Island Hop Stop #1 - Refuge Bay, Scawfell Island, Queensland, Australia

Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Fri 21 May 2010 04:51
20:51.556S  149:36.067E
 
The Great Barrier Reef
 
We've arrived.  We've arrived in the waters protected by the Great Barrier Reef, and we've arrived in the Whitsunday Islands.  First, the reef.  The Great Barrier Reef extends nearly 1,000 miles from just south of Mackay to just north of Cape York (the northeast tip of Australia).  It isn't a single structure, but is a series of coral reefs that spread themselves in a wide line generally following the Australian coastline, drawing nearer to the mainland as it runs north.  The reef is about 35 miles offshore from Mackay, but only 10-15 miles offshore from Australia's northeast extremity.  For boaters, the Great Barrier Reef is a plus and a minus.  On the positive side, it blocks the swell rolling in from the Pacific, leaving only wind generated waves which don't run as big as ocean swell, but tend to be short, choppy and uneven - more like something you would see on shallow Lake Erie.  On the negative side, the reef, or more accurately, series of individual reefs; mean extra special care must be taken while navigating through these waters.  There are lots of obstacles and it would be bad form to run into one.  On top of that, the charts are not always 100% accurate, so it's best to always travel in the daylight and use more than one chart source.  That last bit is not all bad.  We don't mind traveling only in daylight, especially with plenty of islands to break up the trip.
 
Speaking of islands, the Whitsunday Islands are one of several island groups that lie between the outer reef and the mainland.  As we make our way north, we will hop through the Whitsundays first.  The Whitsundays and many of the other island groups we'll be cruising through used to be part of the Australian continent.  After the last ice age, the sea level rose between fifty and a hundred meters when the ice melted.  As a result, the mountain valleys along the northeastern edge of the Australian continent  filled with water leaving only the mountain tops peeking out.  The Whitsundays and many of their cousins are basically drowned mountains.   Good for us because it's generally much nicer to stop and anchor next to a drowned mountain than it is to hang out in a murky mud flat infested with crocodiles on the mainland. 
 
From the time we left Mackay on May 10th to the present, we island hopped through the Whitsundays.  Most of the islands we visited were of the uninhabited drowned mountain turned national park variety.  No complaints from us - most of the anchorages were not crowded with only a few other Australian boats seen on occasion, and the scenery, while not spectacular, has been really pretty as you will see.  
 
So - Island Hop Stop #1:  Refuge Bay, Scawfell Island
Located within the Great Barrier Reef and only a measly 25 miles from Mackay, one would think the sail from Mackay to Scawfell Island would be marvelous.  Nope, more like miserable.  We were still dealing with the tail end of that nasty weather system the vomit-coated sailboat had sailed through two days before.  It didn't help that we were trying to go northeast in a 20-25 knot east wind.  Spoiled downwind sailors like us get testy when we have to sail close to the wind in a heeled-over fashion, bow-slamming our way through short-choppy Lake Erie waves.  On top of that, we had to tack twice in order to avoid hitting a couple of drowned mountain islands because we couldn't quite make our northeasterly course (no one ever said an Amel is a champion upwind sailboat).  And....it was freezing!  As most of you head toward summer, we down here are heading toward winter.  Yes, even the tropics experience some form of winter.  On this day, during our cloudy, rainy upwind sail to Scawfell Island, the temperature in our cabin was sub-80 degrees.  Less than 80!  We had to break out the jeans and sweatshirts.
 
We stayed two nights at Scawfell, one to recover from our miserable sail and one to wait for Storyteller to catch up (as proper motorboat people would do, they waited for the wind to decrease before leaving Mackay).
 
Picture 1 - Low tide on Refuge Bay beach.  The beach goes on forever when the tide is down twelve feet.  Not such a bad thing unless you happen to anchor at high tide in water less than twelve feet deep.  Then you might be sorry.  Nope, we haven't done that yet and hopefully won't, but if we do, you'd be the first to know because the pictures would be fun.
 
Picture 2 - The art of racing the rain in a dinghy carrying four people powered by an eight horsepower outboard motor.  We won.
 
Picture 3 - Not only did we win the race with the rain, but we were rewarded with a rainbow, or at least half a rainbow.
 
Anne

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