Blue skies, smilin' at me

A whale breaching on the horizon made our day yesterday as we sailed up to Low Isles.
We'd been a week in the marina where Royden replaced our two starter batteries and installed a new battery charger. Meantime the wind was blowing a howler so we had no desire to be at sea.
However the forecast for this week is beautiful and we set off first thing yesterday morning to take advantage of the light winds and low swell. We were also keen to see the start of the Louisiades rally from Yorkey's Knob marina but as there were just 15 boats and they left in drips and drabs according to sailability and power-ability, there wasn't much to see. I was expecting something like the Darwin-Ambon rally which used to (and probably still does)involve dozens of yachts and have a spectacular send-off. Oh well.
As we had all day to reach Low Isles, we were happy to move along at under 3 knots, at times increasing to 5 knots with the odd stronger gust, the Code Zero doing its usual great job in light conditions. I suspect the tide and swell was having more to do with our forward propulsion than the wind.


The swell and tide kept us moving along.

The whale breach was followed by a couple of tail slaps and then it was gone. Gosh he/she was big.
Dolphins were the next to come out to play but unfortunately the mackerel didn't want to have anything to do with us. It's the first time we have crossed that stretch of water and not caught a mackerel. We can only suppose we were going too slow.
All three public moorings were taken when we reached Low Isles around 4.30pm so we nosed our way into the lagoon and dropped anchor for the night.
As always the reef sharks took an avid interest in our anchor, chain and hull. Maybe they remember that Royden always dives in here and checks that the anchor's set. Not this night though as we are in such shallow and clear water that we could see all was well from the deck.
This morning has dawned with some dark rain cloud drifting out to sea, bat fish circling our boat to get our toast crumbs and a pair of sea eagles sitting on a pontoon adjacent to Sea Piper. Not too bad a start.

A pair of sea eagles sit on the pontoon awaiting the arrival of guests from Port Douglas. The pontoon belongs to one of the big day-tripper yachts.

Back tracking

The blank blog space between Rose and Steve's visit and Mog and Kal's visit needs filling in - that's the gap that saw me exchange the company of Royden (who flew south for a meeting) for the company of Heather.
They did a direct in-and-outgoing swap-over at Cairns airport, including car keys for Heather's car and the same plane seat - 4A.
As you might have expected, this period was land-based despite the encouragement of nearby boat owners to ``take 'er out while the weather's good.''
Err, no thanks. Ditto for Heather.
We had our `no plan' flexi-plan and our Suzuki Swift hire car that proved perfect for our needs.
The six days turned into a bit of a food-fest as we discovered delicious eateries around Cairns and out in the sticks.
This wasn't deliberate but, God it was good.

Cairns Botanic Gardens boasts some unique plants including this flowering creeper from Java.

If you're visiting Cairns, the Botanic Gardens cafe (the old one in the middle of the gardens) is a gastronomic delight - there's no way you'll come out hungry as the serves are generous+. Mog and Kal will vouch for the waffle desserts.
Then there's the cafe adjacent to the Cairns Arts Centre in town. We tried their entree serves for two separate lunches (sharing four different dishes overall). As well as the presentation being awesome, the flavours were fabulous. I highly recommend the prawns, avocado and chargrilled capsicum with lemon mayonnaise, and the arrancini balls with that spicy beef surprise in the centre. and the ...
Enough already. This is sounding like a Mog Blog.
We also discovered little treasures like the Cairns Museum which is run solely by volunteers and located above a shop in Cairns Square. For $5 we had a beaut couple of hours in the hands of a volunteer (whose name escapes me) whose tactile tour had us playing and working just about everything that moved in the place. It may not appeal to everyone but for the time and our mood it was perfect.
Our furthest day trip was to the Atherton Tablelands. It's a beaut drive winding up through the mountains to Kuranda, across to Mareeba then on to Atherton and through patches of rainforest (on the highest road in Queensland) to Millaa Millaa (our turn around point).

Millaa Millaa has some interesting sculptures including this one of The Reluctant Cow. The expressions on the faces of the farmer, the cow and the dog in this piece are brilliant.

We had planned to take the loop road at Millaa Millaa which takes in three waterfalls however we learned at the Millaa Millaa Museum (again run by volunteers) that the bridge was down so we could visit just the one waterfall.
Millaa Millaa is a tiny, picturesque and well-kept town, but easily missed as it is off the main road. It has the most amazing cafe. Set up in an old shop, the place is beautifully laid out and the coffee and freshly made food delicious. It was a morning tea must.

Millaa Millaa Falls

Thank goodness it and the museum were interesting because the waterfall wasn't. The falls themselves are lovely but the surrounds are largely old concrete paths, new and old toilet blocks facing off across the pool below the waterfall - and one nice walk that takes you along the stream and away from the man-made ugly bits.
Comparing what we saw with a postcard from the museum, I suspect that the landscaping around the pool may have been washed away during the last Wet or maybe the one before that (Yasi?) so maybe it's just a matter of time before the local council pays the area some attention.

Nerada tea rooms with Mt Bartle Frere in the background.

We took an alternate route back towards Atherton to take in the Nerada tea growing plantation. I had no idea that Nerada tea was grown in Australia and even less idea that the Atherton Tablelands can get severe frosts, evidenced by a frost-burnt strip of tea bushes. The view from the tea rooms across the tablelands to Mt Bartle Frere, Queensland's highest peak, was worth the visit. But the lunch menu wasn't up to our expectations so we had a cuppa and left for Malanda. A walk around the town didn't yield much promise until Heather asked a young smartly-dressed woman where she would eat in town. We were directed back up the road to the Dairy Heritage Centre restaurant, part of the Dairy Farmers' milk factory.
What a surprise - a pleasant one. The history of dairying on the Atherton Tablelands is laid out around the restaurant - and the food was fabulous.
Again we ordered entree sized meals. Heather's dish had a dozen prawns. My calamari with mango dressing was mouth-wateringly delicious as well as generous. This would all have been OK had we not ordered a mango smoothie each (where one between us would have sufficed).
We wobbled out of there and set off for the Rocky Creek War Memorial Park to the south. We had passed this on the way up and were curious about the rows of stone blocks across a couple of acres of land while adjacent was a huge paddock for free camping which was being well utilised. The site, complete with around 100 granite obelisks and plaques bearing the names of serving units, is the former WW2 Army Hospital, evidently the largest Army hospital in the southern hemisphere.

Rocky Creek War Memorial Park between Malanda and Atherton.

After a full day out, you'd reckon we'd be putting our feet up on the boat and settling down to a gin and tonic but Cairns Arts Festival was still on and we had booked to go to Grace Knight's concert so it was a quick shower and change back at the marina and we were off to the Tanks Arts Centre at the Botanic Gardens. Dinner did not feature on the evening's agenda!
It was a fabulous concert with an hilarious artist who has the voice of a (raunchy) angel.

The wire sculptures are full of aluminium cans. In Cairns. Get it?

Determined not to miss anything, we spent Heather's last but one day taking in art installations along the Cairns Esplanade before heading off to another festival event, the Last Saturday Book Club where as luck would have it, the first of the three books under discussion was the one we were both reading: Anna Funder's `All That I Am'.
The next day, the airport swapover was reversed with hellos, goodbyes and hugs all round, and our week with Mog and Kal on board began (see last two blog posts).

Upolu Reef

Snorkelling at Upolu Reef

At last, we made it onto the Great Barrier Reef proper.
We've had several attempts, getting within a couple of nautical miles, but on each occasion the weather has roughed up so much it would have been unwise for us, as first-timers, to be picking our way through the various and numerous coral heads.
As it was, we had perfect conditions (wind and tide-wise) and four pairs of eyes watching for bommies prior to wending our way through the reef entry between Green Island and Arlington Reef, and connecting Sea Piper to the only public mooring line at Upolu Reef. 
It had been a beautiful sail across from Fitzroy to Green Island early yesterday morning. With the mackerel lines out and a light breeze we had the Code Zero out but were forced to start one motor to keep us moving forward. Half way across from Fitzroy Island we had a hit on the mackerel line and Royden and Mog pulled in a beauty.
Royden had just finished up cleaning the fish when a huge humpback whale came out of the water less than 100 metres from the boat. He was heading south at a great pace and came out twice more before disappearing back under the sea.
We had thought all the whales had left this area already but obviously not. What a treat!
Upolu, and the surrounding reef area, was stunning, especially if you put polarised sunglasses on. It was picture postcard stuff. Brilliant blue water, white, white sand and scattered reef areas with little skiffs of white wave-foam occasionally breaking over them.

Thumbs up for Upolu Reef.

It was hard work swimming from the boat out onto the reef as the current was quite strong but it was something that had to be done! My little camera has not done the colours justice but hopefully Mog's camera with the polariser will yield some better shots.
We headed back towards the marina in the early afternoon, with the main sail and Code Zero out. Initially the breeze was light but we were happy to sail along at 3 to 4 knots or so as the forecast indicated the winds would strengthen.
The wind obliged and we gradually picked up speed, racing along at between 6 and 7 knots with a peak of 7.8. There was a fair bit of cheering and laughter as we reached each new `record' speed.
We arrived back at the marina around 5.15pm - enough time to shower, go out for dinner and then see Mog and Kal off on the bus into Cairns, for their early morning flight back to Melbourne this morning. Sob.

Ready, set, jump ...

Preparing to plunge ...

Ahh, this is the life.

Sea Piper is back at Fitzroy Island as I'm writing this. With Mog and Kal on board for only a few days, it was the obvious destination, offering walks, snorkelling and the opportunity to buy an icecream.

Setting off through the Moon River leads at Yorkey's Knob.

We had a mixed sail across from the Moon River yesterday. It was a beautiful morning to start with (hmm, so often we have started this way).
With the main and the Code Zero fully out we were heading south and making six knots, gliding along with the pleasing sound of the swish of water past the hulls - accompanied of course by the wind generator's whirring.
Immediately opposite Trinity Inlet the wind currents changed making it difficult to maintain a heading and gain ground so we opted for a motor sail which was OK but less quiet.
Approaching Cape Grafton we watched a rain squall obliterate the view of Fitzroy Island. It, and a 22 knot head wind, reached us about 20 minutes later but passed quickly enough.
Once it was gone the sun reappeared, the sea quietened and all was well with the world. It became a gorgeous day and we were able to anchor just off the reef at the island enabling us to snorkel straight off the boat. And of course we went ashore and bought an icecream for afternoon tea.
Snorkelling, swimming, walking and lolling around the yacht sum up today's activities which will no doubt be followed this evening by several games of Yaniv (card game) and at least one of Logo or maybe Siedler (board games).
Tomorrow we head back to the mainland for these guys to fly out early Sunday morning.
The forecast looks promising for a great sail back. Fingers crossed.

One of the well-fed inhabitants of Fitzroy Island.

One who wishes he might be a well-fed inhabitant of Fitzroy Island.

Cairns Festival rocks

Cairns turned it on last night with a fabulous street parade to officially open the 2012 Cairns Festival.
One of the things I really miss from Darwin is the August Festival with its diverse fortnight of performance artists, theatre, displays etc mainly in the open air.
By chance we arrived back in the marina yesterday morning just in time to take advantage of the opening of the Cairns event which is run along similar lines but appears even bigger.
Over 50 floats took part in last night's parade. They ranged from marching bands to the colourfully bizarre and the wonderfully ridiculous. It was a joyous hoot.
The esplande was six deep with people of all ages cheering, clapping and laughing. The kids along the route had a ball and were the recipients of many show bags, stickers and wacky clacker things.
We decided to give the later fireworks display (on three barges out on the mudflats) a miss and headed off for dinner at the Courthouse Hotel with our departing guests of the last seven days Rose and Steve.
Lucky we did. The noise of the fireworks was huge even from two blocks away, and once they had ended the influx into the hotel was enormous, with the dinner delay stretching out to an hour and a half.
We left Rose and Steve to overnight at Hides Hotel as they were booked on the tilt train to Brisbane this morning.
Royden and I caught the bus home and hit the pillows. We'd had a 4.30am start to the day from Fitzroy Island in order to catch the tide back into the Moon River and the marina.
It's quite surreal to sail in the dark - well, in this case, motor as there was not a breath of wind and the sea had only a slight following swell. With no moon, the stars and planets were brilliant. Quite a number of little fishing boats zipped out from Cairns towards the reef and rocky headlands in the pre-dawn. Their navigation lights disappeared every now and again in the swell. A big tanker looming up behind, but well to the east of us, was far more obvious.

In the dawn light we spotted a couple of whales blowing about a kilometer away. Our guests were up by then so we moved a little closer and just drifted around while we watched their humped backs appear out of the water. There was at least three in the group including a calf.

Whale and tanker.

In the distance, further out in one of the reef passages, we could see some mighty blows: obviously much bigger whales. We spent quite a while watching our group before turning back towards the coast and the Moon River. By 9.30am we'd tied up in the marina (without one swear word - that's twice in a row now) and had brekky cooking.
I'm working my way backwards here as it's around 10 days since I last wrote in the blog, so at this point I'm going to rearrange the order and go back to where the last entry ended - the Daintree River.
It was so peaceful (except for our wind generator) and protected but amazingly, we weren't besieged by midges or sandflies. This is probably because the river is quite shallow with many sandbars and we were able to anchor well away from the mangroves. Apart from the odd fishing tinnie, ours was the only boat.

Daintree sunset

The crocodiles must have eaten all the fish cos they were scarce. Royden and Rob almost landed one huge flathead into the dinghy but lost it at the last minute. Not having a net or gaffe with them probably played a part in this - but we all saw the fish so know it's a true story.
After the surfing crossing of the previous day, we decided to time our exit of the Daintree River on the Thursday to coincide with an extra half a metre of water under the boat. This meant waiting till the early afternoon's rising tide to haul the anchor up.
Believe me, the deep water and marker buoys of the exit route is far more apparent from the land side than from the sea side. Hence our exit was a lot less ``exciting'' than our entry had been.
The sea had quite a swell up and the wind was on our nose for the short trip down the coast to Port Douglas. We again saw whales and figure they must like it around here. Migaloo, the white whale, has been in this area for several weeks now - not that we have sighted him but others have captured him on film heaving his great body out of the water. That would be exciting!
We decided to book a berth in the marina overnight so we could tie up and see the sights of the town in the few hours of daylight left. Port Douglas is bustling with tourists at this time of year - more grey heads than dreadlocks though.
It's a pretty town with a beautiful white-painted church, complete with stained glass windows, nestled in a park right on the waterfront. Very popular for weddings. There are heaps of restaurants and shops.
The reef boats are loaded every day - they must take thousands of people a week out to various parts of the Barrier Reef which is so close to the mainland here.
There is a quaint lighthouse - only about 20 feet tall - hemmed in by houses on the hillside. It no longer operates and has been superseded by a flashing light on top of an ugly radio tower on top of the headland. The rock sculptures, that we had noticed in the park on our previous visit, had gone much to Leigh's disappointment as we had talked about how interesting they were. Apparently it was a temporary art installation. Pity.

A rare phenomena - a flat sea. Definitely more like the brochure.

Our trip back to Cairns was on the smoothest, flattest sea we have yet encountered. We had dolphins alongside the boat, caught mackerel and were able to muse on patterns made on the water by the few gentle skiffs of breeze that came along.


Another mackerel. Yum.

Haycock Island off Double Island.

We stopped off Double Island for lunch then just drifted around fishing without even putting the anchor down.
It was so delightful we hung off going into the marina until the last possible moment in the afternoon.
Last Sunday was `changeover visitors day' with Leigh and Rob hiring a car and heading towards Townsville via the Tablelands, and Steve and Rose arriving from their Kimberley cruise and Darwin.
The weather window for this past week did not open until Wednesday so we spent our first few days with S&R visiting Cairns sights including the spectacular Botanic Gardens.

One of the many splendiferous plants in the Cairns Botanic Gardens.

With a promising forecast we set sail with them on Wednesday and had a beaut sail towards Green Island but ... the weather monkeys were at it again. The sky blackened, the sea grew dark, it started to blow and then to rain - and we changed course to Trinity Inlet and some shelter. Bugger!

Eewwww! Dry season?

However after blowing itself out and an ensuing quiet night in the inlet, we set out for Fitzroy Island on the Thursday and were able to spend a delightful couple of days there fishing, walking, swimming and snorkelling (the latter two relate to only some of us).


Rose wetting a line.

En route to the Fitzroy Island lighthouse.

Surfing the Daintree

Morning tea in the Daintree River

We've just dropped anchor in the Daintree River after an exciting crossing from Low Isles preceded by a whale sighting about 300 metres off our starboard side.
Approaching the Daintree's sandbar on the rising tide, all four pair of eyes were focussed on finding that elusive red marker buoy that guards the safe passage through. At just over half a nautical mile off we spotted it - and the whale blowing and curving its way through the water.
The excitement of the whale soon paled as we surfed our way across the bar with the depth meter dropping to 1.1 metres under the hull.
With wide eyes Leigh was calling out the depths as they spiralled down and then she gave a cheer as they started coming back up as we hit the channel.

Leaving behind the line of breakers to gain safe passage into the Daintree River

Although we had heavy cloud and a bit of light rain on the way across, the sky is clearing, giving way to another beautiful day.
The Daintree is gloriously wide with a spectacular backdrop of mountains. The fishing lines are baited and over the back and we are hoping for the trifecta - ie our third consecutive fish dinner.

Low Isles snorkelling - beautiful, as always.

The purple stuff reminds me of spaghetti hair we used to make with Play Doh.

Random ramblings

Despite the best intentions the blog updates continue to be sporadic, but here's an entry to cover the past few weeks.
After the anchor drag episode in Trinity Inlet we tucked up in Bluewater marina to re-gathered our courage.
There's always plenty to be done around the boat and the time was spent   improving/replacing some of the cooling system to the starboard engine, putting a new speaker on the radio/CD player so that we could listen outside, covering up the hole left by the rusty old speaker, finding and patching the air leaks in the dinghy tubes and re-sewing some rotted stitching in the dinghy cover.
It was great to be in Cairns last Wednesday to greet (brother-in-law) Keith and the rest of the crew from the catamaran AlexandrA that Keith had helped sail across from Tahiti.
He'd been gone from home for six weeks and six days. (Royden's sister) Julie made a surprise trip from Victoria to Cairns to greet him which pretty well left him speechless for a few seconds when he spotted her.
We met up again on Thursday night for dinner by which time we had picked up Rob and (sister) Leigh from the airport and arranged for (brother) David to join us as he happened to be piloting some flights out of Cairns that week. It was a fun night.
With heavy heads but a promising five-day weather window, we set sail first thing Friday morning for Turtle Bay. It was a gorgeous morning and the land breeze gave us the opportunity to sail south at 7 knots.
Turtle Bay was as inviting as ever but a couple of trawlers were anchored tightly into the bay so we were left to anchor further out in a rather heavy swell - all the time hoping that the trawlers might leave and go fishing.

Turtle Bay

But alas, they stayed put.
Although we had a long walk on the beach it wasn't enough to offset the swell (and the effects of the night before). In short, noone wanted to even think about dinner and we were all in bed by 7.30pm - some hours earlier. Rob's statement next morning made us all laugh: ``I haven't gone to bed that early since I was three!''

Off to check the anchor - and the coral.

Colourful creatures on the way to the Fitzroy Island lighthouse.

During the night the swell lessened and we were all a lot brighter by the morning. As the trawlers looked pretty well entrenched, we set sail across to Fitzroy Island anchoring in the sheltered northern bay close into the reef. It was delightful as we could don snorkelling gear and dive in off the boat to explore in crystal clear water. (A quick dive also allowed us to check that the anchor was well locked in. We think we may be a bit paranoid about this at the moment!)
We spent a lazy two days at Fitzroy, snorkelling and taking a walk to the lighthouse (the ugliest I've ever seen) from where we spotted a couple of whales a fair way out. There's been reports of minke whales around this area at the moment as well as reports of Migaloo the white whale around Port Douglas.
Yesterday morning we set off north to Low Isles. The light tail wind supplied some oomph to the Code Zero early on but we had to employ an engine about half way through the eight-hour trip to boost our speed.

Happy fishermen.

Mind you we slowed down a number of times to haul in mackerel! We had two keepers and naturally had fresh fish for tea last night.
We dropped anchor in the sandy lagoon at Low Isles initially as the three public moorings were taken but the big cabin cruiser on the innermost mooring headed back to Port Douglas in the early evening so we quickly upped anchor and moved Sea Piper across.
Reef sharks, bat fish and a giant black trevally gathered round the boat as we pulled up. We also spotted a giant turtle making its way along the sandy bottom.
Today we spotted two whales (one off Cairns and one off Port Douglas) but each was a long way off.
Low Isles is a beautiful spot with its traditional red-roofed (circa 1878) white lighthouse (quite unlike the 1970s white-tiled model on Fitzroy) on a tiny raised sand spit surrounded by reef and with a nearby mangrove island (hence the plural `Isles'). The lighthouse still operates (automatically) and the island is home to researchers studing coral and marine life. It's also where Steve Irwin came to grief - but I think I mentioned that once before.
Royden, Leigh and Rob did a circuit of the island this morning before the tourist boats arrived while I stayed on board to make some olive bread for lunch. The delicious smell of it is wafting through as I type. Won't be long now!