Start Loc: Thomas Island (20o 32.68'S, 149o 06.52'E)
Narrative: As we anticipated, we spent yesterday at anchor at Thomas Island sitting out the 30kt winds. We had a lazy day with a late start, and then the kids I escaped the swell by going ashore. While Heather relaxed and had some "Heather time" on the boat, the kids swam and played at the beach while I sat on the beach and read. We later went for a walk to the west side of the island where we had some coverage, so we sat in howling winds to update the blog. We ran the engine for 36 minutes and changed gas bottles again. A 4.5kg gas bottle is lasting us about 3.5 weeks.
Today the forecast was for SE 20-25kt winds. Heather didn't sleep much last night due to the wind howling through the rigging and all the strange noises a boat makes when at anchor in strong winds. I got up and did several checks throughout the night, but slept reasonably well in between. The swell had not reduced this morning and we were still spending a lot of time beam on, so we decided we would move on.
We weighed anchor at 12:10pm and set sail for Shaw Island, which was the next major island north. The wind was SE at 20kts so we ran under just the main with one reef at about 5.5kts. The following seas were only about 1.5m and going slightly faster than us, so it was a more pleasant sail than I expected. After about n hour we changed course to a broad reach, sailed around Burning Point, and joined four other boats at anchor in the bay. Our anchor was set by 1:45pm.
We are not sure if it the wind has died down, but we have less wind and less swell so this anchorage seems to afford better protection than Thomas Island. We will certainly have a more comfortable night.
I am sitting in the cockpit typing this at 7:11pm. Heather is asleep already, but I can look north and see the lights of Lindeman Island Resort where this time 14 years ago Heather and I were on our honeymoon.
End Loc: Shaw Island (20o 30.27'S, 149o 03.12'E)
Distance run: 8 nm (cumulative: 820nm)
Engine hours: 1 hr, 45 min (cumulative: 92 hr 27 min)