Hamilton Island

We stayed a week in the marina at Hamilton Island.  Hamilton is part of the Whitsunday Islands, a section of the Australian coast that is known for sailing and especially chartered yachts.  Hammo as the locals call it has private homes but is dominated by one very large resort with all types of accommodation.  The mode of transportation on Hammo is golf carts or the island buses which circle the island on a regular basis.  The little "downtown" has several restaurants, a bakery, a post office, a dive shop and a general store.  They have everything you could want to make you holiday complete.  We enjoyed being on land for a week with plenty of time to stretch our legs.  We also got in some pool time and re provisioned for our next trip out.  The video above is Dylan and Daddy on an early morning trip to the look out.

Middle Percy Island

the proud Scholarship

Middle Percy's famous A frame

West Bay on Middle Percy Island is a very beautiful and some say, an obligatory stop while traveling up the Queensland Coast.  Boats passing through leave their mark in the large "A" frame hut.   Constructed over fifty years ago as a gathering place for visitors,  we could see that this quiet place had seen many a party over the years.

our quickly made boat plaque

 

dylan and daddy

swinging with dylan

Visitors in Rosslyn Bay

Another gorgeous sunset, Rosslyn Bay

marina life

Just a few weeks out of Brisbane we headed to Rosslyn Bay, home of the Keppel Bay Marina.  Our Dutch friends the Van Wissens were traveling the Queensland coast and we were eager to catch up with them before we depart Australia in July.  Last time we saw them was in Brisbane, just two days before Dylan Claire was born. The family of four had spent the weekend on board and  Mark and I commented that it was the giggle of 8-year-old Jasmijn that made our baby girl come two weeks early.  

the Dutchies

 

Capricorn Coast

We set out of Pancake Creek early in the morning to head north to the Capricorn Coast.   After two sailing days which included one teething baby and one very rolly anchorage we arrived at the lovely Great Keppel Island.  We were not sure was a Keppel was but nevertheless we tucked in on the north side of the island in fifteen feet of turquoise water.  This was our first peek in a long time at gorgeous white sand beaches and clear water.  Great Keppel was a perfect place to stretch our legs after several days on board.   The island is covered with trails, all indicated by lovely hand-made markers.  We even got to try out Dylan’s “Queen of Sheba” back pack . Our little sailor was so comfortable that she was sleeping soundly with her little legs dangling by the end of the afternoon.    

Banana Pancake Creek

"flat as a" Pancake Creek

Dylan's first night at anchor

After 48 hours at sea we landed here in this gorgeous and calm tidal river.  We chose this destination because of the promise of calm after two days at sea.  It did not disappoint, as we savored three lazy layover days getting some rest and patting ourselves on the back for finally getting back out there. For two days Jack Johnson lyrics rattled around in my head. Mark has promised me a feast when I consented to two nights at sea. And there was pancakes, banana to be exact and bacon, lots of bacon.  Will sail for bacon....

Baby steps my ass, She ran with it…

Miss Dylan on her maiden voyage

Not literally but in essence. We said good bye over the last few days at Scarborough Marina, our home these past few years. We left at first light on the high tide and followed our GPS track through the shallow waters that are Moreton bay. The winds and the seas gathered strength gradually as we gained deeper water. By noon we could feel the heave of the Ocean.  The winds were out of the south east and we were headed north to the Great Barrier Reef. We had places we could hide if things didn’t go well. We kept passing them one by one through the day. By night fall the winds were in full swing and the seas were boisterous. Moving about with the baby in your arms demanded special awareness and a sense of when the next roll of the ship was about to hit. Sometimes your timing would be off and the couch would come roaring up and sit you down or throw you armless from one wall to the next down the small hallways.  At sunset play time in the cockpit, throwing Dylan up in the air while still holding on to her had such a sense of immediacy, such utter fatality attached to it that the shocked face of dread on the Momma made it impossible for either one of us to have any fun. We managed to get her a sponge bath and bolster her into her bunk. Almost instinctively her legs shot out to brace against the lee cloth on one side and the pillow on the other and was soon fast off to sleep. (I heard once that children who grow up on boats get a really big big toe.  This no longer seems as outlandish as it did when I heard it. All I ask of you is that you try not to stare until she’s at least out of high school.) We ate what we could that was easy and alternately stood watches and slept on a makeshift bed on the floor in the middle of the boat. The aft cabin was rendered useless by the severe motion of the boat. We tracked several tankers on our AIS (one of those magic black boxes on boats that tell you all about every ship within 48 miles) and in one case we radioed one and asked for a port to port pass. We did this not because we were on a collision course for an uncomfortable amount of time.  We wanted to make sure he saw us. A mile and a half is not a long distance to pass next to a 700 foot tanker in the middle of the night. Needless to say we didn’t get a lot of sleep that night. Nor the next, as we barreled our way north in fully developed seas with some swells a majestic five meters in height. Dylan, ever the trooper, slept like a baby ten hours the first night and nine the next. By three in the morning on the third day we had gone way too fast and had to slow the boat down in order to be at the headland by daylight.  We double reefed the main, rolled up the jib and even streamed warps out the back to provide more drag. After all this I could barely get the boat speed under five knots. It proved just enough. By day break we could see the breakers on some well charted, off shore, rocks that guarded the entrance of Pancake Creek. Exhausted and encrusted in salt we dropped our anchor a mile up the flat water tidal creek.  We watched anxiously over the next six hours as the tide emptied the bay exposing dry land all around us and leaving us with only twelve feet of water smack dab in the middle of the channel. I’ll chalk it off to the luck of the Irish.  “Sleep, Sleep, that which knits the raveled sleeve of care”. Baby Steps, my ass….

The time has drawn nigh.

The weather is right.  The tide is high for leaving.

The car and the motorcycle have been sold. The storage unit has been emptied and all nonessential items purged.  All the other sails and equipment have been repatriated and stowed down tight aboard “Rogues Scholarship”, our 57 foot cutter rigged sloop. It has been over two years that she has quietly been tugging at her mooring lines here in Southeast Queensland, (OZ). The auxiliary rudder has been hung on the transom after very little debate. “We’re only going up the coast”, “We only need it on long passages”… “You won’t want to do it at sea if something does go wrong”… enough said!

We’ve been to the Pediatrician, the GP, and the Travel Doctor for last minute tire- kicking and oil checks.  As I write this I’m in the middle of a four day course of oral immunization for Typhoid fever. Our darling, diminutive, daughter Dylan Claire (now over six months old) is not due now for any more shots for 6 months.

The new chart plotter has been installed next to the radar in the cockpit within easy view of the helm. It stands as a back up to our primary computer which is a backup to the paper charts we never look at. The water tanks have been filled and the lockers are bursting with canned this and that, bags of these and jars of those. It’s not like there won’t be a super market where we’re going.  It’s just that to get there you might have to put the dinghy into crocodile infested waters, lower the outboard and fuel tank onto it and drag it onto a beach, all the while keeping a weather eye out for “Salties” just to have the opportunity to look for a bus to take you to town. We realize just how lazy and scared we really are.

 Liz has been reading, voraciously, about all the anchorages up north through cruising guides and other peoples’ blogs who have done it before.  Apparently if you Google the name of an anchorage in the Whitsundays, for example, five people will have written everything about it on their travel blogs. These have been a great sort of information, both reassuring and disquieting at the same time. It appears that there are all manner of things out there that through stupidity or ignorance can conspire to dismember you and/or cause a very painful death. (We choose none of the above.) It is a great paradox that the seemingly calm, beautiful white sand beaches of the North Queensland coast are infested with the Australian Box jelly fish, Bull and Great white sharks, Crocodiles, Pythons and last but not least the second most dangerous jellyfish species in Australian waters , the Irukandji Jellyfish (Carukia barnesi).   We will be playing Scrabble, reading books or otherwise contemplating the beauty of Nature from the secure decks of our sailing fortress.

 Liz is understandably anxious and concerned about taking our baby daughter out into the sometimes not so friendly world.  She has had a few pep talks from other cruisers who have sailed with young ones, been there and done that, which has helped put her at ease.  It’s always a daunting process for us to leave the security of the known (marina) and venture out, off shore, into the unknown. She has diligently studied Plan A , Plan B and even mapped out a Plan C just in case. True to form, she knows everything about where we are going and has realistic expectations about what we will encounter there.   Any words of encouragement would certainly not go unnoticed.  Anything  else … You can keep yer yap shut..

The time has drawn nigh.  The weather is right.  The tide is high for leaving,

Would you please be quiet, Try not to cry, The Baby, she is sleeping…