Start Loc: Gulnare Inlet, Whitsunday Island (20o 17.59'S, 148o 57.35'E)
Narrative: As predicted, the winds changed to S/SW overnight. This had the wind blowing almost straight up the inlet and channeled somewhat just to make the gusts that little bit stronger than predicted. I had only just gotten up a little after 6:00am when there was a loud bang from the foredeck. It had Heather awake and out of bed in a matter of seconds and we went to see what made the noise. I noticed the forward hatch was fully open (lying back on the deck). We had left it slightly open when we went to bed and concluded the wind had got under it and opened it all the way. Having closed and secured the hatch from the foredeck, I was watching a cat off our port bow that was potentially dragging anchor in the wind when Heather yelled and gestured for me to come to the cockpit (it was blowing 30kts so I couldn’t hear much except for the wind in my ears). When I got back to the cockpit I saw what all the fuss was about – our dinghy (which we had towed the mile or so from Henning Island, and hence was on the water and not hanging from the davits) had been flipped over by the wind and was upside down. My main concern was that the 5hp was also inverted, with the power head in the water and the leg sticking up in the air. From my small amount of knowledge of outboard motors, I knew this was not a good thing.
It was easy to right the dinghy again, and I hauled in the dinghy’s rope, chain and anchor; but we lost the container they used to sit in. I then took the motor off, put it back on the pushpit rail, and gave it first aid. The leg should never be above the head as the gearbox oil drains. I don’t carry any, so I knew I had to get someone to go over it for me. I gave all the electrics a good dose of WD-40. I drained some fuel from the internal tank and confirmed it was not contaminated with sea water (when I last used it I had turned off the fuel and tightened the breather cap, so that probably helped). I drained the carburettor, which was contaminated. I took the front cover off the carburettor and sprayed a small amount of WD-40 direct into it. The only other thing I recalled from my training on submerged outboards was to remove the spark plug and pour a small amount of two stroke oil into the chamber, swirl it around and then get the motor to a marine mechanic. While I was doing all this, a cat off our starboard side went past dragging anchor, but they were quick to realise and fix it. There were a few charter boats in the inlet and we were concerned about them dragging into us; coupled with the wind, we were not going to stay in the inlet longer than was necessary.
As we left the inlet at about 9:45am, Heather had the good idea of seeing if there was someone we could drop the outboard off to at Hamilton Island, so she radioed the marina, got a phone number, spoke to a bloke, and we motored the mile and a half south to Hamilton Marina. They were great and let us tie up for half an hour or so while we dropped the motor off.
After leaving Hamilton, we sailed north and rounded the top end. We found ourselves going into 3kts of outgoing tide through Fitzalan Passage until we got past Fitzalan Island. From there we had E winds at 15-20kts. As we were headed just north of east, we were close hauled and tacked away from Whitsunday Island twice until we were able to sail through Solway Passage (between Whitsunday Island and Haslewood Island). We dropped sails as we came out of the passage, and motored to just north of where all the tourist boats were at the southern end of Whitehaven Beach. We were anchored by 2:20pm.
End Loc: Whitehaven Beach, Whitsunday Island (20o 17.48'S, 149o 03.05'E)
Distance run: 18nm (cumulative: 885nm)
Engine hours: 2 hr, 08 min (cumulative: 98 hr 25 min)