Lizard Island Day 3
Where Next?
Bob Williams
Fri 27 Sep 2024 04:31
Wind: SE , F3 - gentle breeze
Sea: rippled Swell: nil
Weather: sunny, warm
One of the resources I came across when researching the possibility of continuing north to complete an anti-clockwise circumnavigation of Australia was the 'West Australian Cruising Guide' published by the Fremantle Sailing Club and available for free download from their website. It is an absolute treasure trove of information with the experience of many sailors who have sailed this challenging coastline over the past fifty years distilled into its pages. (Thank you FSC.)
Yesterday afternoon I was digging more deeply into its detailed information and advice with the view to starting a passage from Darwin after the cyclone season had ended. By the end of the afternoon - after reading about reefs, rocks, tides, currents, poorly charted waters, crocodiles, stingers, jelly fish, mosquito borne diseases, tropical revolving storms, heat, humidity, thunderheads, and strong head winds - I came to the conclusion that my motivation for completing a circumnavigation was insufficient to overcome all these hazards and discomforts. Much better, I thought, to spend a bit more time here at Lizard Island and then turn our bows south to be back in more benign waters and weather, and to be able to enjoy familiar ports and anchorages and the company of friends and family, perhaps in time for Christmas. (Maybe the Lotus-eaters' whisper after coming down from the mountain had infected my brain after all.)
So here we still are and likely will remain for another week or so.
Meanwhile a relatively small (and therefore more exclusive) blue-hulled cruise ship, the 'Scenic Eclipse II', has anchored in the bay. It has disgorged its contents of paying passengers onto the beach and into the waters of the bay, and even into the air overhead with its on board helicopter, but I am sure they will all be gone by tomorrow.
All is well.