at last …

At last … calm weather … which means a reef window!

We seemed to have had an endless amount of very strong south easterlies this season. So it was exciting to finally see some reef weather approaching in the forecast. The anticipation!

There are two types of ‘reef’ in our sailing life. The first kind is the ‘reef’ where we reduce sail because it is blowing way to hard. (Our reefing lines reduce the mainsail size to accommodate the conditions. We still sail as fast but it’s just way more comfortable.) We seemed to have surrendered to this ‘reef’ way too regularly this season. 

The second ‘reef’ is the exciting one, yes, my happy place at the outer reef.

We left the Whitsundays from Cape Gloucester at daybreak. We had a 45 nm passage to Faith Reef and fortuitously (or was it good planning) we had a screecher sail the whole way.  And we caught a lovely Spotted Mack. Our first fish for the season. Perfect!

Cape Gloucester is a favourite stopover. The majestic Gloucester mountain is the backdrop of two beachside eateries, a comfortable anchorage and this time, even a fireworks show after the Dees beat the Dockers! Ha, no, there was a fishing comp’ on. 

Faith Reef was stunning. We anchored in 3 metres of crystal clear water on white sand. The shallow lagoon colours were mesmerizing, bright turquoise and aquamarine. Then we woke to a glass out. And, we had it all to ourselves!

I jumped in for a snorkel when we arrived as it was low tide. I do love it when I can leave the Captain behind on The Bossa. He is very happy watching me snorkel from our tender but we both have a bit more freedom if I can snorkel on my own. I discovered one of my favourite Anemonefish, a family of Pink Skunk Clownfish (Pink Anemonefish), in a bommie right behind The Bossa. When I revisited the following day I discovered yet another type of Anemonefish, just below, a Clownfish. 

Crystal clear water, a zero low tide, the sun shining, little if no breeze and with the reef exposed all around us, what more could we ask for? A drone that would fly!

Technology is great until it’s not. My attempt at Cape Gloucester to refresh my flying skills after a dormant 6 months, came to a halt when I realised a helicopter was doing joy flights above us all day. Bugga! Sooo, when my drone couldn’t locate my phone at Faith Reef (we were out of phone and Starlink range), it would not fly. Several error messages appeared. Fortunately with Starlink you can activate ‘Ocean Mode’ when you are more than 12 nautical miles offshore (at a cost of course), so after mucking about on Google, we were soon back on deck and flying. A few too many nerves and it certainly would have helped if I’d used the correct joystick to take off too.

Our anchorage at Faith Reef from the air. The reef behind us was quite close depending on the wind direction. See the photos below. These were taken from our cockpit.

One of my favourite snorkels at Faith was a location in deeper water, nearer to where we entered the reef. There was so much activity below. Schools of Fusiliers and Rainbow Runners, as well as larger fish like Trevallies, Sweetlips, Coral Trout and Barracudas.

Our next stop was Darley Reef, only 13 nm further north. 

The exposed reef was really one of the highlights of the day at Darley.  It’s hard to capture this from above. This  photo was taken with my TG underwater camera. 

I snorkeled in a shallow lagoon not far from The Bossa.  The Captain could anchor and I could wander as I liked. 

Much of this coral came out of the water at low tide. It was a zero tide. You can see the lagoon I snorkeled in, top right.

The lagoon had a lot of old damaged coral but surprisingly, a large number of Spine-cheeked Anemonefish, all hosted in a different variety of Anemones, including Bubble-tip Anemones. These Anemonefish are not easy to photograph at all.  They were all slightly deeper and very quick. Probably even shyer than other Anemonefish. So with the still water came floaties everywhere. It was challenging.

But my real exciting find was this vibrant pink Christmas Tree Worm. Its colour was simply beautiful. The water was clear, the backdrop perfect, it was shallow and I could take my time because a Christmas Tree Worm does not move, well, until I block their sunlight which is when they retreat in to their burrow. 

I could get close and I could clearly see the spiral disappearing down the worm’s crown and its ever so clear plumes. There are always two spirals, but only one worm which has burrowed in to hard coral to make their home. Remember they are small with their feathers only extending 1cm from their coral anchor and they can live up to 40 years! They catch their food when ‘in bloom’ and most importantly they protect the coral by preventing coral from being overgrown by algae. 

I’ve taken so many photos of Christmas Tree Worms over the years, but there was something special about the colour of this one that drew me in and next to this stunning pink one, was a pretty smaller green one.

Here’s a few more snaps from Darley and Faith Reefs.

We had a rather bumpy night at Darley.  With a 0.02 low tide came a 3 metre high tide so there was lots of movement. We had hoped to spend another night at Darley as a 0-5 knot day was forecast for the next day but unfortunately the weather had other ideas. The following morning’s forecast, which would have been our departure day, had a 5 k to 30k wind change over a very short interval and it was going to be in the morning in the dark, so we decided to use the calm water and motor all the way to Magnetic Island, 75 nautical miles before the blow.  Good decision as we found out that in fact 40 knots hit the Whitsundays as the blow came north.

Not one other boat in sight and disappointingly, no whales in sight either. Twelve hours later we arrived at Maggie, at 10 pm.