24:45.626S  152:23.138E 

The new gear box arrived on time as promised from Melbourne and by midday had been fitted and tested in the Burnett River outside the marina.  Happily all is was well and we decided to leave for the Whitsundays immediately after lunch. We then had a reasonable overnight sail in good conditions but the wind remained almost dead astern making life difficult for “Barrett” (the Hydrovane self-steering gear).  So we ended up hand steering all night as the Autopilot failed to turn on and operate.  After 24 hours of two hours on and two hours off, and feeling rather tired we dropped anchor off Great Keppel Island about midday to rest and see if we could fix the Autopilot.  We were able to open up the Autopilot and get it working in about 5 minutes as it was a simple case of the plug having come out, probably when we were working on the gear box control cables.  We spent the rest of the day and a rather rolly night at Great Keppel in order to catch up on some sleep.