Cairns, Queensland

We arrived in Cairns two days ago after a brisk overnight sail from Orpheus Island. Today, it is again raining very hard and we are doing some interior clean up. Roger and Janice left last night and we spent a very enjoyable ten days with them. At Stonehaven Bay, we hoped to do some snorkelling on the reef and also visit Blue Pearl Bay on Hayman Island but the weather turned rainy again so we decided to sail overnight to Magnetic Island just off Townsville. We had excellent breeze for the 125 mile downwind run to Horseshoe Bay on Magnetic (Maggie) Island and arrived in the early morning and the weather cleared and we spent the next two days exploring. Alas, the jib furler motor quit again and there is nothing to do but replace it. It took 1000 cranks of the winch handle to get the genoa furled and unfurled manually, fortunately a portable electric drill will do the job but it is no substute for a new motor. It will have to come from Italy via expres frieght.
We had planned to visit Dunk Island next but we were informed that the island had been devastated by cyclone Yasi last year and all the facilities were closed. Instead, we went to Orpheus Island as the diving was reported to be outstanding. We had a very pleasant sail to Orpheus but just as we were mooring up the sky clouded overand the breeze built to 20 kts plus. We made a valiant effort to go diving but the visibility was poor so the excersize was abandoned. The next day remained cloudy and cool so we left in the afternoon for Cairns. The sailing was excellent despite the dodgy furler and we arrived just after dawn.
We did some  exploring yesterday up to Port Douglas and will do some more once the weather improves.
Lots of photos to follow, they need a little sorting out.