Start Loc: Cape Bedford (15o 13.90'S, 145o 19.48'E)
Narrative: We dragged anchor yesterday evening. It was blowing a gale and a bit rainy, so we were all downstairs. Haydee went into the cockpit to set the table for dinner and said, "Ummm ... I think we might be dragging anchor." I went up to have a look and sure enough, we were 1.7nm further from the cape than when we anchored! In a little over three hours! We did 34 minutes on the engine just to move back in and make sure the anchor was set. One of the problems we had was that there were no handy visual references to see if we were dragging when we dropped the anchor. I used the GPS the second time, keeping an eye on speed over ground. We ended up leaving central navigation turned on all night so that we could have the anchor alarm set, as well as a bearing to a light we could see on a reef about 8nm away. We didn't move overnight, but I was up plenty of times to check.
I was wide awake well before the rest of the family, so after losing two lots of tackle yesterday I made up a new single strand steel wire trace and rigged my heavy rod for trolling.
We raised the anchor at 8:38am and motor sailed around Cape Bedford. The wind was ESE at around 15kts. We motor sailed SE to clear South Cape Bedford, and then came off the wind a bit sailing SSE close hauled with one reef in the main and 110% head sail. The wind varied between 10-15kts, so we made 5.5-7kts over ground, averaging around 5.6kts over ground. This was not too bad given we were close hauled and on the boat's least preferred port tack (we would have an extra knot of speed in the same conditions close hauled on a starboard tack).
We put a lure out the back once we cleared South Cape Bedford and at around 10:30am we had a strike and hook up. This time we landed a good spanish mackerel; 105cm long and 6.5kg.
We were overtaken by HMAS Melville (never heard of it, but googled it and found out is a hydrographic vessel, so I am a fan) as we came level with Cooktown. We passed Bee Reef and dropped sail 1.5nm north of Hope Islands. There were three boats near Hope Island East for only two public moorings, so as we motored in Heather prepared an anchor buoy to allow us to pull the anchor up head first if it got snagged. As we weaved our way through the reef Heather noticed the public mooring buoy we were on last time we were here was vacant (two of the boats were anchored), so we took that up at 3:10pm.
Tomorrow we will head into Port Douglas. One of the aims is to head up the creek in the dinghy and find a croc for the kids; another is to set up a few things (sail maker, freezer, etc) for when we head to Cairns on Tuesday.
End Loc: Hope Islands (15o 43.84'S, 145o 27.37'E)
Distance run: 35nm (cumulative: 1909nm)
Engine hours: 3 hr, 03 min (cumulative: 25 hr, 57 min)