A New Island!

The beach and distinctive rocky outcrop on the island of Curlew.

If hard pressed to say what I absolutely LOVE about this Australian Coral Coast Cruising I'd have to say one of the big, most enjoyable and satisfactory things would be discovering new places!   Certainly on the way up to Cairns everything was new and had an almost extreme WOW factor.  Now, on the way back, we've found ourselves in much the same places we visited previously.  Not so much because of the familiarity factor (although that is welcome after over 50 nautical miles travelled in any one stint) but because the places we stopped the first time are in just the right place for tired sailors to rest after an 8-10 hour journey.

Today we had a different destination .. and one we took with just a little bit of trepidation.  This morning at 0600 (6:00 am) we raised the anchor and started out for Curlew Island about 70 or so nautical miles from Goldsmith Island.   All the guide books told us the island was lovely.  One even called it, "doubtlessly the jewel of the area".  But in direct contradiction to the books, the chart and the GPS plotter showed the anchorage as having only 1metre of depth as well as being particularly tricky to enter around a large sand bank.

Anyway, top make a long story short, we got here.  Entered the bay without the help of the GPS plotter - which, by the way, I LOVE and depend on when driving - and motored slowly into beautiful blue, but very unknown, waters.  Well, obviously, it turned out well or I wouldn't be writing this blog.  The island anchorage is lovely!!!  A big white sandy beach goes the length of the lagoon which looks very inviting.  There are only two other boats here and in the distance there are islands as far as you can see.  As soon as the boat settled down the Skipper - George - spotted a turtle and the fish have been literally jumping out of the water.  Sensational - calm, blue, beautiful.

Islands, islands, islands as far as you can see.

Tomorrow, unfortunately, we're off again .. this time headed further down south to Pearl Bay.  Again it will be a new stop for us .. we didn't go there on the way up .. so we're expecting more magic like today.

Last night we caught up with Brett and his crew member, Jen, from 'Wind of Change' - or 'Windy' - one of our rally boat friends.  They came over for drinks and dinner and we had a terrific time catching up and meeting Jen who is here from France.  I hope we see them again on this trip south.

Hopefully we're only 3 or 4 days from our destination of the marina at Roslyn Bay - in Yeppoon.  Our good friends Megan and Brian live there and, as well as looking forward to seeing them again, also taking the skipper back to the hospital for another look at his foot.

More adventure ahead.