The Land Trap

After Nannie left us at Airlie Beach, we quickly adjusted to life in town. After so long away from shops, water, rubbish disposal, internet and phone service, it was nice to have them all on hand. Airlie in itself is a lovely small town, very touristy and definitely catering to backpackers and holidayers. There is a swimming lagoon set up on the waterfront which was a refreshing and relaxing place to spend some time. The weekend markets have a great selection of fresh fruit and veg with a wonderful atmosphere. The one downside of Airlie from a boating perspective is that it is quite a rolly anchorage. At least it was consistent though so we adjusted to it relatively quickly.

While we were in Airlie some old family friends of Bryce's were going to be holidaying at their beach house back up near Glouchester Island. The invited us to come and stay with them for the weekend and even came and picked us up in Airlie. It's amazing how much faster you can get somewhere driving! But at least the wind is free! we had a lovely, relaxing, family-filled weekend (with real showers and beds!) that was just what we needed. We are so grateful to them for sharing their holiday with us.

"Small" fire in Airlie that was thankfully quickly contained

One activity that occupied an entire day for us was cheesmaking. Last year for christmas, Bryce had been given a cheesemaking kit. We had gone to use it once before only to find that you couldn't make cheese from UHT or powdered milk. So when we found organic full-cream  milk 50% off at the local woolies we jumped at the chance and it was fun. We ended up with a small amount of ricotta, a medium amount of mozzarella and a gigantic ton of whey. In an effort to use all the whey up, Bryce tried to make oatmeal with it (not delcious) and I tried to make pancakes with it (delicious). In the words of Bryce from whom compliments are treasured, they were the best pancakes he'd ever had. Bryce looked up what else could be done with whey and found a suggestion to mix warm, fresh whey, rum, honey and lime juice. It was a bit like a hot toddy with little chunks of cheese in it (surprisingly delcious apparently!). So thank you cheesemaking gift giver - you know who you are! It was fun and we look forward to doing it again! :)

The cheesemaking results

When we finally broke out of the clutches of Airlie and everything it had to offer, we had some mild growth on our anchor chain which was a sure sign that we needed to move on.

Grandmother on Board

My Nannie lives in Northern Queensland, so when I first told her last year that we were heading this was she said that she would come and see us. When I asked if she would like to stay on the boat, she said "well yes, I think I would." The first time we had this conversation I probably didn't even really know myself what living on the boat entailed but here she was 80 years old and ready to give it a go. So when we did <finally> make it up here, we gave her a call and a few days later she was on board Batty. We met up with her in Bowen and spent the night on the public jetty just to ease her into it and from there Nannie got the good, the bad and the ugly.

Our first day sailing was, of course, not as forecasted. So after we left Bowen we ended up cris-crossing around the bay as we beat to windward. For non-sailors, a sailboat cannot sail directly into the wind. So in order to sail in that, you need to sail just off the wind in one direction, then tack and sail just off the wind in the other direction and repeat, ad nauseum. Sailing close to the wind like that causes the boat to heel over (tip) substantially so it is not a very fun way to travel and best to avoid if possible. Unfortunately, there wasn't really anywhere nearby that we thought we offer us protection so we stuck with it. Not far into this fun game, we went to put the jib (front sail) down and discovered that our furler was broken. Sorry for using so much sailing technology but bear with me... I hope it's interesting! :) The furler allows us to control the jib from the cockpit as it roll up inside itself on the forestay for storage (the wire at the front of the boat that runs up to the top of the mast and supports it) and comes unwound when we use it. The alternative is one or both of us needing to go up on the foredeck (the front of the boat) to put it up or down manually. It's an amazing system... when it works!

So... instead of continuing our trip across to Gloucester Island, we ended up doing a circle around Stone Island, just off Bowen.

 

I think Nannie was blissfully unaware that as the sun was setting after sailing all day, we ended up just a couple of miles from where we started. She was just enjoying the ride... though she did comment that she could feel that it was a bit stressful at times.  We were hoping for better winds the following day so we could cross the bay without needing the jib. It was unfortunately more beating to windward but it was made bearable by the staysail (a smaller sail up the front of the boat) and we made it. We arrived at Bona Bay with enough sunlight left to stretch our legs on the beach. The following morning Bryce was up on the foredeck trying to fix the furler when a nice man, Peter, popped over to say hello. Turns out he was a boat builder and wanted to help Bryce fix the furler! Cruisers are such nice folk! It wasn't as bad as Bryce initially thought and Peter saved him (us?) much angst by helping with the repair.

From Bona Bay we headed around the corner to Breakfast Bay to wait for a window to head out to the islands. We had three days of little to no wind, the water perfectly still.  One day we tried to make a run for it, thinking that there might be some wind out there hiding on the other side of the mountain but we turned back disappointed. As it was so flat, I was finally able to convince Nannie to come up on the foredeck to explain how the anchor worked as we pulled it up. Thankfully there was no wind at all because just as we had the anchor in sight, the chain jumped off the windlass (the machine that saves our poor arms by pulling up the anchor for us) and the chain started running out freely. Just a little excitement to keep us on our toes! All was OK! It always is!

Doing Laundry... We put her to work!

When we were finally able to leave we had a gorgeous morning sailing and then the wind changed. We reevaluated and changed directions to head up to Double Cone Island. When we got there, it appeared as that staying there would've made for a rather un-enjoyable night so we hightailed it across to anchor at Blue Pearl Bay on Hayman Island again.
There are many resorts in the Whitsundays and Hayman Island Resort is one of them. There resorts that are situated on islands that are National Parks can not restrict use of their hiking trail by non-resort guests. Hayman Island is not in fact a national park but we got a bit confused thinking it was and so had a lovely hike up to the resort and saw tons of wallabies (Sorry, resort management). Blue Pearl Bay is just magnificent. Stunningly crystal blue water that is so deep all you can see is the parrot fish swimming underneath the boat.

Hayman Island

Despite the fact that we had had mostly miserable sailing weather, we had been blessed with calm and comfortable anchorages while Nannie was with us. Blue Pearl was mildly rolly while we were there and then when we headed over to Airlie Beach, we had a bit more rolliness (this may not be a word but you catch my drift). Nannie took it all in stride as she enjoyed being rocked to sleep by the boat. Over the course of the week she was with us, Nannie found that all of her aches and pains went away. She was able to crawl into her bunk and maneuver around in it without any problems and was able to really relax. We absolutely loved having her on board. I'm so proud and in awe of her to have so eagerly jumped on board (literally!) this adventure.

We Made it!

Now Bryce and I had both been to Whitehaven Beach before. My last visit there was about 7 years ago and Bryce hadn't been there for 20 years but for both of us this signified "The Whitsundays" so making it here was making it north!

 

After not being able to leave last year, we were pretty keen to get going. We were so focused on "getting north," that was our only objective. So... We were pretty happy. The gorgeous pristine white sand stretching for miles is hard to beat. The downside to this being one of the more popular tourist destinations was that there were so many other boats anchored there as well and when the tour boats brought even more people in multiple times a day, it kind of lost it's appeal.

So white it's like snow

We spent a morning making a repair on out sail. We had tried to do running repairs a couple of days prior on the way up but they didn't hold. One of our battens (sticks through the mainsail that help it keep some shape when sailing) had torn through it's pocket and was chafing on all sorts of things on the mast. It was our first sewing repair and it turned out pretty OK I think!

First sewing repair... many more to come

We enjoyed our walks on the beach and the hiking that leaves from there but we were ready to move on. The day after we got there we upped anchor to leave, taking the scenic route along the beach to leave. When we got to the northern end of the beach, the sand was whiter (if you can believe it!), the water was clearer and there were no people! Win! So back down the anchor went for the night. From here we headed up to Blue Pearl Bay. It was an easy, breezy, relaxing sail. It is clear to us why this is such a popular destination for sailing. We made it up to Blue Pearl Bay and picked up a mooring buoy just in time to say adios to our Welsh friends heading north on their Catamaran. This was our first time on a Cat and it's a different life then that on a monohull.

UPS (light-wind) sail

Blue Pearl Bay is located on Hayman Island, that of the resort and again just another stunning place. The water was crystal clear and so deep but we could see the large parrot fish swimming around underneath our boat. The snorkeling there was stunning.

Living the dream

 

Now at this point we had been planning on heading into Airlie Beach to resupply, do some laundry and get rid of our rubbish. It had been three weeks since we had left Bundaberg and seen civilization.
We probably could have gone longer and we were pretty keen to get some fresh food but.... we had some friends, Michael & Caitlin, who had just left Airlie and headed up to Gloucester Island. They somehow convinced us to head up to join them and we are very glad we did! We had a quick stop (<18 hrs) at Airlie Beach to resupply and so some laundry and then we were off again.

Laundry Day

 Our trip up to Gloucester Island was bonus. We had never planned to go further than Airlie Beach. This was a bit of a leap of faith seeing how we had never actually met before. Caitlin and I met in an online sailing group and had kept in touch. Thankfully we hit it off! There are also two resorts at Gloucester Passage with restaurants and pools that are very cruiser friendly. We came in with most gorgeous sunset but we were too busy anchoring to take photos, though I did contemplate how I might manage running to get my camera.

Dusk off Gloucester Island

We bought Aquabat from the man who built her 22 years ago. We had no reason to change her name and nothing better to change it to so we stuck with Batty. As we were sitting in the cockpit one morning anchored off the resort, a man sailed by and yelled out that when he was a young backpacker, he had sailed across the Indian Ocean on Aquabat. We have encountered this type of thing a fair bit as we have come up the coast and it's kinda cool to collect these stories about Batty's history.

From Glouchester Passage we headed off to Bowen to pick up a very special passenger!