Cairns

We arrived a week ago to the Marlin marina right in the center of downtown Cairns ,a great location to be able to walk everywhere.On arrival we were greeted with a rainbow, and in this last week we have only had one perfect day! Again high wind and rain, in fact it is good to be floating in our 'ark' as there have been floods in Northern Queensland. Roger and Janice left us on thursday after sailing through the Whitsundays, a good time was had by all.They taught us a new pastime playing Canasta.Before they left we hired a car and drove up to 'Dougo' aka Port Douglas. This is a nice seaside town, we had an excellent lunch at the Tin Shed ,sitting on the water front overlooking the entrance to the marina. This is also a CSL, so is a local hangout ,just sign in as you enter, probably the best value for lunch and  drinks in town. Cairns is a tourist destination ,a step off for tours to the great barrier reef and the rain-forests. As there is no beach as such here they have built a lagoon swimming pool with lifeguards on the  Esplanade , it has the effect of an infinity pool with the ocean,this is where the tourists sunbathe and families picnic using the free barbies.This city has well covered walkways with trees and overhangs from the shops to keep that famed sun off us.There is supposed to be warmth and sunshine here when escaping the cold winters of Melbourne and the south,we have yet to experience this.This weekend there is an Iron Man competition which looks as though it will be a big event. I personally wouldn't fancy the swim course after looking at the notice( see photo) on our marina gate! This will be our last Marina and town for that matter before Darwin,( possibly Gove on route) so repairs,maintenance ,cleaning ,refueling and planning are in order. We will not be back on the mainland for the next 3-4 weeks once we leave here on Sunday,only reefs and remote islands :) ,but there is a price to pay for remote beauty , no food ,no wifi :( So planning our provisioning for the next 3 or so weeks is my most important job . There is an excellent market called Rusty's on Grafton street,about 4 blocks from the esplanade  (fri, sat and sunday mornings only) which is excellent for very reasonable fresh fruit and veg produce,Woollies and Coles are positively expensive in comparison and with less selection.The usual supermarkets have all our other needs mind you. Another deal for our fellow cruisers if you come here , pick up a 'time out' free newspaper ( they have them at the Coffee Bean near by) they have had the last few weeks a coupon for 50% of your entire menu at a close-by restaurant called 'Sauce' , and yes that includes all your drinks also.Food is good also.Best bargain in town  .  On Saturday mornings there is another market on the esplanade with many arts and crafty stalls, with an excellent opal stand,the items here are mainly made in Au,which the (daily )night markets just off the esplanade tend not to have, they are mostly 'Australian' goods made in China! A colleague and friend (dating back to the Captain's Cleveland clinic days,1982-83 ) John joined us today for some supposed R&R  before we set sail on the weekend.You can see how R&R sometimes works around here in one of the photos ! Young Ron our faithful crew member  is flying in this week to sail with us for the next month to Darwin, so it's  all go on Callisto.

Rainbow over Cairns on our arrival

The Lagoon, an artificial beach on the Esplanade Cairns



Notice on the marina entrance. There is an ironman competition starting tomorrow. No doubt they will swim faster



The Lagoon, Cairns

The Esplanade, Cairns

Roger and Janice our resident super heroes

John and I repairing the jib furler motor. Everybody gets put to work

the pier at Nellie Bay, Magnetic Island

the pier again from underneath

Sydney at 4 months

Sydney (baby not the city) at four months

Natures artwork

ficus trees

approaching squall line Hamilton Island

ebb tide Magnetic Island

double rainbow

sand designs Whitsunday Island

rock formations Nellie Bay Magnetic Island

Whitehaven Beach. Design made in the sand by invisible crab

sea and sand Whitehaven Beach

Here are a few of my photographs displaying the wonderful sights I have seen recently.

Whitsunday Island photos



An overlook on Hamilton Island with the very Hollywood name of  "One Tree Hill" at sunset



Whitehaven beach a 5 km expanse of fine white sand



Sawmill Bay, Whitsunday Island

Koala bear in the wild on Magnetic Island

Echidna going walkabout on Magnetic Island

Beach on Magnetic Island

The Yacht Club on Hamilton Island, a very impressive structure

The Admiral, Nikon at the ready

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.

Stonehaven Bay, Hook Island, Queensland,Oz

We are now in a delightful little bay on the NW side of Hook Island in the Whitsundays, the only problem is that the weather again turned rainy and windy and precluded the snorkelling we had planned for the next day or two.
Roger and Janice joined us on Hamilton Island (Hamo) last Saturday and we had a good time touring the island which is, indeed, quite upmarket. The marina fee includes the use of all the resort's swimming  pools,restaurants and bars of which there are many.
We left on Sunday for the famed Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island which is 5 km. of pure while sand. The Admiral and Janice walked its entire length, the dinghy trip back into the wind was a wet ride and took a while, four up with a ten horse outboard motor.
Next day we went to the NW side of Whitsunday Island to Sawmill Bay. We went ashore and did a small bushwalk of 3 Km. to Dugong Beach but did not spot any.
The motor on my jib furler quit and it took the afternoon to get it going again but I will have to order a new one and replace it. We will leave today at noon for Magnetic Island about 130 miles to the NW as the weather is likely to continue intermittantly rainy and we will have good breeze from the SE.
Follow up on Magnetic Island and some photos to folow

Back to sailing again

With two beautiful full moons and 650 miles of sailing we are now at Hamilton Island in the Whitsunday islands at the Great Barrier reef. Our numerous stops have been already blogged,so I shall only mention some of the most memorable ones for me. Leaving  Brisee April 6 was a reintroduction into the sailing life for me ! I had left New Caledonia by plane for London last September and when I returned back to Oz it was to Sydney for our walkabout .In early January we flew to london to meet our new granddaughter  and I stayed on a few extra weeks while Michael flew back to sail Callisto up to Brisbane , I then flew there and we began another walkabout,so it has been around 6 months since my last sail.It takes me a while to adjust back into this lifestyle !especially getting used to the motion of the water and taking the obligatory scopolamine :(  I am unable to read at any length under these drugs ,it gives me a lot of listening to music and reflection time ,we also embarked on another scrabble tournament last week ,so far the admiral is 5:2 to the captain. We thought we would ease me back by trying to make these legs with day sails alone and therefore many stops.We only had one overnighter around Fraser island with favorable wind and a full moon. There are always challenges however well we plan our legs ,our grounding  at Scarborough was an eye opener! I hadn't realized before  I experienced this, that once hauled over, Callisto  could power off ,rail to the water.I stood on the high end rather like the sinking titanic.Surfing in through the entrance at Mooloolabah harbour was very nerve racking ,trying to dodge surfers and jet skis who were in our path.These challenges certainly keep our minds alert ! Heading north has brought us into the tropics with sugar cane fields and  pineapples around Bundaberg and gathering our first coconuts  in Australia from the beach on Great Keppel island, a very pretty stopover. The meteorology department  say the weather is now transitioning into an el niño pattern ,but we are finding  that It still can be unpredictable,despite the fact that it is nearly winter and we should be having drier weather ,it has been altering between a week of perfect conditions with a week of rain and very high winds, so we have been playing a dodgeball game with the traveling . We purchased a very clever device from Telstra ,a prepaid mobile wifi modem with which we can use up to 5 devices simultaneously, a great boost for our communication ,no arguing about whose turn it is to be on line.So far there have only been 5 days out of 5 weeks where we were in such remote areas that it failed to work The Australian coastline is a true tidal experience  of enormous proportions, the best $5 a cruiser can spend in this state ,is the Queensland tide tables,a bible for these waters.Not only tides ,but currents come into play along this vast coastline ,so there are many factors along with the weather to take into consideration between each leg , Local knowledge has also been very helpful. A very  noticeable menace are the different bugs,sand flies, biting flies and mosquitoes , so another must are mosquito nets on all the ports and hatches .I made one for our companion way ,so that we can have air flowing through Callisto,whilst keeping the pesky critters out. Once leaving the boat especially at dusk insect repellant is a given.Everyone has a recipe ,the latest concoction I heard about is equal amounts of detol  and baby oil with a smaller amount of tea tree oil,mix and then spray :) I have yet to try it,I personally don't like deet ,but it works.  I spent my birthday (May 1st) in Yeppoon,and as you know most countries take the day off to celebrate this day (with a march ).I had an extremely relaxing stone massage at a local day spa called 'Satori'.I am now a proud owner of an IPad 3 ,which allows me to have wonderful onesided skype conversations with our little Granddaughter Sydney and now she can see me rather than wonder who is talking to her through the computer.The screen resolution is phenomenal also. We ate a delicious birthday  dinner of soft shell blue crabs and a dessert platter extraordinaire consisting of mini versions of creme brûlée ,Indian rice balls with a nut ice cream,decadently,dark chocolate cake paired with a fresh raspberry vanilla ice cream,and a profiterole accompanied with thin almond biscuits  . The restaurant was called 'Megalomania' ,and is deservedly ,the 'our pick' in the lonely planet and also a choice from my food spotting app.What would I do without my apps! Talking of which ,the app "planets" allows us to look up into the night sky and see the names of all the stars and planets, we dont need wifi as it is through the built in GPS ,but the best app I have found recently is called "postcards" it  is fantastic , I am able to load a photo of my choice ,and add a personal message including my signature ,then have it transformed into a postcard   and then physically mailed to any address worldwide  .No more having to look for postcards and post offices,especially in remote areas where they don't exist.Brillant!       We have had dolphins and turtles along the way and keeping us company in the anchorages ,this is always a special sight and brings a smile,a few small sharks have also been spotted. It is wonderful to be in the clear turquoise tropical waters again,leaving behind the dirty water in the harbour of Sydney and the extremely brown muddy river in Brisbane . West bay on Middle Percy island is one of these 'must stops for yachties',(boat is the only way to get there,as are most of these remote places), On the beach is an A frame ,as you can see in the photos,with mementos given from those who have passed this way for the last 50 years. It is a gathering spot for fellow sailors. There  is an excellent  5 mile hike ,a canopy covered track, (which at this time of year was full of tiger blue butterflies,)up to the homestead where we had a good cup of tea with Kate ,who with her husband is managing a wonderful homestead that has been in her family for many years,the   homestead house as with all traditional Queensland homes was built before air conditioning ,so it is built on stilts over a stone/ concrete slab so that the air can flow beneath to help keep the house cool ,as well as large covered verandas so that the sun is kept out and the air can flow through the open windows especially when it is the rainy season. They collect rain water from their corrugated roof into large tanks,plus being lucky enough to have some fresh water on the island also.They raise goats ,bees and chickens ,with a few peacocks wandering around .There are many varieties of fruit trees and vegetables growing. She shared her delicious bread made from her own wheat.Kate is a lovely ,hospitable and unbelievably hard working lady . We had a good conversation  while her two adorable labs sat under the table for me to play with, they made me pine for my long gone labs :( It is this kind of unexpected rendezvous that "makes my day "along our journey. We have now reached Hamilton island known in Oz at 'Hamo', this is an island with a large marina ,resorts ,and golf carts transporting everyone around ,restaurants ,plus very expensive homes for the rich and famous, rather like an upscale Catalina.We have been busy washing, cleaning and provisioning as we always do when we have unlimited water, before we set sail tomorrow   around the islands ending up in Cairns by the 24 th May.