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Technically speaking the Whitsunday Islands are the five or six islands around Whitsunday Island. The larger group shown on the map is really the Cumberland group.
Enough of that. We left Mackay and this started our cruise through a wonderful group of islands that really are all that they are cracked up to be.
This photo really belongs back a few pages as it shows the GPS readout as we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. Two points to notice is the speed and the accuracy. The boat gets along at 8 knots whenever there is a reasonable breeze behind us. The accuracy of the reading is thanks to the US turning off a jamming thing called Selective Availability, which allows the accuracy now to be as good as 5 metres .
We left Mackay after resupplying and enjoying the company of Lorraine, Russell, Travis and Reid (friends that go back to pre-natal classes for when Courtney was born). A short sail to Keswick-St Bees Island, one of the few islands that have large slices of freehold land that are being subdivided so that you can buy your own slice of Whitsunday.
After anchoring for a few days off Keswick we continued along in classic sailing conditions, 15 knots of south easterly and sunshine and came into Brampton-Carlisle Islands. We found the north-western side of Carlisle met our criteria, sheltered from the breeze, not too much swell rolling in and a little beach to take the girls. We left Mackay stocked up with new fishing gear and Col determined to catch a fish of substance.
We got lucky there with a Queenfish caught of the back of the boat and a nice array of reef fish, including a Red Emperor, from one particularly successful morning on the reef edge. While out in the dinghy Col had a close encounter with a humpback whale. A mother and calf cruised past only 20 metres away. A magical sight. The fishing over the next few weeks improved with regular meals of mainly reef cod on the table. One night at Lindeman Island we were able to show the girls why we don't let them swim off the boat, especially at night.
From Brampton-Carlisle we moved on to Thomas Island. On our way there we had a great display from a pod of whales tail-slapping and generally having a great time. While anchored there we were treated to another display. From Thomas it was on to Lindeman and we were able to stretch our legs here as there is an excellent walking track to the top of the island.
From Lindeman we went on to Whitehaven beach off Whitsunday Island. This a lovely place but suddenly we found people - by the hundreds. There was easily 50 yachts anchored off the beach and a couple of hundred people come over for day trips each day. We moved to Haslewood Island after two days which offered good snorkelling and a somewhat less hectic white silica sand beach.
From there we ran south to Shaw Island and then west to the mainland to Laguna Quays. This is a resort/marina complex which was an excellent place to have a holiday from cruising. We were able to swim, play tennis, walk and generally enjoy the resort for the price of our marina berth. What better place to have Anna's 6th birthday and watch the Olympics. Here we met up with Bill, Kerry, Joanna and Mark who we met while on our trip three years ago on Team Spirit.
After three weeks it was time to move on, and after encountering the roughest patch of water yet off Cape Conway (short and steep two metre seas and 25 knots on the nose, waves constantly washing the decks and the boat sea-sawing over the short waves) we turned and ran down wind to Cid Harbour. On our way we found there was a large amount of water in the bilge. This turned out to be a leaking propeller shaft seal which had come loose during the pounding sea. We decided it was prudent to get to a slipway just in case so we sailed on to Airlie Beach (checking the bilge about every two minutes!). The repair went well and we decided to stay anchored there and check out the tourist ghetto that is known as Airlie Beach.
From there it was out to Hook Island. We first anchored at Stonehaven harbour for a couple of days and then on to Blue Pearl Bay off Hayman Island. This was a particularly great with the best snorkelling yet. During the middle of the day the place filled with day-trippers and the odd guest from Hayman Island (conspicuous by the blue esky, designer swimmers and Moet).
Interspaced by snorkelling, swimming and fishing life aboard still goes on as usual. The cat, Tiger, lays around and schoolwork goes on.
After a stopover at Hamilton Island (busy and expensive sums that place up) we are now off Lindeman Island and after a few days around Shaw we will go into Laguna Quays to collect our mail and also our first visitor aboard - a friend from work Darryl.
