20 04.126 S   148 26.380 E

Fast, comfortable sail today on a broad reach with 20 – 25 kts of True Wind out of the E/SE > (15-20 Apparent); wet weather continues. Good anchorage; no real nuisance swell even though the wind “bullets” keep hitting us as they come over Mount McGuire beside us. The Aussies call these relatively short gusts of wind “bullets” because they hit you with a sudden intense impact…..they may be as much as 15 or 20 kts of sudden burst of wind above whatever may be the current prevailing wind in the anchorage.  They really tend to swing a boat very abruptly against her anchor rode so it can be a bit unnerving as they hit….particularly when you are fast asleep in the middle of the night.

Forecasts call for a major drop in wind as the weekend approaches so we left today a day ahead of our itinerary and we may skip the planned stop at Upstart Bay tomorrow and go directly onward to Bowling Green to make use of the wind while it is still available. That will leave us only 32 nm remaining to reach Magnetic Island ….not a bad distance if we have to motor-sail or motor on Saturday to make our way over there.