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| Sunrise over the pacific ocean. |
Saturday, June
29, 2013 - Another great night’s sleep.
The little bay at Hexham Island was relatively calm with just enough
swell to rock us to a peaceful sleep.
The alarm wasn’t set – a good thing – so we woke with the sun at 0730 to
a glorious morning. Before turning in
we couldn’t decide if we wanted to move on to South Percy Island or stay in our
little bay. The morning brought another
lovely sunlit day with the promise of wind which meant that, for almost the
first time since leaving Southport, we should be able to sail.
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| Leaving Hexham Island behind...on the way to the Percy Islands. |
Sail we did. It is
16 nautical miles almost due north from Hexham Island to South Percy
Island. With a 10 to 12 knot breeze
behind Southern Belle she made a respectable 5 – 6 knots under headsail all the
way. We rounded the corner of South
Percy Island about 1pm (1300) to see a glorious long white beach with tropical
green waters …and not another boat or soul anywhere to be seen. Lovely.
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| Southern Belle - all alone off South Percy Island - about 50/60 miles off the central Queensland Coast. Not another soul around! |
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| A beach...all alone ... not another foot print. |
We dropped anchor and while cleaning up the morning’s
usual leftovers from cups of tea, coffee, cookies and luncheon sandwiches another
boat pulled into the bay and beat us to the beach! With the dingy launched we motored over to
discover an inviting clear-ish pool just at the top of the beach. As we walked – well Captain G walked and I
limped with my stick – half the distance of the beach from the beach pool to
the far end we met up with the couple from the other boat. He was from Brisbane and his companion from Beijing. He was very talkative and said he was
visiting the area again after many years.
As we stood in the sand he told us stories of the once lessee of Middle
Percy – a larger island just across the water from here – and how he (the
lessee) went from being a terribly eccentric British person to being just plain
wacko ..over 30 years mind you … before going back to England for good. After experiencing this lovely Australian
tropical winter I think you’d have to be crazy to go back to England, of all
places, once you lived here!
We said farewell and went back to our respective
boats. Dinner, for us, was left over
spinach cannelloni and a nice green salad with avocado topped off with a few
glasses of red. Then off to bed.
Sunday, June 30,
2013 – The rocking of the boat wasn’t quite what you’d call gentle last
night. The wind had come up strongly
overnight and the morning found us rocking and rolling to increasing
winds. This area – the Percy Islands –
are famous for their beauty and whenever you talk to cruising sailors who have
visited they all talk in terms of it being “one of their favourite places”. Yes, it’s very picturesque… but, as in the
lovely Port Clinton, there is a set back to the “perfectness”. The anchorages are open to waves in any
strong wind. In fact Alan Lucas in his
cruising guide uses the terms “uncomfortable” and “abominable” to describe the
area’s anchoring spots. Our experiences
today are somewhere in the middle of that spectrum… not quite “abominable” but
past “uncomfortable”.
When the rolling subsided a bit during the early afternoon the Captain launched the dingy and we moved over to the beach to stay for a while… and to experience firm ground for a while.
Let me just say something about the dingy. Normally I’m pretty agile in getting on and
off the boat and into the bouncing rubber thing. However, when you add a foot that doesn’t
work that well yet and my depleted confidence when trying to walk on both feet,
I’m not a pretty sight leaving the boat!
Because I don’t think I could kick the healing foot enough to swim we
make sure I’m safely enclosed in a life jacket.
Additionally I was told by the doctor before leaving Sydney, “no jumping
into the dingy”, so I sit on the back transom with the good Captain holding the
dingy as steady as he can (a pretty impossible task in these conditions) and
then at the right moment I have to scoot my bottom in quickly. We’ve managed it so far without tears or
shouting at each other… a plus!
The night wasn’t pleasant. Strong winds became the norm during the
evening and the night …. where we were anchored was smack in the path of the
rolling waves. They seem to catch the
boat broadside and then toss us one way and then the other relentlessly. With few choices of places to move, and
approaching dark, the decision was made to “cop it sweet” and stay put.
For dinner I made a Thai Green Chicken Curry which was so
bloody hot I couldn’t stand to eat it!
As I watched the Captain slurp his rice noodles his face turned a very
bright scarlet colour – even more so than the sun kissed look he has been
sporting – I could tell he loved it! We
turned in after dinner hoping the v-berth would offer some solace from the
rolling and tried to put on a movie. As
will happen when things are JUST THAT BIT too much – the disc we wanted to see
turned out to be a frickin’ Blu-Ray instead of DVD. That was it for me! I took two night strength Mersyndol and surprisingly
slept pretty well – actually I passed out I think.
On to Cruising Update #3.......
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