Start Loc: Dungeness (18o 31.35'S, 146o 19.68'E)
Narrative: We had a gentle westerly blowing when we got up this morning, so it looked like the change had come through. A check of the weather showed a favourable forecast, so after breakfast, we raised the anchor at 9:03am and motored back out of the Hinchinbrook Channel.
We did indeed have W winds, at 8kts. We raised full sail and motor sailed on our heading NNW heading. We were halfway between a beam and close reach, making 5-6kts through the water and 6.5-7.5kts over ground. We dropped sail as we came into Zoe Bay, and the wind also picked that time to switch to a northerly. Although we motored into Zoe Bay just before 11:00am, it took us a few goes to set the anchor and it was 11:20am before I was happy. I recall we had the same issue last time we were here. For some reason the sand/mud mix does not provide good holding.
The kids started to get the dinghy ready while Heather and I made a picnic lunch for us all. We then put the motor on the dinghy and went ashore. We had lunch at the camping area in the south-west corner of the bay before walking up to the waterfall and rock pool. We went past the waterfall and continued up the track a bit to the creek at the top of the waterfall. There was some nice deep swimming holes at the top as well, but faster flowing and not as big as at the bottom of the waterfall, so we headed back down. After a couple of hours swimming and playing in the fresh water, we left just after 3:00pm and headed back to the boat.
The tidal flow within Zoe Bay held us beam on to the gentle swell coming into the bay, and that was enough to make us roll a fair bit. We decided we would head to Orpheus Island where we knew that Little Pioneer Bay would provide us good protection from N weather. We raised the anchor and departed Zoe Bay and Hinchinbrook Island at 4:45pm.
We had N winds at 8-10kts. Our SE course had us between a training run and a broad reach, and we were making about 6kts over ground. The sun set at 6:42pm and the wind dropped to about 7kts, but it was pleasant twilight sailing so we were happy to make just 3.5kts. We dropped the sails at 7:20pm, just on nautical twilight, and motored into Little Pioneer Bay. All four public moorings were vacant, so we picked up the one furthest into the bay, at 7:29pm. It was a good day.
We should have N winds for the next two days, so tomorrow we will probably sail down to Magnetic Island and then into Townsville on Friday.
End Loc: Little Pioneer Bay, Orpheus Island (18o 35.73'S, 146o 29.26'E)
Distance run: 29nm (cumulative: 2195nm)
Engine hours: 3 hr, 00 min (cumulative: 51 hr, 08 min)