Dunk to Garden to Hinchinbrook Islands

Millpond conditions on the south side of the sand spit. It was a fair bit lumpier on the north side!

Contrary to how it looks from the sea, Dunk Island resort seems to be a long, long way off re-opening.
However the public facilities - the jetty, campground, walking tracks, picnic tables and toilet facilities have all been rebuilt/restored and look fantastic.

Dunk resort looks so much worse from the shore.

It is yet another beautiful place to visit and, with millpond conditions in our anchorage on the south side of the island, we were able to enjoy a lovely walk along the beach and a close-up view of the devastation Yasi wreaked upon the resort, even though a lot of the debris has been cleared away and the swimming pool emptied of sand and re-filled with water (though I suspect the water is more for emergency supply than swimming).
Returning to Sea Piper we hoisted the main sail and lifted the anchor, turning into a beaut 10 knot north-easterly breeze towards Garden Island.
Out went the Code Zero as well and we maintained a steady six to seven knots all the way across the bay before dropping anchor in the lee of the island for lunch.
Someone must have dropped a match north of Cardwell because the smoke pall on the mainland directly in our view gradually became bigger and bigger until it mushroomed across an area kilometres wide.

The smoke pall over the mainland.

A check on the Queensland fire website revealed it as a `vegetation fire' of `no particular concern at that moment'. It looked terrible and huge from where we were.
Again we were able to sail across to the entry to the Hinchinbrook Channel, this time with just the Code Zero then the headsail as the wind picked up to 15 knots plus.
It was a great sailing day and we only required the motors to reach our final anchorage in one of the channel side creeks.
The past couple of days have been stormy though the storms have passed to the left and right of us with a final heavy shower of rain reaching us last night.
The bream have also been biting and we kept a couple for lunch yesterday - they were delicious.

Kiss and release for Denise.

After a couple of days of black clouds, some white and fluffies took their place.