Whitsunday sailing adventure – Day 1

We had to wait for a weather window to get the boat from Bucasia Creek to Airlie Beach: not easy in the middle of the wet season in the Whitsundays. Plus we had to fit it in in between work commitments. After constant viewing of the multiple online weather sites (BOM, Willy Weather, Pocket Grib), Sunday 12 February was looking possible. It was essential we left on the ebb tide to make our journey north as the tidal range was over 5 metres, and being such a small vessel it would have been near impossible otherwise. So in the late morning sun with the help of friends and the now former owner, we loaded up the boat ready for a 65 nautical mile open sea passage. There wasn’t a lot of time for fluffing about as we needed to be at the entrance of the creek to catch the turn of the tide. A last minute check of our list to ensure we had the essentials: life jackets (on), flares, EPIRB, working VHF marine radio, auto pilot, experienced yachtsman; and enough food and water to last at least three days, and we were off.

Loading at Bucasia Creek

The passage begins - Bucasia Creek to Airlie Beach

With light north westerly winds and the tide with us we steered a course towards Brampton Island. But, what became the constant of the entire voyage was whichever way we tacked the wind was on the nose. 

Katherine ready to dump the main. Auto-pilot is doing its thing.

Skipper Gary

We sailed past the Sir James Smith Group in the east and Repulse Islands to the west, commenting on James Cook’s encounter in these waters. Repulse Bay is a wide expanse of shallow water between Cape Conway (NE) and Midge Island (SW).  The Bay was named by Cook in 1770, because he was ‘repulsed’ by it; that is he was unable to find passage north where he thought there was one.  The Bay is enormous with an expanse of low-lying land at the head of it where the O’Connell and Proserpine Rivers emerge into the sea. These rivers have a combined catchment of some 12000 km2 and each year they discharge millions and millions of cubic metres of sediment-laden water into the sea, which has contributed to the shallowness of the Bay. It’s a choppy, unpleasant piece of water in fresh winds with tide opposing, so it wasn’t a place we wanted to go.

Averaging 5 knots for the day with intermittent help from the 4hp outboard engine, we chose Megan Bay at Keyser Island to drop the anchor as the sun was beginning to go down.

Anchorage at Keyser Island

A pasta cook up on the butane stove was enjoyed as we watched the full moon rise, then we crashed out on the trampoline in the cool breeze wrapped up in sleeping bags. A calm, quiet anchorage in a light northerly breeze soon turned into a roly shitdump, as the wind picked up and a residual northerly swell wrapped around the point, rocking the boat incessantly and keeping us awake. At about 4.15am the wind dropped, conditions became calm again, and we had a couple of hours of ebb tide; a cue to continue our journey. Head torches on, we weighed anchor and headed west straight into the breeze again.