Start Loc: Cateran Bay, Border Island (20o 09.33'S, 149o 02.03'E)
Narrative: After having Cateran Bay to ourselves overnight, and another windy but relatively calm night, we dropped our mooringat 9:40am and headed out of the bay. The winds were again SE at 20kts and we sailed on a broad reach at 6kts to the northern tip of Whitsunday Island and through Hook Passage. The passage between Hook Island and Whitsunday Island had some rough water at the head, but it was just currents meeting as we were half way through a flood tide. We phoned Hook Resort and while they were open they no longer have a shop where we could but bread and milk. They offered us a mooring buoy for $25 so we could go ashore and have a look around. We decided against the mooring, and due to the tidal flow decided not to anchor to do the Whitsunday Cairn walk - maybe later.
Due to the lay of the land there were flukey winds until we were about 1nm south of Hook Passage when we started to get some clean air. The wind was more southerly here, so we sailed close hauled down the passage and then on a broad reach following the deep water west along the bottom of Hook Island. We were then close hauled again towards South Molle Island before we could tack back in towards Cid Harbour. We joined the plethora of boats already in Cid Harbour and anchored at the southern end of Sawmill Bay just after 12:30pm. It surprisingly took 3 goes to get the anchor to hold in the mud. We ended up needing 25m of chain to bite in 4.5m of water (just after high tide), but then we brought back in 5m of chain.
Heather and I spent some time this afternoon sewing some velcro back on where it is coming loose on the bimini. A close inspection showed that all the stitching is a bit worse for wear after years of exposure to the elements, so we will need to take the bimini off at some stage and get it run over again by a trimmer.
We will duck down to Hamilton tomorrow to get the 5hp, and some fresh bread and milk to see us through the next few days. Then it will be back to Cid Harbour and we will walk to Whitsunday Peak.
End Loc: Sawmill Bay, Cid Harbour, Whitsunday Island (20o 15.88'S, 148o 56.54'E)
Distance run: 17nm (cumulative: 919nm)
Engine hours: 1 hr, 31 min (cumulative: 103 hr 21 min)