Passage: Magnetic Island to Airlie Beach with Maree

18th August to 4th September, 2021

When you plan to catch up with family or friends there are lots of "living on a boat" challenges due to the many variables to consider. It’s not much fun anchored in the one bay or inlet waiting for storms or the wind or rain to settle. A longer visit, like a passage from one place to another is good for those who can be a little flexible with

timeframes and can cope with the weather doing what it does.

John and I and my sister Maree had spent a few days in the Townsville area and planned a passage to Airlie Beach. By land that is 345 kms and by sea it’s 132 nautical miles (27 hours if sailing at an average of 5 knots/hr). We had 16 days up our sleeve.

Townsville to Cape Cleveland to Cape Upstart
Keen to get going we left after fuelling up at the Breakwater Marina. They had a funny system of ropes tied to jetty cleats which made for an embarrassing tie up. I mean, how do you use those ropes to tie up unless you are on the wharf? We anchored at Cape Cleveland only 10 nm south of Townsville and somewhat protective from the SE winds. It was a rolly night.

The next day was the longest leg of the passage – 70 nm to Cape Upstart so we up-anchored in the dark to make time. Those red night vision lights are very eerie. We were able to sail half the way which was good. The previously idyllic anchorage decided to show us its nasty side. The wind picked up and stayed high for the next 4 days – 35 knots and gusting much higher and absolutely nothing like the

BOM predictions. The cape consists of a number of peaks and valleys and the wind bulleted through these for the entire time. We moved further into Upstart Bay but we didn’t get any significant relief for the whole time.

Maree spent her time fishing (yummy thanks) and on one occasion when she tried to pull a shark onto the boat John had to take the rod off her and make her sit under the naughty-boom – this is our version of the naughty room where one goes to sit and think about what they have done and what they will do differently next time.

Damn stubborn Tallis still wouldn’t pee on the boat – he must have been in agony. He’d stare at John then stare at the tender then back to John. Unfortunately, the sea was too rough to be out in a small boat – John was only managing to get poor Tallis ashore once a day.

On our final day at Cape Upstart the wind settled enough for us to go ashore for a picnic and Tallis got 3 long beach runs – happy dog...happy humans.

Cape Upstart to Gloucester Passage
The Upstart to Bowen leg was 40 nm. Perversely, after days of high wind now there was none and we needed to motor across the bay. We had a pleasant evening in Grays Bay at Bowen and being the exercise junkies we are, had a walk on the shore in the morning.

Next morning, we moved onto Gloucester Passage. This passage of 12 nm is situated between Gloucester Island and the mainland and is the home of the famous Shaggers Club’s Shag Islet – a tiny land mass only accessible at high tide. The annual Shagger’s Rendezvous was on the following weekend and vessels were arriving regularly for the big party.

Looking like very undecided people we re-anchored 5 times then got off the boat for a walk up the beach. Montes Bar and Grill was still closed – it takes these little places so long to recover from cyclones (and pandemics) – so we had a drink at the Eco Resort where we met a couple from Bundaberg who were staying at the resort. The following day we had lunch there. Beautiful meal. It was no surprise to run into the couple from Zophia as they would always be where the party is.

Gloucester Passage to Whitsunday Islands
We departed Gloucester towards the Whitsundays proper. Bizarrely, we sailed past a lot of small dead fish floating on top of the water – maybe a trawler had dumped them – and a very large shark was floating on the top of the water just sucking them up. Lazy shark.

We sailed across towards Stonehaven and then onto Butterfly Bay at the top of Hook Island. Absolutely beautiful weather. This is what sailing is about. We moved to Langford Reef for a quick visit – still a bit cool for snorkelling – then to Nara Inlet at the bottom of Hook Island – it is one of our favorite anchorages as it is very beautiful and calm in most weather. We played scrabble, did a little lazy fishing and watched the world go by.

Around this time John and I heard both Adam and Alayna and Georgie were in Brisbane together. Due to Covid and our lifestyle we hadn’t been with our family for 18 months. Sad mum.

Excited to see my sister’s reaction at the Whitehaven lookout we started off early. John stayed on the boat whilst Maree and I puffed

and panted our way up to the lookout. The sun came out as we looked over Hill Inlet which is the iconic view with Whitehaven Beach in the background. Never a fan of hill climbs, this one is worth it every time. Captain John picked us up, served up lunch and we moved towards the southern end of the beach.

As the weather was going to turn bad we moved to Gulnare Inlet via Solway Passage, so beautiful, like a sail through paradise. It started raining so we spent the next few days here doing nothing much except eat. After Maree nervously requested some of my rose wine and a little controversy developed over school teacher Mrs Heidke's inability to calculate wine required x days without bottle shop.

The battery started to become problemsome as we’d let it run low – sails shadowing the solar, overcast and rainy weather and we hadn’t topped it up with the generator. After a call to the now very familiar

Mastervolt guy we got it working. Poor Tallis was stuck on the boat again. The rain was one issue but the mangroves and fringing reefs prevented us from landing. Not a happy boy.

With the weather improved we booked into Hamilton Island marina. We did the usual – washing and showers and a walk for a really desperate Tallis. Again, as in most of the Whitsundays, you can’t have a dog on Hamilton Island unless you get special permission so the “walk” was very quick and discreet.

Over the next few days, we ate at the pub overlooking the marina, the restaurant at the resort on Catseye Bay, had champagne and cheese at One Tree Hill looking over Whitsunday Passage, Whitsunday Island and my favorite Plum Pudding Island. We sneaked into one hotel and took Maree up the external glass elevators for the view, did

some shopping and had a lovely relaxed time.

Our last night with Maree was at Long Island, a nice calm anchorage and a good stop-off point as it is quite close to Airlie Beach. Port of Airlie Marina allowed us to tie up early which was excellent as we were going to be very busy as Maree was leaving and our friends Kath and Dave from the NT were arriving.

Next: The Changeover, Airlie Beach.