Sunday 11 August 2013, Cairns,  Northern Queensland  16:55.1S  145:46.1E  

Today's Blog by David (Time zone BST +9.00; UTC +10.00)

We left Hamilton Island on Monday with mixed emotions. Although we had a schedule to keep, and were glad to be back to it the Hamilton Island stop having been rather longer than planned, we did enjoy meeting up with the Oyster Rally there and introducing ourselves to  the people in whose company we expect to spend the next  8 months or so.

I have to say that Oyster can throw a good party!  They used the Hamilton Island rendezvous to celebrate essentially the half way stage in the rally and they did that in style.  The Hamilton Island Yacht Club is a stunning venue and Friday’s pre-dinner cocktail party was excellent on a deck overlooking the marina.  Saturday saw a yacht race to Whitehaven Beach for a beach party and picnic. Sunday saw a race back to the marina in time for a really good, more formal dinner under a marquee with sumptuous food, endless wine and even fireworks!  I have been warned not to expect  this level of entertainment to continue but it was good to be part of it while it lasted!   

So Monday saw the start of our  long slog up to Cairns. While it is only 300 miles or so, it is a long way to sail for those not used to it so we planned to stop overnight where we could.  However:

1                     We were on a schedule to accommodate Peter’s family’s white water rafting ambitions and their need to pack before they leave (they left the boat this morning to go touring around Queensland)  – so we had to be there by Friday AM and

2                      There are not many places to stop en-route.

The wind was light and what there was,  was from our quarter and that meant we were going to motor substantially all the way, which we did but for several interludes with the Code Zero,  one lasting 10 hours or more.

The motor made night sailing quite easy so was sailed overnight to a berth at Magnetic Island,  which is to Townsville what the Isle of Wight is to Southampton. It was very quiet – the marina half empty but  the crew were able to interact nearby with a colony of ‘wild’ Rock Wallabies – so wild that they were used to pitching up to the same place at 15.30  every day in the expectation that someone would feed them! An excellent dinner ashore.  

A day sail to a remote,  anchorage at Fantome Island in the Palm islands was followed by an early rise to catch the tidal gate into the Hinchinbrook Channel where we planned to hunt for  ‘Salties’ in the channels and inlets in this area of  mangrove swamp. Salties are large saltwater crocodiles;  these, (together with it seems most wild life in Australia), are dangerous and man-eating so we planned to approach it with very long tongs.

It soon became evident  that,  if any such Salties were in fact there to be seen,  they were going to have to come to us.  That was because the world’s greatest living navigator (c’est moi!) put the boat quite firmly aground  by cutting a corner that wasn’t there to be cut ….. and …   Err…. the tide was falling.

We tried all the usual tactics including Peter manfully struggling in the dinghy to lay our 75lb bower anchor and 30 metres of 13mm chain somewhere abeam of us but to no avail. Our 32 tonne craft’s momentum had been sufficient to  plough quite a deep, if lonely, furrow into the mud bank. We were not moving – not nowhere.  That it was a deep furrow was a something of a curate’s egg. It was deep so we couldn’t get off, true. But it was also deep enough to hold us substantially upright as the tide fell about  0.8 metres. It was to  rise again by about 1.25 metres before we were able to float off. Deep furrow indeed.

Now, the plan had always been to anchor for lunch …. only not in this precise spot ….. and not for as long as the five hours we waited before we could proceed – but  not a grumble from the crew in all that time – at least not in my earshot!

This delayed us a couple of hours;  not significant in the overall scheme of things but it did mean we had to navigate out of the swamp in darkness with a new moon (aka no moon). This in fact  proved to be  easier than it sounds because, once back out in the channel, we were in what used to be a route used by ships collecting molasses from Lucinda;  the majority  of the navigation marks remain.

Another overnight motor saw the dawn break on another mirror flat sea as we approached Cairns. It was goo that it was so flat because it allowed us to spot a couple of Humpback whales cavorting on the horizon. We altered course to investigate.

We were captivated.  They were – as far as we could tell – just playing – mucking around. There may be some biological explanation – perhaps to get rid of parasites or something – but, to us, they just seemed to be having a Whale of a Time! (Apologies for that. Ed.)

Two  of them  were lying side by side raising their tails thus:

And then slapping them on the water – in a synchronised swimming kind of way:

Occasionally, one would roll onto its back, and flap its flippers,  as if to applaud

And very occasionally, it seemed they jumped  for joy!

We saw two or three other groups of whales on the way into Cairns where we arrived in the early afternoon Friday,  in plenty of time for the Verkroosts’ appointments with the rubber flubber on Saturday – which they thoroughly enjoyed. GLWT as they say.  

So that’s about it.  Peter and his family left for Brisbane this morning. Tomorrow,  I go back to the UK for a couple of weeks in order to satisfy the information needs of HMRC.

The blog will likely be silent until early September  when, with Peter and Terry, Serendipity should be on its way to Darwin.