Sailing around the World,, ( Presently in the WhitSunday Islands, Australia. )
A Lady
Stephen Hyde
Tue 3 Aug 2010 00:56
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MONDAY 2nd AUGUST
2010
Its hard to believe that its August, gosh , time is
flying by, and at home in Ireland, its the Augaust bank holiday,
Margaret How has gone to Crookhaven for a few weeks
and our son Stefan has gone there for the weekend with his doll,
Caroline,
We hope the weather is good.
Back here in Australia, the wind is blowing hard as
we get out of the bunks this morning, and we have lots of birds singing away in the
background.
The weather is good, clear bright skies, but the
grib files show a deteriation in the weather , so we decided to hop the 30 miles
over to " Hamilton Island "
Would you believe this, we could not get the
generator to start,
It just turned over, but not a gug, feckin
thing, God ! I should have become a mechanical engineer, and not an
architect.
Although, with the engines these days, its an
electronic engineer is required,
10.30hrs ,We hauled the anchor , passed by this
beautifull schooner, and nibbled our way out of the bay through the reefs.
once clear, we rolled out the two headsails, one on
each side , and goosewinged our way NW towards Hamilton Island,
The sea was a crisp green colour, with little
white horses everywhere as the wind was very strong from the
SE.
It was a cool 23 degrees.
The sailing was wonderfull, we were moving along at
a steady 6.5 knots, through all the different Islands, all part of the Whit
Sunday Islands,
The scenery was picture perfect,
And, We saw at least 6 whales, one who obliged by
leaping completly out of the water, about 1/2 a mile away from the
boat.
This was certainly one of our more relaxing sails,
and when we arrived at Hamilton Isl. the wind died off completly and this
made
life very easy for berthing the boat on the
marina.
We checked into the marina office, and of course
this was located almost at the complete opposite side of the
harbour,
We hired a buggy, a 4 man buggy, this is the normal
transport for the Island, and comes complete with indicators, lights, and lots
of different types,
We had to visit the yacht club, located very close
to us, and was a spectacular bit of modern architecture,
The whole Island is very posh, and that comes with
a big price tag,,, but its Beautifull.
16.00hrs We had a visit from Jan Mortan Ruud, and
Lars, ( Ronja ) , we enjoyed an hour or so, chatting and recounting the trip
and in particular " dick & irene " and the
episode in the hairdressor's saloon in Mackay............... All done with the
help of a fine bottle of red wine.
Lots of Yachting visitors came to say " hello" to
the Irish Boat,, it was good to get such a warm welcome,
We booked dinner in the steak house with the "
Ronja " crew. for 20.00hrs,
We all had cold showers on board before heading off
to the restaurant in the Buggy,, ( Same as a Golf buggy ) except it carries 4
people.
The food was great, and was certainly the best
steaks we have had for a long time,
We were the last to leave the restaurant, ( Of
course, we being Irish, never leave a premises that sells drink, untill we are
asked to leave.)
We must have been flying, because I dont
remember any night caps being served when we returned to the boat.
just straight to the
scratchers,
Thats it for now,
Signed :- Stephen
Hyde, ( Skipper )
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