Cooktown, Queensland

This evening finds us anchored up just outside the seaway at  the entrance to the Endeavor River at Cooktown. We could not get across the bar despite the charts suggesting that the entarnce was dredged to 3.1 metres. At low spring tide there was less than  2 metres in tthe channel according to the coastguard so we are stuck outside bouncing about until tomorrow. The tide won't be full untill 2200H and I don't want to try to get in during the night. So we will probably go on Lizard Island either tonight or at dawn. Too bad really as I would like to have visited the Captain Cook museum in Cooktown. James Cook was here in 1770 for two months after putting his ship, the Endeavour, on Endeavour Reef. He jettisonned all of his cannon and left his kedging anchor there and they were found quite recently.
We have a very nice two days of sailing after leaving Cairns and the weather has been excellent. We spent the last two nights on Low Islets, with a full moon a very calm anchorage. We finally got do some snorkelling on the reef. Lots of healthy coral and reef sharks and turtles.
Photos to follow, looks like we will have to give Cooktown a miss and on to Lizard tommorrow where will spend a few days.