Start Loc: Lady Musgrave Island (23o 54.22'S, 152o 24.04'E)
Narrative: We had a great few days at Lady Musgrave Island. The weather was fantastic with plenty of sunshine. The water was warm and clear. We were the only boat anchored in the Lagoon when we arrived on Tuesday, but the wind dropped off a bit on Wednesday as forecast and that night we had 11 boats in the Lagoon. It was a nice calm anchorage.
We went ashore just after 4:00am on Wednesday morning. As well as the turtles (mainly Green, but a few Loggerheads as well), there are currently thousands of Noddies (birds) nesting on the island at the moment. As we entered the trees to walk on the path to the other side of the island (where the turtles nest) we were swooped by several Noddies; they flew into us but didn't hurt. I worked out they were attracted by the white light of my head lamp, so I switched to red light and they left us alone. We got to the other side of the island and saw numerous turtle tracks and several turtles at various stages of nesting. We met up with Jim who took us to one Green Turtle who was digging her hole to lay eggs. They are easily disturbed and scared off when they are coming up the beach and digging their holes, but very nonchalant once they are laying and covering the nest. We crept up behind her to stay out of sight and sat a metre or so away as she was digging. Jim said that he would be very surprised if she laid her eggs as it was now getting light. The sand was also very dry, so she may not have been able to get the right shape for the egg chamber. As Haydee put it, "Well, Jim sure did get a surprise." We were fortunate enough to see her lay her eggs in daylight. Jim was very informative. The kids got to handle one of the turtle's eggs, they patted her while she laid, and we left her as she finished covering up the nest. It was a great experience. We spent the rest of the day relaxing; we read, the kids watched a movie, Cam and I went snorkelling, Heather and I snoozed ... It was terrible. We went ashore again just after 7:00pm (high tide is currently around last light and first light, so the turtles are switching to the evening high tide to come ashore) and saw a few more turtles, including one that invested a bit of time digging a nest but then wasn't happy with it so moved to another location. We didn't get to see any hatchlings though, which is what we were hoping for. We ran the engine for 34 minutes.
Thursday was another relaxing day. I was talking with Harold off the yacht Carl and we arranged to go snorkelling and spear fishing. Haydee, Cam and I went along, as well as Harold and his two boys Mario and Rossco. I have never spear fished before and it took me two shots to learn the aim off. We came back after a couple of hours with three sweetlips and a good lobster. Cam and I went ashore again on Thursday night. We saw a dozen or so turtles throughout the evening, including this time watching a Loggerhead lay her eggs. She was also tagged. We gave Jim the details (tag number, location, date) of the tagged turtle we saw swimming around Low Islands. He will pass the details on and we can then email him to get her history. It was a bit overcast Wednesday and Thursday, so we ran the engine for 55 minutes on Thursday.
We checked the weather forecast and decided that today we would head to Lady Elliot Island, and hopefully from there we would be able to sail to Urangan at Hervey Bay. The lagoon at Lady Musgrave was calm and we could clearly see the bottom in 8.5m of water. We were a bit disappointed to be leaving, but we must move on. We raised the anchor at 9:28am, motored out of the lagoon and around the east side of the coral. The forecast wind strength (5-10kts) was correct but wind direction (E/NE) wasn't; we had SE winds. Once on our course for Lady Elliot the wind was almost right on our nose and sitting around 10kts. We motored the whole way to Lady Elliot Island.
As we motored we saw several pods of dolphins on the hunt for food. Several times they peeled off to check us out and play at the bow of the boat, but never for long as there was plenty of food about for them.
By 11:00am Lady Musgrave Island had disappeared over the horizon. It was a nice clear day and there was nothing but water in sight. We arrived at Lady Elliot Island at 1:00pm and were anchored by 1:09pm.
The water was spectacularly clear. I went for a swim to check the anchor and could clearly see it 15m below me on the bottom. We saw plenty of marine life including fish, shovel nose sharks, dolphins, rays and turtles. We spent the afternoon reading and swimming, and I scrubbed all the slime off the hull around the waterline.
At this stage the plan is to stay here tomorrow morning, to go ashore, snorkel and rest. We will then head off at some stage in the evening and sail through the night the 70nm or so to Urangan.
End Loc: Lady Elliot Island (24o 06.62'S, 152o 42.56'E)
Distance run: 24nm (cumulative: 2902nm)
Engine hours: 4 hr, 19 min (cumulative: 120 hr, 32 min)