Month: July 2017

Yes, one of my best pictures of the trip so far! The offending object is what made us stay two nights at Mackay, though the muffler was only on the sofa for a very short period of time. Mr Optimistic said, after we picked up the part at 1630, “I will have that installed by […]

Pete was superlatively optimistic as we approached Mackay, expecting that we would be in and out of the water, fully repaired in 24 hours. I cautioned that this may not be the case, and we needed to think in terms of days, rather than hours. In the end, Pete was spot on! Greg and his […]

Just a quick update for those who have not seen Facebook. We were unable to get the work done on the keel in the Whitsundays. Understandably there is still a lot of Cyclone repair work going on, so finding an available tradesman is next to impossible. Whilst we don’t believe we need urgent repairs, our […]

We had hoped to have a short stopover at Airlie Beach, but it became 3 nights because we really wanted to stock up with fruit and veg from the market. As this only happens on Saturday, we had to stay until then. However, as a bonus, we were moored beside our Sister Ship, Never a […]

We had started to discuss the need to make a visit to the mainland during our time at Goldsmith, when we really started to get low on fresh fruit and veg. We were already on powdered milk, and both fridge and freezer were starting to look half empty. We were also not sure how much […]

I have to report that unfortunately on Monday 17 July we buried Cruising Basil at sea, between Thomas Island and Shaw. Cruising Basil had sailed over 4000 nautical miles with us, making two trips up through the Whitsundays. Last year he made his first trip on the water, coming with us from Sydney to Magnetic […]

As we departed Brampton, we could feel the breeze picking up to its 15-20 knots as we exited the shelter of the Island. Pete wanted to fish, so we flew only the jib, though we raced along at over 7 knots anyway, covering the short distance to Goldsmith very quickly. The only fish interested were […]

Despite a comfortable night at Curlew, we decided that we would close the Curtis Coast cruising guide, and open the 100 Magic Miles of the Whitsundays. We wanted to ensure we had plenty of time to explore as much of the Whitsundays as possible before Al and Larissa’s wedding. After the wedding, we would need […]

I have finally got the explanation of what we have been doing together to go with yesterdays photos. I have divided it into sections to make it a bit easier to read as its a bit long! Go make a cup of tea before you start it! Keppel – Port Clinton We pulled up into […]

Since our last post we have been island hopping north, and have lots of photos of great weather, new friends, lovely beaches and beautiful anchorages. I have a very hefty draft blog which I dont intend to completely bore you with, so I will do a photopost with some explanatory comment for now. We can […]