Sunday 17 May 2009

Island Dreaming

We farewelled our good friends Alan and Angela at Mooloolabah filled with dreams of sailing up the coast in calms seas and blue skies. Well none eventuated, the seas were boiling, the skies grey and we discovered we needed to haul out!


After procrastinating for 2 days we finally bit the bullet and pulled out in Bundy at the Port Marina Slipway. It was the best haul out experience we’ve had with a friendly and really competent crew. We thought we would have Sloop foiled being on the hard, but the little devil managed to learn how to climb down the vertical ladder on the side of the cradle to continue his thieving ways. After two days of swearing and cursing the damn bearing in the shaft job was finally complete and we were once again on our way.

We were lucky to catch up with friends Eric and Yvonne on the NZ boat Morning Star VII and sailed in company with them to the Whitsundays. They were fantastic cruising companions and we managed to cover some good miles, 355nm in 6 days. Each morning it was a challenge to get out of bed after some long heavy weather sailing days, but when the lights on Morning Star were on at 5am the challenge to continue was laid. Thyme performed really well with her new genoa and we had our best sailing day averaging over 6.5kts for 60nm. (for the land lubbers that’s about 12km/hr – almost breaking the sound barrier I have you cry).

We were sad to farewell Morning Star VII this morning at Cid Harbour in the Whitsundays but we really needed to re-provision our fresh food stores. From Airlie we plan to keep our skates on until we reach new ground – more long days ahead with sunset (if we’re lucky) and sunrise being the only anchorage views.

2 comments:

Amanda said...

That's a pretty good speed you had going there. And I'd rather get up at 5am to sail then get up at 6am to go to work!
Very busy here with work, at the new job they expect me to work really hard. So unfair of them, I say.
I've a couple of weeks planned off in December - we'll be going up as far as Cooktown on a cruise that we picked up for a song.
Then in May next year we're heading to the Soloman Islands - we've lined up courses etc to get PADI certifications and will be able to do some really way cool dives.

Anonymous said...

Sounds like great fun. You'll love diving - how did you rope Stuart into it???