Return to Hook Island - July 19, 1999

Return to Hook Island - July 19, 1999

To make an easy day of it, we planned to sail to Macona Inlet at Hook Island.  Since the switch for the cabin lights had failed, we delayed our departure while they tried repairing it.  That proved not possible so we were loaned additional lanterns and batteries so we wouldn't have to return to Able Point Marina for repairs.

During the delay, my older son and I refueled the dinghy and topped off the water tanks.  The diesel was only down 1/4 to 1/3 so we let it go as is.

Cumberland Base asked if we would agree to have pictures taken of us sailing "Temptress."  We agreed and on the trip from Hamilton Island to Hook Island we raised sail and the photographer on "Rocket Man," a catamaran, spent about 15 minutes taking photos.  Unfortunately, they only used our photo briefly until they could install the new canvas dodger and bimini, then replaced our picture on their website with the new one.  We didn't look to download the photo until after CCY had switched to the newer picture below.

The new photo of "Temptress" that replaced our photo

We were advised against anchoring overnight in Macona Inlet, our original plan that morning, because it is open to the prevailing southeasterly and southwesterly winds.  So we decided to return to Nara Inlet for the night.

My older son and I read books while my wife and younger son took an extended ride on the tender to a beach at the far southeastern side of Nara Inlet.  It was such a neat trip, they came back to "Temptress," picked us up, and all four returned to the beach.  It was over half an hour or greater than two miles away.

An excellent beach

The stars that night were spectacular again but now the moon was nearly a half moon.  We began our trip several days ago on a new moon with no light except the stars.

Hamilton Island - July 18, 1999

Hamilton Island - July 18, 1999

My wife handled the radio "skeds" (scheduled radio calls to the charter base) to confirm our slip at Hamilton Island.  My older son negotiated Solway Passage about an hour and a half before high tide.

Hamilton Island has the airport (above), Fish seen in the marina

While my older son read and My wife rested below, my younger son and I sailed for Fitzalan Passage between the island of that name and Hamilton Island.  We enjoyed about an hour of sailing in 7 to 8 knots of wind before motoring through the passage, past Plum Island and into Hamilton Island Harbour.

My wife got instructions for placing the lines and fenders and the harbormaster met us on his tender to guide us in and help us tie up.

My wife and younger son got fresh showers right away while my older son and I got the dinghy and lines secured for the night even though it was 11am.  Dad even rigged a simple step on the beam of "Temptress" so it was easier to climb on board.  He used an extra mooring line.

Dad and older son showered and joined my wife and younger son for lunch while they did the laundry.  Later we hired a "buggy" for transportation.  It is a golf cart.  Although the wheel is on the left, the regulations require driving on the left, just like the cars.

Hamilton Island (above, postcard showing the flying foxes we saw in the trees around the marina

We all went to the beach on Cats Eye Bay, but it was so rocky that we swam in the fresh water pool just above the beach.

My wife and I chickened out quickly but the boys stayed in the pool from 3:30 pm to 5:30 pm.
After a dinner at the Yacht Club we got more provisions at the General Store and goodies, gifts, etc., at Trader Pete's.

Before provisioning, the boys played pool and watched "footy" on the "tele."  It was rugby on TV with New South Wales vs South Africa.

Great Barrier Reef & Whitehaven Beach - July 17, 1999

Great Barrier Reef & Whitehaven Beach - July 17, 1999

We left soon after 8am to get to  Whitehaven Beach.  We had "organized" a trip with Air Whitsunday to visit the Great Barrier Reef.  It was a beautiful morning for a sail, but the minimal breeze was dead ahead so we motored the two hours to Whitehaven Beach.

Whitehaven Beach and Hill Inlet, courtesy of Cumberland Charter Yachts

After a short visit by tender to the famous beach, we prepared for our seaplane ride to the Reef.

Although we could see it, we couldn't raise the seaplane on channel 81.  But it soon landed next to "Temptress" and we learned from Dan, the pilot, that he was trying to reach us on channel 74, oh well.  We got on board via the dinghy and were off to the Great Barrier Reef.

Pilot takes our family for a seaplane ride

Dad took the first video since Sydney, and hopefully captured one or two whales from the plane.  Dan also pointed out a large sea turtle from the air.  It was a terrific flight including a circle over "Heart Reef." 

Heart Reef

My wife and older son saw a giant ray from the seaplane.  We landed at the south end of Hardy Reef and taxied to a small pontoon boat where another seaplane was tied up.  The other pilot welcomed us aboard.  They tied both seaplanes to the mooring and set the boat loose to motor to another portion of the reef.  We sat below and watched the fish and reef through the submarine glass in the bottom sides of the pontoon boat.

We quickly arrived at the reef's edge and they let us don our snorkeling gear.  The other seaplane had brought a mom, dad, daughter as well as a couple so there were nine of us snorkeling with the two pilots.

There was a tremendous volume of fish and underwater life.  Dad loved seeing the number of giant clams including one that was 18" to 24" long.  Mom enjoyed the long, silver "barracuda-like" fish as well as the parrot fish and many-colored fish.  The boys really enjoyed the giant clam and the fish also.  Since there was only a foot of water over the reef we were told to swim along the edge.  Near the end  of the visit, about an hour later, there was almost a meter of water over the reef, so they let us swim carefully over the top.  Since the water was so shallow and it was about 1:30pm the sun was directly overhead and we could see the reef very clearly.

On the flight back Dan flew us over Border Island, Hook Island, Hayman Island, as well as Hill Inlet, and Whitehaven Beach, before landing and letting us off onto our dinghy.

Hardy Reef (above), postcard similar to our goggle view

My older son and I sat on "Temptress" and read books while the younger boy and my wife took the tender to Whitehaven Beach for a couple hours.  At the beach they buried my son's feet in the sand.  They listened to the wind whistle through the pine trees on the beach.  They confirmed that the sand is "baby powder soft."  My wife found the words "Then I carried You," from the poem about Jesus' walk with us on the beach.  They had been written in the sand.

Cateran Bay Snorkeling - July 16, 1999

Cateran Bay Snorkeling - July 16, 1999

It was a late morning start after a brief tender ride to Refuge Bay.  We motored from Nara through Hook Passage and caught a nice 7 knot breeze for a 3 mile sail across to Cateran Bay at Border Island.  We first anchored on "High Noon's" starboard side.  She had sailed from Nara about and hour or two before we did.  After three tries at getting our anchor to set, Peter dinghied over to advise that we should lower a lot of chain over the side and let the anchor gradually set itself.

We took his advice and we were anchored well enough to take the tender to the beach and climb the "saddle" to look at the view across to Hazelwood Island.  It was a nice beach and a steep climb through grass that turned out to be like miniature palm trees.

We saw that a mooring ball had been vacated so we moved "Temptress" to pick up the mooring.  Unfortunately, it was for a max of 10 meters so we were too big and dropped back to anchor again.

Then we took the dinghy to snorkel on the western side of the bay.  It had a great spectacle of color, fish, rocks and was very nice indeed.

That night we enjoyed the stars as we did every night.  One of the first constellations we see every night is the Southern Cross.  Later the Milky Way is seen in its full glory.

We had gone below for some time when we heard many splashes in the water.  When we took a flashlight to the cockpit we could see multiple fish jumping and splashing around our sailboat.  It was a tremendous sight to catch the silvery glint of the fish in the light of the "torch" from the boat.

We had to agree that Ann's ("High Noon") recommendation of snorkeling at Cateran Bay was a great one.

Nara Inlet, Hook Island - July 15, 1999

Nara Inlet, Hook Island - July 15, 1999

We spent all day at anchor in Nara Inlet.  After a leisurely breakfast, we took the dinghy to the waterfall at the head of the inlet.  In fact, the inlet is like a fiord with its very steep sides and deep water to the very end.  It was shallow along the sides, but only because of the fringing coral reef.

We climbed up the dry waterfall, it only has water falling after a rain, and found the trail toward the aboriginal cave paintings.  We passed two couples on the trail and spoke at length with the older couple.  Their boat is a steel-hulled ketch painted a deep blue with an after cabin under the cockpit that seemed like a small version of the old sailing barq's captain's cabin.

After visiting the aboriginal cave and seeing the paintings, we ran into Peter and Ann.  They are the couple with "High Noon," the steel, blue hulled ketch, that we met on the trail an hour earlier.  When we explained we were hiking back to our dinghy at the waterfall, they said they'd like to see the waterfall, but the hike to the water was shorter going below the cave and following the path.  We had to agree since we had hiked overland without a path until we were almost at the aboriginal cave.  Peter and Ann offered us a ride in their 12 foot "AL-you-MIN-eeum" dinghy which is big enough for all six of us.  So we got a nice ride with them back to our dinghy.  Our dinghy is a bright red NAIAD, made in Australia.  It has inflatable tubes around the gunwale with an aluminum hull and a 6 hp motor.

After lunch aboard "Temptress" we took the dinghy south to the reef at Refuge Bay off Nara Inlet.  It was our first snorkeling since the Florida Keys a year ago, so we enjoyed ourselves.  We saw a nice variety of coral and fish, but not the color of the Molasses Reef in the Keys.

Dinghy in Refuge Bay

We are pleasantly surprised at the weather.  Since arriving in Queensland, it has been sunny, little or no clouds, temps seem about 65-75F.  Although the sun is very bright, warm and very directly overhead, it is just warm enough.  The breeze is variable from 0 to 10 knots.

Dad plotted our course to Cataeran Bay for tomorrow and programmed the waypoints into the GPS.

Sailing the Whitsunday Islands - July 14-21, 1999

Sailing the Whitsunday Islands - July 14, 1999

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Today's the day we begin our sailing charter of the Whitsunday Islands.  We arrived at the Proserpine Station a few minutes after 4am.  The cab was not there waiting for us so we called to have him come get us.  After talking with the cab driver we decided to wait at the shopping plaza for the BiLo grocery to open.

A nifty little coffee shop was our source of breakfast, including pancakes with ice cream.  We learned about this breakfast treat on the train out of Brisbane.  They served it at "Tea" time, 9:30am.

Mom shopped for provisions at BiLo while Dad got chicken and burgers at the butcher shop next door.  The burgers were heavily seasoned and fashioned into 1/4 pound balls.

We got another cab, a small van.  We needed the van since we had our 5 bags plus 3 grocery carts (trolleys) of food.

The people at Cumberland Charter Yachts were great.  They immediately introduced us to Peter who helped us load all our gear and food into a large trolley and wheel it immediately to "Temptress", our Beneteau 361 (12 meter) home for the next ten days.

"Temptress" was a brand new Beneteau, only used by one client before us

After we got everything stowed, Peter showed us around the yacht, including flushing only 2 squares of toilet paper at a time.

Peter took us out of the dock for a "test spin."  We raised sails in about 8 knots of breeze and tacked once.  Then he jumped into a spare dinghy he had tied alongside earlier and the Murphy's were SAILING!

We sailed across Whitsunday Passage

Courtesy of: http://chachaetjojoenaustralie.blogspot.com/
2013/11/la-mer-bleu-turquoise-des-whitsundays.html

from Abel Point Marina and found our first excitement was a rusty old freighter that was on a collision course with us from the north.  We changed course for five minutes to let the freighter pass, then continued on to Nara Inlet in Hook Island for our first anchorage.

My wife loves the electric windlass for raising and lowering the 35pound CQR anchor.  We anchored 2.17nm into Nara Inlet per the GPS.  It was glass smooth with absolutely no swells or waves.

Kelly

Pictures from our early days sailing "Kelly", our 1986 Catalina 25.

CaptMurph takes Kelly's helm, 1992

Kelly on the hard, winter 1992-93

Kelly in her slip at Cherry Street Marina, Erie, PA 1992

CaptMurph swimming off the dinghy, 1997

CaptMurph & his Mother on Presque Isle Bay, 1998