We’ve spent the last few weeks wandering around the Whitsunday islands, and enjoying the best weather! We’ve also had guests aboard for a week. They told us they ticked every box on the ‘brochure’ and I think maybe we just we nailed it … apart from the sailing box (no wind!). We’ve spent the last… Read More: whitsundays wanderings »
It had been three weeks since we’d seen a shop or laundry so after a quick visit to Townsville to reprovision and visit a laundry (3 weeks’ worth of washing is big), and some unexpected socialising with Lukim Yu and Pacific Dreams, we dropped by Maggie for our last stopover for this season. It had… Read More: keeper reef »
I’m writing this blog post while anchored in Seventh Creek on Hinchinbrook Island and I’m listening to the pouring rain outside. It’s our fifth day here which is a long time to spend in the mangroves.
Since our last visit to the outer reef we’ve visited Townsville and spent some relaxing time at Magnetic Island with friends. And, we’ve snuck out to the outer reef again!
Yay!! We had a calm weather window in sight so we decided to sail north from the Whitsundays and spend these rare calm days out at the Great Barrier Reef, between the Whitsundays and Townsville.
We have made the Whitsunday islands. Lots of photos in this post both from above and below. We are often greeted by a big blow when we reach the Whitsundays. Sure enough wind and heavy rain were forecast.
We call it ‘crossing the paddock’. This is the stretch of water between Great Keppel Island and the Whitsundays. There are limited mainland anchorages, pretty much island hops.
After two cancelled flights, we did manage to return to a rather cold Melbourne to celebrate our little Ava’s first birthday, and it was well worth the ‘detour’. First birthdays are special!
Yes we are back on The Bossa, our home away from home. While it hasn’t exactly been a “sunny” Queensland with endless days of rain in the workyard and now a gale warning on the water, there is always much anticipation returning to our home on the water.
Another great sailing season has come to an end. We have been very fortunate getting to our boat again this year. We left Victoria back in July crossing the NSW and Qld borders, but little did we know Victoria and NSW would experience more Covid lockdowns and that there would be more border closures.
There has to be a last snorkel! Sitting at the Gladstone Marina for nearly a week, waiting for strong SE weather to pass through, we had plenty of time to plan a Lady Musgrave visit but I think we must have exhausted the alphabet with the number of plans we came up with. Tides, winds… Read More: a last hurrah »
We have visited Monkey Beach on Great Keppel Island many many times and I’ve snorkeled here most of those visits. But this time we scored the perfect anchorage. My ‘dream’ anchorage is one that lets me snorkel straight from The Bossa. There’s no need for Neville to hang about in the dinghy. He can return to the… Read More: monkey beach »
The strong northerlies have been blowing forever and with daily thunderstorm warnings we decided to stay in the Port Of Airlie Marina for a few nights (no anchoring off Airlie in northerlies). We were also waiting on two packages, one being our new screecher which we had been missing big time since our old one… Read More: airlie to keppel »
After a brief visit back to the mainland where we met up with Waterfront, we then both continued to hop down the outer reef via Britomart, Walker and Kelso Reefs.
What a wonderful 10-days we’ve had, all because of a perfect weather forecast – gentle northerlies! Yes, they take us south, but it also meant we could reef-hop south from Cairns to Magnetic Island rather than via the familiar mainland anchorages.
What a game! What a game! What a game! What a great time we had in Cairns. Nearly two weeks of catching up with Leanne and Steve who now live in Cairns. We met these two five years ago on their Fusion cat Easy Tiger. Easy Tiger has a new owner but our friendship has… Read More: what a game … in cairns! »
I could call this post ‘Dumped at Dunk’ I suppose, but no, I’ll stick with Beaver Reef for the moment. The ‘Dumped at Dunk’ story … you’ll just have to wait!
Phone and internet at last! We have been enjoying the sights of Hinchinbrook Island for over a week now, primarily due to weather constraints, but there has also been an eagerness to enjoy and explore the natural beauty of this island.
Oh the strong SE trade winds! They have been relentless since arriving in the tropics. But, we did manage to sneak in a few days out at John Brewer Reef with a welcomed calm forecast recently.
Last season we only managed to get as far north as the Whitsundays due to our late start with Covid restricting our annual migration to Queensland in 2020. This season we have made it to Magnetic Island and we are about to venture even further north via some outer reef stopovers.
Sometimes when you least expect it, long passages can be fun and full of surprises. We have crossed the “paddock” many times in The Bossa. It’s the stretch of water between Great Keppel Island and the Whitsundays. No mainland anchorages, all remote and most are uninhabited islands.
Monkey Beach is a small bay on the western side of Great Keppel Island. It has a fringing reef that attracts day visitors from Yeppoon, along with us yachties who want a quick snorkel. In recent years this reef has looked a bit sad with algae growth,
It seems so long ago that I was in the water with my cameras and at Lady Musgrave, but here we are again in 2021. Having said that, it doesn’t take long to feel like it was yesterday either.
We’re back! I think we managed to navigate the arrival our newest crew member, baby Ava and Covid-19 remarkably well. Yes, we are grandparents and we now look forward to family visits on The Bossa with an eager young one to share our travels with.
Our 2020 season has come to an end and it will be a year we will remember for a variety of reasons, but particularly for the world-wide Covid pandemic. It has been a year of mixed emotions – unfulfilled
There was something special about this visit to Lady Musgrave. The weather window was perfect, the company great, the snorkeling fun and it was just so very picturesque. Perhaps it was just that. We entered the channel on a very low tide so the reef was exposed all around us and with the sun overhead,… Read More: lady musgrave … again! »
Yellow Patch is it! We have just spent a wonderful five days at our favourite Yellow Patch. Yellow Patch is so named because of its unusual long orange sandhill, not quite “yellow” but close enough. It serves as a very scenic backdrop to extensive white sand flats,
After our catchup with Waterfront we have now officially headed south. With a lift booked for the 25th November and with a few planned stop-offs along the way, it was time to take the timely northerlies. Our first stop was Thomas Island. I think the little bay on the southern side of Thomas is everyone’s favourite including… Read More: heading south »
While the Little Black lagoon offered various reef locations to snorkel and to fish, we decided to explore the neighbouring Block Reef by dinghy. Block Reef is on the northern side of the channel that separates the two reefs. After exploring a
That reef window came! In fact, even though we have returned to the islands, the winds are still light and I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I think I might be a tad snorkeled out!!
On the northern side of Hook Island are several bays – Pinnacle Bay, Manta Ray Bay, Luncheon Bay, Maureen’s Cove and Butterfly Bay where we picked up our favourite mooring buoy. These northern bays are good protection from the SE trade
Revisiting the Whitsundays region is a bit different from our other destinations. It’s familiar, it’s always social because many cruisers spend time here, it’s relatively compact with short passages between islands, it’s close to the outer reef and it has two
It was a big four days of sailing to get to the Whitsundays … then one more to get to the outer reef. But it was worth it! When we’ve been out of phone range for days and the phone suddenly starts beeping, we can’t wait. Oh how dependent we
I never thought we’d be saying “let’s get outta here” only after a few days at Great Keppel Island. But we did! We arrived at GKI after a visit to the Gladstone Marina with AQ, where we provisioned, washed and even did some sight-
After three days at Lady Musgrave we moved on to Fitzroy Reef with AQ. I have written about Fitzroy a few times so I’m not going to repeat myself other than to remind my readers that there is no coral
How lucky are we??!! It’s not Wakatobi, but being here is not such a bad ‘plan b’. We left Fraser Island and the Hervey Bay whales for a few supplies from Burnett Heads before we headed north for the Southern Reef,
The whale season in Hervey Bay is now! Many humpback whales drop in to Hervey Bay from August to October each year on their way south. Our ‘normal’ cruising season means we are usually further north at this time and while we certainly see whales further north, they do seem to be a bit more… Read More: whales of hervey bay »
Well our journey this year has been anything but a “straight line”! We’ve navigated so many road blocks and detours along the way, the challenges just keep on coming!
It’s that song again! We have been at Boatworks for four weeks and yes, we had a long list of jobs to do and mostly annual maintenance, but unfortunately the list did grow and two weeks stretched in to four weeks. It was the longest stretch we’d left The Bossa out of the water since… Read More: it’s that song again! »
We have made it to Queensland, to The Boatworks and finally to The Bossa. What a crazy time it has been. Our annual March maintenance visit to The Bossa passed us by,along with our planned May departure.
Our 2019 sailing season is nearly over … and it’s definitely a wrap for my snorkeling season! My last snorkel was at Lady Musgrave Island. We snuck out to Fitzroy Reef and Lady Musgrave after we were doubting we’d
We’ve been to Lady Musgrave Island several times and we love it, particularly this time of year as it’s turtle nesting season. It was a hard decision … stay at Fitzroy Reef for an extra two nights, or spend some time on LM island hoping to see a turtle lay
After five fantastic days at Yellow Patch we had hoped we’d see at least a few days of outer reef weather and we did! Fitzroy Reef and Lady Musgrave Island were ‘sort of’ on our way south so we grabbed the opportunity. We entered Fitzroy Reef with
In 2016 we visited Yellow Patch on Curtis Island. We have finally returned! Yellow Patch is a treasure! A large orange (not yellow) coloured sandhill slopes down to a deep water beach, extensive white sand flats fill the inlet and endless mangrove creeks meander deep in to the inlet, further than the eye can see.… Read More: yellow patch »
It’s timely being at Great Keppel Island. My friend Chris from Anui (ex Take It Easy) has just had an article published, ‘Keppel Magic’, in the Australian Multihull World magazine, Sep/Oct edition. (Multihull World used to be Neville’s ‘must read’
We dropped Tim at Hamilton Island last Sunday with the northerlies having just arrived so it was time to go south! No time to wash the three sets of bedding and towels, and no time to provision. I am very grateful for the IGA on Hamilton Island at least,
After a few days at Bait Reef we then entered Hardy Lagoon. Hardy Lagoon is a large lagoon and it is a little tricky to enter. There is a very narrow entrance and its recommended to only enter close to or at high tide, when the water has stabilised. We
Soooo … we were left with Tim (and his drone)! We had another week with our son on board and we struck gold … an outer reef window! Could not have been better timing. We dropped (a sad) Kaycee at Hamilton Island airport, picked up a few necessities, refuelled and we were on our way.… Read More: our week with Tim … bait reef »
Damn … got the layout wrong! Thats what happens when you are chasing internet … here’s Take Two! (Ignore the last email post.) Yes, it was busy on board with six of us! But a special time too. We enjoyed watching the Tigers winning the GF while at Hamilton Island and those that didn’t, they… Read More: family time – part two »
Here’s a few pics from a few snorkels around the Whitsundays during the last few weeks … Butterfly Bay, Chalkies Beach, Waite Bay and Langford Reef. I’m really looking forward to some calmer days out in the water! Getting buffeted around by