Farewell Cairns…Our Journey Continues…

On the third of May we said our final goodbyes to our friends in the marina and bade farewell to Cairns. We were off. Our five month interval on land had come to an end, and it was time for our sailing journey to recommence. We had mixed emotions on leaving; we were both definitely looking forward to getting back out on the water, but we’d made some great friends and loved living in Cairns with so much to see and do. We’d spent the last week saying our goodbyes to our new friends, Matt had final beers with his drinking buddies, and on our last day Sue took us to a Jimmy Buffett Parrothead party before we had a final BBQ dinner at Dave and Judi’s.

Our sincere thanks to all the wonderful people we’ve met here in Cairns, thanks for all the friendship and fun, the support and advice. To our friends at the marina, especially Don, Sue, Guy, Phil, Greg, Terry, Philip, Alan and Darren and Shelley. To all the people at my school, especially Jess, Fraser, Rach, Lesley, Lisa, and Vicki and Dale; to Dee at the gym; and of course to longtime friends Dave and Judi, and Liv and the boys.

While I had enjoyed my job and living a relatively ‘normal’ life on land, I was looking forward to going back to a life with no timetables, and Matt definitely needed to get out of the marina. For the sake of his liver, if nothing else! So it was with an air of quiet excitement and anticipation that we motored out of Yorkeys Knob for the final time and set our sails. It had been howling wind for the past few days and this day turned out to be not too different.

With fairly strong winds of 20-25 knots, we flew out to Norman Reef, averaging a speed of 7 to 8 knots, with the speedo even hitting 9 knots at times. We arrived at the reef in less than four hours and it took three attempts to tie onto the mooring buoy as the wind was so strong. With the messy, wind chopped water, our hopes of exploring this reef were dashed, and we spent the afternoon on the boat in the uncomfortable conditions, before eventually giving up and heading to bed at 7pm.

After a fairly rough and very long night, we were up early to sail over to the Low Isles. It had been a bit of a disappointing start to our trip and we were crossing our fingers for some better conditions. However, the weather gods had a few more challenges for us before they let us off the hook. Cool Change was sailing along nicely when we saw some squalls appear on the radar and the sky darken ominously. We quickly put two reefs into the main, and just in time, as then the squall passed over us, bringing strong wind gusts and a drenching of rain.

There were a few of these, and the reefs went in and out. Thankfully all the squalls were quite short lived. My cotton dress was saturated, and in the strong winds, I felt quite cold. I even had to put a jumper on for the first time in a very long time. Thankfully the weather gods relented and in the early afternoon the winds lightened, the sun came out and the skies were blue. We grabbed a mooring at Low Isles and enjoyed an afternoon relaxing in the calmer conditions.

The following day, light winds, calm seas and glorious sunshine saw us motor sailing up the coast. With the winds only 10-11 knots, we decided on a quick pit stop at Cape Tribulation to try out our new drone. After dropping anchor as close as we dared, Matt prepared the drone, and I headed out to the bow of the boat to release it. Matt was in charge of the controls, which he’d hooked up the chart plotter, and my job was to release the drone and then catch it again, up on the bow. We’d had a few practise runs at a local park in Yorkeys, and also off the boat at the marina, but this was our first real flight. We released it successfully and Matt flew it around the Cape, taking some footage. Unfortunately, there was a lot of cloud in the sky so the light wasn’t quite right, and we couldn’t really make out the surrounding reef very clearly.

Then it was time to land it back on the boat. Feeling sick with nerves, I balanced on the bow, and shouted out directions to Matt as he edged the drone in next to me where I was standing. I stretched out, grabbed the underneath of the drone and quickly flipped it over, stopping the propellers. Phew! I’d done it. Still shaking slightly with nerves, I made my way back down into the cockpit. Matt was jubilant. I just felt relieved. With the wind beginning to pick up, we decided to quit while we were ahead. It had been a successful first flight!

We sailed the rest of the way to East Hope Island, where we met Sandra and Brian from Sealeaf and Peter and Toni from Heatwave. They were also heading to Darwin and then the Kimberley. As it turned out, pretty much every other boat we met on this leg of the trip had the same destination. No boats head south at this time of year.

Over the next two days we had great conditions for our sail out to Lizard Island, with an overnight stop at Cape Bedford. I’d heard a lot about Lizard Island and so was looking forward to spending a few days here exploring. It was probably also the last place where we’d be able to snorkel safely on the coral reef. Four catamarans were already in the bay when we arrived, and a further three boats came in after us, so it was a busy little anchorage.

We spent two days here at Lizard Island, snorkelling over the coral in Mrs Watsons Bay, hiking over to the lagoon and up to Cook’s Lookout. This was the hill that Captain Cook climbed in 1770 to try to find a way out of the maze of coral reefs. He sighted a route through that he called Cooks Passage and was then able to sail the Endeavour out to safety. It was a pretty steep climb but it felt great to be out stretching our muscles.

Unfortunately, it was very cloudy on the day we climbed up so the promised view of Cooks Passage didn’t eventuate for us. We had some nice views back towards the south but we couldn’t really make out the reefs to the north. Still, we enjoyed the walk and the views and we even spotted several lizards. We spent an hour or so at the top after signing the visitor book. Matt’s phone got some reception so we checked some emails and sent some messages.

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On our final night we had a Paella Party in the small campground on the island with Napea, Sens de la Vie and Sealeaf. Everyone donated ingredients and Leonie cooked a huge paella, which was delicious. We also had yummy jugs of sangria and real vanilla slices cooked by Sandra. Yummo!!!

So we had a great first week back on the water. Our next destination is a bit of a milestone. Rounding the very tip of Australia and finally heading west!

The journey itself is my home.

Matsuo Basho