Start Loc: Bait Reef (20o 48.70'S, 149o 03.88'E)
Narrative: Sea birds will land anywhere they can when they are so far off shore. They will sit on the line of a mooring buoy as it floats on the water, and dinghies are obviously attractive. When I got up this morning I climbed into the dinghy to scrub the bird poo off the motor and the dinghy itself, and found an egg in the bottom of the dinghy. It was cracked from when the bird laid it and it dropped into the bottom of the dinghy, so I threw it straight into the water. It was not there more than a second before the alpha GT swallowed it whole. Heather saw the whole thing, and likening me to the pigs, made some comment about Angry Birds!
After breakfast this morning we decided to move around to Manta Ray Dropoff at the SW corner of Bait Reef. We dropped the mooring buoy at 10:14am and motored out of the Stepping Stones. The GTs followed us, possibly because the kids were feeding them bits of bread. I was tempted to see if we could lure them all the way out of the green zone so we could try to catch one! We motored the mile or so around to the mooring buoy at Manta Ray Dropoff, and saw half a dozen turtles before we picked up the buoy.
We went straight in to snorkel with the turtles and get some photos but they weren't quite as friendly as the Low Isles turtles. We hadn't snorkeled this part of the reef before and it was interesting to see the differences between two parts of the same reef. We did also see a manta ray as were swimming back to the boat.
The weather was looking true to the forecast, and we decided it was too windy for Cateran Bay. We have moored there before in 20-25kts and it was not the best spot; calm enough, but the wind raced over the low saddle and screamed through the rigging. So when we dropped the mooring at Manta Ray Dropoff at 11:17am, we set sail for Maureen's Cove, next to Butterfly Bay on the north side of Hook Island.
The winds were SE at 15-18kts, with seas up to 2m. Our heading of 200 degrees magnetic had us sailing on a close reach with an apparent wind of 20-22kts. With two reefs in the main and the head sail reduced to 100%, we consistently made 6-7kts through the water. We also started with 2kts of tidal assistance, but it was down to 0.7kts by the time we approached Hook Island. We averaged 7.3kts speed over ground for the trip, so we made good time and it was good sailing.
About 7nm north of Hook Island, Heather pointed out a ship approaching from the west. I kept an eye on it as we sailed and 10 minutes later the aspect hadn't changed, an indication that our courses were going to cross the same piece of ocean at the same time. Five minutes later it was a lot closer, but otherwise the situation hadn't changed. Technically we were the stand on vessel, but he would pack a much bigger punch. Even through binoculars we couldn't make out the name on the bow, so I radioed "the east bound ship passing north of Hook Island". A heavy accent answered, but we didn't catch the name of the ship. I told him we were the sailing vessel on his port bow and asked how the situation looked to him. We thought he said he was about to alter course to starboard and we should pass across his bow, but that would have made things worse for us. I asked him to confirm he was going to alter course to port and pass astern of us. His answer was again unclear. I am unsure what was going on with the Australian pilot I think they are supposed to have on board, but I ended up telling him that I would alter course to starboard and pass astern of him. He seemed to acknowledge that and I made an obvious course change. We bled off speed and let him pass before coming back on course and crossing his wake about 200m behind him. They are big scary beasts, even at a couple of hundred metres. At least as he passed we saw that he had put a lookout on his port bridge wing to keep an eye on us. There was never any danger, but it's as close as I want to get to one of them!
There was also a lot of sail traffic around the top end of the Whitsundays, and we reminded ourselves that somehow we had again managed to be in the Whitsundays during school holidays! We dropped sail as we came into Maureen's Cove and picked up a mooring buoy at 1:43pm. We had a late lunch, rested while the sun was still high, then went for a snorkel. It was another good day.
End Loc: Maureen's Cove, Hook Island (20o 04.09'S, 148o 56.23'E)
Distance run: 18nm (cumulative: 2427nm)
Engine hours: 1 hr, 38 min (cumulative: 69 hr, 14 min)