At this stage of our odyssey we saw our first whales. We were lucky to see about 10 more in the next few weeks. A mother and calf came within 25 meters of us in Hunt Channel (near Cid Harbour) – such a large and gentle animal – couldn’t help but mark this as a special moment.
The weather forecast at the end of that week was telling us that we should head for shelter, so, with our friend arriving in Hamilton we booked into the Hamilton Island Marina which was just as well as the wind and rain came with strong wind warnings and spoiled our party for another several days. We found this marina a disappointment after the Mackay experience. Although the marina staff were excellent, professional and very friendly, the shower/toilet facilities are very basic, no toilet pump out or dumping facilities (we were told to ‘make other arrangements’ for our Porta-Potti), and the ‘value for money’ was off the planet - 2½ times the price of Mackay for a lesser facility! – Never guess they have a monopoly!
While on the subject of facilities and resupply we found the following. Only 3 places: Hamilton Island, Airlie Beach and Mackay Marinas had water and 240V. None had toilet pump-out. Food resupply was only at Mackay Marina (excellent quality and value), and Hamilton township (OK quality and ridiculous prices), and Airlie Beach town (which was a distance from the marina) or alternately anchor off and take the dinghy to get provisions and water – which is what we did.
Back to our adventure….
Later, with several good weather days ahead, we did get to visit all the ‘must see’ places (albeit with flotillas of charter yachts and inexperienced skippers who don’t know to anchor safely!) – Whitehaven Beach (fantastic), Hill Inlet (most beautiful), Cid Harbour, Nara Inlet (very safe on another of the rainy and 25 knot days), Butterfly Bay (great coral) and got to know the little bays and anchorages of Hook and Whitsunday Island.
In our last week the weather forecast again turned against us, so we high-tailed it on a broad reach with 10-15 knot northerlies from Hayman Island across towards Bowen and one of the little ‘safe’ bays NW of Airlie Beach. We were within a mile of rounding the headland when the forecast S-SW front hit at 38+ knots. We saw it coming of course, and by this time we had reefs and a storm jib and motor-sailed the last bit into Woodwark Bay. This was another example of how useful our little handheld GPS was, as rain restricted visibility to about 50-100m we couldn’t see land for about half an hour. With the GPS and waypoints we were able to get to the safe anchorage at the head of the bay…. and had one or more beers after the 35 mile trip that day.
After a couple of days at this end of the Whitsundays, it was time to go – so back to anchor off Airlie Beach and Whitsunday Sailing Club (who were very generous in their hospitality). Then bus back to Mackay to pick up the car and trailer and next day (at 6am) recover the boat before the Hogs Breath Races (F18 Cats) became active.
By now it was mid August and Jabulani had been 5 weeks in the water. Despite our best efforts, cleaning the hull during that time was limited due to the weather and the reach of our arms…. So right underneath was a marine wonder worthy of ‘Marine Park’ status. Work that, at time of writing this, has still to be done!
Our only trouble on the return trip to Melbourne was to do with the trailer brakes. To be safe, I had a service station in Mackay ‘check, repack or replace the bearings as necessary’ for the return trip. The bearings were OK but they pumped grease into the bearing buddies till grease came out the seals!! – It didn’t take long before the grease was greasing the disc brakes…A LESSON TO BE LEARNT… We were very happy with the effectiveness of the brakes in the journey up, and now some ***** reduced our brakes to almost nothing because he over greased the bearings.
The comments below on various aspects of our experiences may be of interest:-
Safety – We both wore ‘Stormy seas’ inflatable PFDs at all times when we were sailing. Before we set off to the next destination we knew relevant compass bearings, tides and had way points in the GPS. We practiced ‘The best time to reef sails is when you first thought of it’.
Preparation – I’m sure this contributed to the lack of dramas, and our feeling of security. We had spares for critical items such as halyards and a key for the motor. We had an extensive First Aid kit (and only used a few band-aids)
Radio – VMR at Mackay is well manned, experienced and accessible, but gets out of range as you travel north. The VMR at Cannonvale (servicing the Whitsundays) is not always manned - only daytime at the weekends I think, which is surprising considering the amount of boating activity. If an emergency happened, and you called on Ch 16, I’m not sure which organisation would respond – maybe it would be one of the charter operators or resorts.
We subscribe to Telstra Seaphone, which we found an excellent service throughout – particularly as any mobile phone coverage is variable and non existent in most ‘safe anchorages’ such as Nara Inlet. One can also call them and ask for the weather forecast. We were very pleased with this service as on several occasions we had to make decisions to go or not based on the weather.
Weather Forecasts – The Bureau of Meterology at Mackay has a great service and relays from Brampton Island on Ch 21 which gives it a greater range up into the Whitsundays, but, with Jabulani’s VHF aerial on the transom (and not on the top of the mast as most keel boats are), it gets out of range when you get north, particularly if tucked away in a safe anchorage.
Luckily Telstra Seaphone provides a weather service twice a day on Ch 86 broadcasting from above Shute Harbour and covering the Whitsundays and reaches into most locations.
Anchoring – Typically we used our CQR anchor with 40m of chain and about 5m of nylon (with a further reserve of 50m of nylon). We also carried a spare main anchor (G16 Guardian anchor, 11m chain and 55m nylon) and a ‘lunch’ anchor. We never had any anchoring problems although Jabulani wanted to sail around, particularly in strong winds.
We saw some trailer sailers and a few small cats going up on the beach at high tide and sitting on the bottom when the tide went out. We didn’t think we had enough local knowledge to do this, although, if we went back we would try it in some places such as in Hill Inlet where there is a soft sandy bottom. We did however use our shallow draft to access further up inlets and therefore get a calmer anchorage and get away from others.
Water – Jabulani carries about 210 litres and this lasted us 7 or 8 days. We didn’t use the inside shower, but washed by going for a swim with salt water soap and washing off with fresh water from the transom shower. This was critical to conserve water as resupply was only at Hamilton Island or Airlie Beach.
Dinghy – This was a great success. We purchased a 2.4m Zodiac ‘Zoom’ inflatable with a 2HP Honda 4-stroke outboard. It gave us complete freedom at anchor to go ashore, etc. The great discovery was that we found we could put the dinghy on top of the cabin facing aft. We had thought that we may have had to deflate and pump-up the dinghy each time we wanted to use it…. But having the dinghy ready to go (with all its safety gear onboard) made it only a minute or two to launch it and mount the motor (which otherwise lived on a bracket on the pushpit). We had heard stories about motor theft, so we had a wire strop and padlock to prevent it ‘vanishing’ at populous places.
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