May 30th, 2018.

We arrived Mackay after 6 days sailing from Vanuatu. Quite a fast crossing. We logged 200+ miles many days in the fresh SE breeze. When we approached Australia we had an exciting night sail through the entrance to the Great Barrier Reef. We took a shortcut through the reef instead of going through the marked channel which saved us about 20 NM. The tide is about 3-4 m and we had a current of 3-4 knots against us for a while.

We cleared in at Mackay Marina and customs and biosecurity came on board with sniffer dogs. We had to give away some food and  lock up some of our medicines and alcohol. The marina is  very nice and friendly. They hosted a nice party for us and it was great to get together again in the fleet and compare our stories of the crossing.

Mackay is an industrial town but has all we needed for service and shopping. We hired a car did a couple of trips to two national parks and saw some platypus ( strange animals looking like a beaver with a ducks beak) and kangaroos and wallabies.

After a couple of days we left to explore the Whitsunday Islands that we had heard so much about.

   Platypus                                                                                                                Fresh water turtle

   Wallabies on the beach                                                                                  Baby wallabie.