Island was the site of the Black Cat Squadron, which flew the Catalina Flying Boats on long range missions.

Orpheus Island is a national park, with a research station run by the James Cook University and as well an exclusive resort also graces its shores. There is great diving and snorkelling all around the coral surrounding these islands. After the Palm Group we set off back to Magnetic Island, the start of our trek south. With the wind in our face it was a long, hard, frustrating sail, tacking endlessly it seemed, a trip that had taken us just seven hours on the way up took almost seventeen on the way back - such is the difference between sailing downwind and sailing upwind. 

Even though we knew the wind was not going to be our friend for the next few days – it was predicted to be SE 20-25kn, increasing to 30kn in the afternoons, we made the decision to go south to the Whitsundays. This would mean at least three days of sailing into the wind, bumping and crashing through the waves – not nice at all. It would test us and our boat though which had its advantages.

Magnetic to Cape Bowling Green was a horrendous sail – we spent the entire day just bashing into the wind, arriving in Bowling Green just after dark – a nasty experience as the tide was racing around the point, the wind was about 25-30kn, and the sand bar shifts here, so post Cyclone Debbie the depths on the chart and what we were getting on the depth sounder were not quite the same. So, in the dark, we dropped the anchor, let out all our chain and slept fitfully, waking often to check we were still holding fast – we were. We awoke to find we had set our anchor about a mile offshore – but, hey, who cares – we held, we were safe, and anyway – there was no one around to see us!!

After another day of hard work with two reefs in the main and multiple tacks, the next port was Upstart Bay, a nice little anchorage with a couple of sandy beaches in amongst rocky outcrops. There are houses/shacks scattered along the length but no road access so very private and a peaceful anchorage especially after the previous night. After a few windy nights, it is almost eerie to be in a calm spot and somehow I have the need to wake more often and check the anchor out of some irrational fear that we will move and I won’t have noticed – crazy I know. 

From Upstart to Bowen and around Abbott Point was a pleasant sail – mostly – SOL seems to like one tack better than the other – well it is probably that the wind instruments need calibrating (on port tack she goes 33 degrees to the wind whereas on the starboard tack we can only manage 44 degrees) which is rather frustrating until you accept this and sail accordingly – yet another little thing to sort out though. Although we have sailed past Abbott Point before it is still fascinating to see all the huge ships waiting their turn for coal loading here. Next day it was around Gloucester Island and towards Airlie Beach, we had decided to wait another day before going to Airlie as the marina day charges from midday one day to midday the next so there is little point arriving too much after midday so we wanted to time it right.

Anchoring in George Bay we threw out the fishing lines and were soon rewarded with bites – nothing we wanted to eat – a couple of pretty, unidentified species and a tiny shark but all too small and returned to the sea – rewarding as we were beginning to wonder if there really were fish in these waters – we had had no problems catching fish when we lived in New Zealand, just here. Leaving George Bay was the calmest weather we had had – next to no wind, and indeed, more tide than wind so much so we decided to just sit and drift for a couple of hours – it was lovely even though we weren’t sailing, to be just relaxing on board, reading, fishing line dangling over the stern, yet slowly making our way to our destination – this is surely the liveaboard life!!

The Good Life !!