TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

We’re still at Yellow patch. Today the wether is overcast and there’s a bit of drizzle, so it’s indoor activities only. Pip is curled up on the settee and Dawn is reading, so I thought I’d post the blog. We got a great panorama of the anchorage here and lots of boats come and go, most heading north. Hopefully the sun will return tomorrow and we’ll be out and about again. We took Pip ashore yesterday and came across a huge snake sunning on the beach. Think he was a black headed python, but didn’t get close enough to ask.

Well it’s been a while since we posted to our blog. We have travelled a long way since we stepped the mast at Port Douglas although it does’nt seem that long ago. As we are heading south we are revisiting many of the spots that we stopped over in, on the way north. We left Cairns and gave the new sail a good workout on our first trip offshore acheiving speeds of 5 -6 knots without the motors running. A great sail saw us spending that night in Mourilyan Harbour. No sailing the next day, but we ended up at Cardwell where we fueled up, before making our way to Dungeness (near Lucinda). Here we caught up with friends who wre driving north and it rained for the whole weekend. Another long day saw us at Magnetic Island, where we overnighted before running into the marina at Townsville to shelter from cyclone Olga which we had hidden from in Cairns and was now heading south, inland and making her presence felt with 50 knot winds. I took the oportunity to fly to Melbourne and caught up with family down there. From Townsville we steamed (motor sailed)all the way to theWhitsundays, where we spent a few months and rode out cyclone Ului at Airlie Beach. We island hopped from the Whitsundays to Mackay. Here we spent a month repairing a gearbox oil cooler and carrying out a few other maintenance tasks. Staying put for a while allowed Frog and Ethan to visit from down south, although I think they brought some weather up with them, we had a great time. A weather window opened just after they hopped on the plane to head home and a 28 hr trip saw us at Rosslyn Bay for another week catching up with friends. A quick trip out to Keppel Island for an overnight stay and then an early start for Yellow Patch where we now call home for a week or two. We haven’t done much sailing but our trips have been very comfy, as have our anchorages. Next week we plan to be at Gladstone where we’ll catch up with grand kids who are coming up for a footy carnival. Will try to keep the blog more up to date in future.

We have spent the last month in the Daintree River and at Port Douglas and have been busy on a project building a mast for Peggy-Anne.  Good use was made of Dawns brothers’ workshop in the Daintree where we spent three weeks fabricating the spar and setting the boat up with chain plates, compression post etc.  Peggy-Anne was then taken to Port Douglas where the mast was stepped. The sail arrived last week.

We have taken P.A. out for one test sail in very light conditions all aspects of the project worked well and we gained an extra knot under sail. We are looking forward to a trial in stronger winds, but there’s been nothing over 10 knots for the last two weeks.

Christmas was spent with Dawns daughter in Cairns and our plan is to head out around the reef next week, and  be back at Port Douglas on the 4^th of Jan to slip for antifouling. Once that is complete our intention is to head south and spend some time in the Whitsundays.