Sunday, 25 September 2011

25th September, 2011

Start Loc: Butterfly Bay, Hook Island (20o 04.35'S, 148o 55.71'E)
Narrative: Last night was not the best night's sleep. The wind dropped right off, so the tide change pushed us up onto the mooring buoy which then banged against the side of the boat. Four times we were rudely awakened in this manner!
I spent some time this morning coming up with an outline plan for the next few days. There was about 5kts of breeze from the east this morning, so we decided we would motor and try a bit of fishing. We dropped the mooring at 10:00am, cleared the green zone (no fishing) around Butterfly Bay, and towed a couple of lures around the top side of Hayman Island. We had no luck on the lures, and anchored in Blue Pearl Bay on the east side of Hayman at 11:05am. There were no moorings available, so we anchored in 15m of water with 50m of chain. I reversed to dig the anchor in, and it dragged a bit before finally biting. We went for a swim and a snorkel to have a look at the coral and marine life.
We planned to move to Langford Island for lunch, so we raised the anchor at 12:30pm. When the 15m mark on the chain was at the water, the chain stopped moving. After a few more goes it became clear we had fouled the anchor and it was probably a rock that it bit on and was now wedged underneath. I drove gently forward and backwards a bit and managed to get it loose (thankfully, as there was no way I was free diving 15m to get it free!).
We arrived at Langford Island just as a charter cat was leaving a mooring, so we took that up at 12:58pm. After some lunch, we took the dinghy ashore and walked the sandy cay. The wind picked up a bit and was blowing from the east so we were on the windward shore of Langford Island. We had been contemplating staying there for the night, but this convinced us to move and we departed at 2:38pm. Our original plan was to spend the night at Stonehaven Bay on the west side of Hook Island, but there were a heap of masts and motor boats visible so we opted for a mooring on the west side of Black Island. It was less than a mile from Langford Island, and we were moored by 2:57pm. Given the calm conditions it will be fine as an overnight anchorage.
End Loc: Black Island (20o 05.03'S, 148o 53.39'E)
Distance run: 8nm (cumulative: 1046nm)
Engine hours: 2 hr, 05 min (cumulative: 122 hr 38 min)