East Double Bay

[Kyle]We had the same experience departing Gloucester Island as we did when arriving. The wind was either thirty knots or nuttin’, and we escaped in fits as if we had to stop at a traffic light every block. When we finally cleared the northern tip of the island the wind became a steady thirty all of the time. At least we were going fast.

Once we put a few more miles between us and the land, the winds finally died down to a much more reasonable eighteen knots. We then had a lovely sail that had us going hard upwind, but without having to tack, as we threaded our way through pine-topped islets of orange granite. Maryanne mostly enjoyed this as the changing view out of her office window as our cellular service never completely winked out on her. It wasn’t until we were deep within the eastern arm of Double Bay that it finally failed her, giving us both an enforced break from the Internet for the evening.

We were the only boat in the large, shallow bay. The shore there is mostly mangroves, eliminating the chance for a nice beach walk. Since we weren’t going ashore, we anchored way out in the middle, where we were out of the reach of any biting bugs. Ashore, the only sign of humanity was a lone lookout tower for spotting fires. We were just around the corner from Airlie Beach, but it looked like we were alone in a bay that could have looked just the same a thousand years ago.

East Double Bay

Gloucester Island

[Kyle]Our first stop after Bowen was Gloucester Island, just twelve miles upwind. The sail was a bit bouncy, but at least our signal held out the whole time. I did most of the sailing, while Maryanne continued chipping through her online lists, occasionally taking a brief break to help me tack before resuming again.

Gloucester is a giant wall of a mountain that does a mostly effective job of blocking the prevailing trade winds. The wind piles up on the windward side until it finds a gap, then it goes rushing through at double speed in what are known locally as “bullets”. As we closed on the island, our steady wind got gustier and gustier and started shifting around more and more, making our track look like a child’s scribbles. By the time we were almost there, we were spending half of our time rapidly accelerating to nine knots and the other half coasting to a stop. It was on the last of these lulls that we just managed to pull all of the sails down before the next thirty-knot gust hit us.

A quick overnight at Gloucester Island on our way south... Thankful for the beautiful sunset!

The anchorage was beautiful, but also a little crazy. The wind was thirty-knots a third of the time and zero the rest, with almost nothing in between. We would be sitting in a peaceful flat calm when we would hear the sound of rushing water. Looking in that direction, we could see it was the sound of the wavelets being pushed ahead of the next gust. It would arrive from a different direction than the last, hitting Begonia broadside and sending her skidding sideways until reaching the end of her rode. Sometimes, the gust wouldn’t last that long and we would slide to a stop in some random location before being pushed somewhere else. There was one other boat anchored with us. We both swung through the whole compass rose several times an hour. When we awoke the next morning, we were a little surprised to find that we were being blown toward the beach by strong winds (although the beach was still plenty far away). At least we knew our anchor was well dug-in.

Bowen

[Kyle]Once we were anchored in Bowen we were able to connect to the internet, and then set to completing the myriad of tasks ahead of us. Both Maryanne and my brother, Darren were brilliant in stepping up to the plate and digging into the work of sorting out Mom's estate. I was less helpful. I couldn't focus and I kept breaking down at all the many things that reminded me of her.

Maryanne plodded on and, in the way that she does, she did a mountain of work on mine and Darren's behalf. After a couple of days, I joined in. I've never before been involved in deconstructing somebody's life. It's fascinating, daunting and frustrating to have to reverse-engineer a person's entire financial history from a pile of receipts, bank statements and emails. It's a weird juxtaposition to be so intimately immersed in the records of her day-to-day life and have no way to actually talk to her about any of it. There were so many times when I wanted to say, “Mom, please explain this to me” or just as often, “Mom, what the hell were you thinking? Don't you know this is going to be a real headache for your heirs?” Maryanne's versions are the same, except she calls her Carla and does it in a cute accent.

Before either Maryanne or I were ready, we had a calm day between a bunch of windy ones. I realized that it would be our only chance to record our video eulogies without any background noise. It was tough. Neither of us had had a chance to really collect our thoughts, and the whole thing was so new and raw that we both had a hard time getting through it without blubbering. We felt guilty about the sunny Aussie background and both of us agreed that we didn't think we could have made it all of the way though our eulogies if we were standing in front of a crowd of other grieving people. It was a relief to go back to the distraction of digging through Mom's records.

In a strange way, going through all of Mom’s emails and unsubscribing from all of the junk that she got made me feel like she was still around. Even though I knew she was gone, I kept feeling like it was just one of those normal communication gaps where I would start to think it was time for a phone call and a catch up. It was a cold bucket of water in the face when we logged in to watch her funeral as it streamed live. These people sure are taking this prank pretty far.

This beautiful picture of Mom (taken by her great friend Robin on one of their many fun trips away) was the one we selected for the order of service

My brother Darren, who builds and plays guitars, started with a haunting instrumental piece that he wrote for her as he sat by her empty bed on his first night alone in her house; he called it "You're Never Gone". He explained that each note was supposed to represent a moment in the long song of her life. Then they played Maryanne’s and my video eulogies, looking so inappropriate in the Australian sunshine, except that we both looked so very sad. When the service finally ended, the video cut off and suddenly. Maryanne and I felt so far away. Family members were kind enough to set up a video call with us at the subsequent wake, where people could come over to chat with us for a bit. That helped a lot.

We took a day to reflect on Mom’s influence on our lives and then jumped back in with the giant stack of admin to complete. On one of our early calls with the estate’s lawyer, it became clear that he needed some notarized documents from me. This is easy in the U.S. – just pop into any old bank or a realtor and pay the $20 fee. Australia doesn’t have those kind of notaries and paperwork sent internationally requires a specially qualified attorney who will typically charge hundreds of dollars to witness a signature. Gulp!

Fortunately, one of the good things about the COVID era is that it is now acceptable to witness a signature over video link as long as all of the proper ID is shown, etc. The estate attorney said he would do it as part of his original fees.

That was great, but we still needed to courier him the original documents to make it all legal. Since the Australian Post Office is well known for being slower than walking (almost every Aussie uses private carriers), our best option was to use FedEx. The problem was that the nearest FedEx office was two hundred miles away in Mackay. Our fastest option for getting there was to sail three days to Airlie Beach, then rent a car and do the two-and-a-half-hour drive to Mackay from there. After a week at anchor, it looks like we’re going to start sailing again.

We tried to take time out to enjoy the sunsets but spent hours sat at the computer keeping in touch with everyone and trying to help from afar

We went ashore twice at Bowen - On both Sundays we were there - since there is a local farmers market near the anchorage and we figured we'd find some fresh food and grab a walk ashore to help stop mulling over the loss and pain, but to get away from the computer and practical chores, and reflect on the happy memories. Thankfully it's a beautiful place to enjoy such contemplative strolls.

Greys Bay, Bowen

[Kyle]Just after 1:00am, Maryanne's phone rang while we were at anchor in Cape Bowling Green. This is not terribly uncommon as it is linked to an American phone number we use so that people there won't have to make an international call to reach us. The rare 1am calls are usually some telemarketer that doesn't realize we're not actually in the U.S. When the phone rang a second time, I worried someone was actually trying to get hold of us.

I nudged Maryanne to wake her so she could answer the call. On the other end was Scott, My mom's best friend. Oh, the poor man. Between sobs, he told us that Mom had died last night. He could barely get out the words. Her friend Robin had found her in her bed that morning, having passed in the early hours of September 17th 2021 (USA time). The doctor thinks she probably had a heart attack.

We suddenly felt so very far away and unable to do anything except share in the disabling shock and sadness. Mom had just been through a big surgery a couple of weeks ago. Everyone that knew her had been worried about it. We all let out a huge sigh of relief when her good friend Robin called us to say Mom was through the operation and in the recovery room. Over the next couple of weeks, we talked every day and she seemed to be steadily improving as expected for what she has been through. She was understandably in a lot of pain, but she was slowly getting better and doing a little more each day. By the time of Scott's call, we had all let our guards down and were expecting many more years to share in her life. The news was a real gut punch. One of the regular subjects during my calls to Mom was each of our desires to get me 'back home' for a visit. We'd missed a visit to the USA to share in her 70th birthday as we were mid passage from NZ to Chile, our plans to visit in 2020 had to be canceled because of COVID and it looked like we wouldn't be back in her neck of the woods for at least a couple of years. “Hang on, Mom” I would tell her, “We're coming as fast as we can.”

Now, along with the shock and grief, Maryanne and I were facing a mountain of things to do in the coming days. The last thing we wanted to do was go sailing, but the phone signal at Cape Upstart was terrible, so we had to move somewhere with a better one so we could spend all of our time on the internet and on the phone to connect with our family back home, and to be as supportive as was possible from so far away.

The sail to Greys Bay, at the town of Bowen, was even worse than the previous leg. We double reefed and spent the whole day tacking. Spray regularly came over the deck and hit me in the face. It seemed so appropriate that even the weather couldn't manage to perk up. Through each mile, I couldn't focus on what we were doing. I could only think about Mom and how we would never get to see her again. She was such a shining light to everyone that knew her, a beacon of fun and love. She was the main influence in my life and the reason we were here instead of working thankless jobs at a desk for unfeeling bosses.

We got to Bowen right at sunset like the monohull had back at Cape Upstart. It had been a very long, draining day and we were both exhausted physically as well as emotionally. We knew we wouldn't need any help falling asleep, but we decided to open a bottle of wine anyway. On one of my last calls to Mom, she said one of the first things she was looking forward to when we actually saw her again was opening a bottle of wine and spending the evening telling stories around the table. Now that would never be, so Maryanne and I raised glasses in a toast to her and then spent the evening reminiscing about the best mom and mother-in-law we could have ever hoped to have.

{Maryanne: While Kyle was a child, growing up (with Carla raising two boys as a single parent) Carla had so many surgeries that Kyle totally lost count, she was regularly in and out of hospital, and spent several years in a wheelchair. All this meant that Kyle was somewhat numbed to the risk of death, having so many data points to prove his Mom was invincible. As an adult he understood the risks, but really was not ready to believe it was at all possible for his Mom to just not-be any longer. We are all so devastated.}

So many wonderful Memories of 'Mom' - the amazing Carla Maningas.

Cape Upstart

[Kyle]By the time the sun rose for the leg from Cape Bowling Green, we had already been underway for almost an hour and were in the open sea. Once we came around the cape, we started the long business of tacking every few miles. The influence of the land was such that each time we tacked, our course would look pretty good for about five minutes before the wind would start bending us away from our destination. Measuring the distance between the points of the zigzags, it looked like our average speed in the direction we were trying to go was around two knots.

An early start to head down the coast

There aren't a lot of places to pull in to get out of the trade winds along this section of coast and we still needed to get thirty-five miles to windward by dark. We only had twelve and a half hours until the end of civil twilight. We just had to keep sailing and hope. Fortunately, the anchorage in Shark Bay at Cape Upstart looked free of hazards and seemed safe to approach in darkness. We started planning for that.

In the end, it didn't end up being necessary. In the afternoon, the wind bent enough to one side for us to be able to get there with a few short tacks alternated with long, productive ones. We made it to Shark Bay with an hour to go. As we were tidying up, a monohull came screaming in behind us with the rail down under full sail. They rounded up and dropped their anchor about ten seconds after the sun was gone for the day.

Since we hadn't gone ashore at Cape Bowling Green, we were keen to have a walk along the shore. It was nearing low tide when we landed the dinghy at the bottom of a very wide beach, being mindful that crocs are reputedly a problem here. All of the foreshore property is private, so there is no way to legally access the interior without trespassing. The beach is public, though, so we decided to get as far as we could before the dinghy started floating again.

Exploring ashore at low tide

The heat of the day was a real killer. The high peninsula, which was keeping the water in the anchorage nice and flat, was also blocking any cooling breezes. It wasn't long before our pleasant amble was transformed into a trudge. The heat sapped all of our strength and enthusiasm for the outing.

Being goal-oriented as we are, we still pushed on as far as we could until a wall of boulders put a halt to any further progress. Then it was with relief that we turned for home. This gave us a second pass by a long series of ramshackle holiday homes along the shore. These could only be accessed by landing a boat on the nearby beach. All building materials and provisions then needed to be carried up to the property. From Begonia the previous day, they looked idyllic. Now, each one seemed like it must be far too much trouble to access and stock for a little bit of privacy. No wonder most of them were vacant.

By the time we made it back to the dinghy, it was all I could do to muster the energy to row home. Sheesh! I used to run marathons. Now I can't handle a three-hour beach walk with no elevation change. It's just the heat. I'd be fine on a cooler day, I'm sure.

Cape Bowling Green

[Kyle]As planned, our next leg required a 3:30am departure to be sure to complete it before dark. Getting away was easy, just head straight away from the reef until the depth sounder reads forty meters, then turn right. We had alternating periods of no wind at all and just enough to move us at two or three knots, so we alternated between being relieved the engine was off and being relieved we were finally moving again (with the engine back on). We actually arrived at Cape Bowling Green with a couple of hours to spare until darkness. We needed the light to carefully pick our way as close to the beach as we dared.

Such a shame we never made it ashore - there were (what we assume to be Sugar cane farm) fires in the distance - we much preferred the views of the sunset

This anchorage is notorious for being a lot worse than it would seem from perusing the charts. The tide flows quickly through here and it interacts with the swell to make a lot of chop. That's why we were trying so hard to get so far in, out of the worst of it.

The winds were light and out of the north, so we had perfectly flat seas for sunset. Overnight, the trade winds returned and we woke to rolling and the clunking sound of our refurbished steering system working all of its new fittings. We wanted to go ashore and have a walk around the uninhabited peninsula, but the wind and chop was too great to make getting in the dinghy for a soaking seem like a good idea, so we decided to save that for the next stop.

Out to the Reefs

[Kyle]A break in the trade winds caused a mass exodus of boats from the Horseshoe Bay anchorage. Some used the opportunity to move east, most of the others headed to nearby Hinchinbrook Island. Five of us headed north to John Brewer Reef. {Maryanne: We hadn't been snorkelling for way too long, it was time to get back out to the Great Barrier Reef proper, and our friend Rick from Duplicat had suggested we didn't miss the John Brewer Reef since we were so close, it was also soon to be my birthday so it seemed like an appropriate treat to celebrate}.

We left right after first light, but we were still beat there by a couple of boats that were lifting their anchors as I was still removing our sail covers. When they got there, they picked up the two public mooring buoys. That was fine. We had inside information from a diver friend that those moorings were far from the good stuff at John Brewer. He gave us coordinates where he had anchored near the Museum of Underwater Art, near the northeastern tip of the reef.

Both the charts and satellite images of the reef are vague and of poor resolution. Maryanne was able to find one good areal image that matched up somewhat with our coordinates, so with a little bit of plotting, I was able to figure out what looked like a safe way in, provided we went slowly with Maryanne at the bow looking-out for coral bommies.

It worked out great. We ended up being the only boat there. Conditions were still pretty miserable and rolly, though, probably because we led the trade wind drop by a day.

John Brewer Reef from anchor

By morning, things had calmed down quite a bit. We started by snorkelling from the boat right at sunrise to the Museum of Underwater Art's Coral Greenhouse. It consists of a pathway leading to an open structure of steel frames with various statues and other pieces of art within. It is mostly for the enjoyment of SCUBA divers, who have the luxury of being able to spend time at its eighteen-meter depth (60ft). I was able to get down there while snorkelling, but then I only had a few seconds to snap as many photos as I could before the urge to gasp for air compelled me back to the surface.

Coral Greenhouse, Museum of Underwater Art (MOUA) was a short swim from out anchored boat

We were there to snorkel, and the reef was spectacular

Following that, we swam over the intervening reef to the outside wall. That was amazing. All of the coral here seems in especially good health, with loads of vibrant colors. Sometimes, there were so many fish feeding that they would practically obscure the reef altogether. It was definitely the best reef system we have seen in years. We followed it for what must have been almost a kilometer before cutting back across to follow the inside to Begonia.

In the afternoon, Mahana showed up with their friend Pedro as extra crew and with our encouragement, picked their way in to a tiny spot just ahead of us. Maryanne had made me a big dinner, which she had been planning would actually last two days instead, we took it over to Mahana to split five ways. They supplemented it with a dessert of fruit and ice cream. They have a freezer. We also found out that Nick has perfected the Sea Breeze cocktail. We all raised them in a toast to Maryanne's birthday, which was technically not until the following day. That was the best use of seconds that I could hope for.

Mahana joins us and we share a lovely evening

By morning, the wind was gone completely. Begonia and Mahana were both pointing random directions over anchor chains that hung straight down with no pull at all. The water was so smooth and clear that it hardly seemed to exist at all. Our anchor was in five meters, but Begonia was floating off of the shelf at thirteen meters. We could see the sand on the bottom, along with the milling fishes, all of the way to the anchor.

Kyle cooks up a birthday breakfast for Maryanne, before a 2nd long snorkel, and Mahana swings by with a surprise birthday gift before we depart

Days like this are when everything takes too long. Coffee takes too long. Breakfast takes too long. Getting dressed takes too long. We want to go swimming!

We rushed through our whole routine and went into the water as soon as we could. The visibility was incredible – at least twenty meters. Since it was still a little over an hour before low tide, we followed our former route backwards, to get us to the Coral Greenhouse just then. That made it a meter and a half closer to the surface and thus easier to get to.

By the time we got there, dinghies from the other boats had arrived and our peaceful, private spot was now taking on more of a theme park feel. We retreated to Begonia to prepare for departure. Before we left, though, Mahana came by with a birthday gift for Maryanne. Plus, Nick was kind enough to repair a second of our oar locks that had broken way too early in its young life.

It took us only an hour or so to make it to adjacent Lodestone Reef. A few boats were there, clustered around the single public mooring. Most were likely overflows from John Brewer or boats that had diverted once they learned how many were already there.

One of the main reasons we wanted to stop at Lodestone was because we knew our next leg was going to be an all-day one and a five-mile head start would come in handy. Also, anchorage at Lodestone is in the lee of the reef, not requiring a crossing of a pass to get in. That would make it a straightforward affair to leave in the darkness of early morning.

To help ourselves a little more with this, we skipped the main anchorage and headed for a largish looking sandy spot we found on satellite photos that was farther east and thus closer to where we were trying to go.

What we found was glorious. After coming out of the inter-reef trench, the bottom climbed to a plateau of white sand ten meters below us. The wind was completely gone by then and the sea was gently undulating. It looked like a mirror of mercury in the distance and like clear glass when viewed straight down. The visibility was even better than it had been at John Brewer. From the bows, we could see all seventy-five meters of chain until it disappeared into the sand at our anchor. Most tantalizing of all was the gentle swell that was breaking over the nearby reefs. As the waves formed, their backs tilted toward us and acted like a prism, flashing us a kaleidoscope of colors from the coral below.

Snorkelling at Lodestone Reef was just as rewarding

We got done with our arrival checklist as quickly as possible and then struggled into our still-damp wetsuits for a look. Wow! John Brewer has the reputation, but what we were seeing now was even better. There was blinding white sand, crystal-clear water, giant walls of multicolored coral and fishes galore. To be fair, it was a beautiful, clear, calm day and the silt had had two days to precipitate out. On a normal day, our beautiful idyll would be a churned up, rolly mess, making protected John Brewer the much better option. Days like this might happen once a year. We were so lucky to be here. We stayed in until we were sore, dehydrated and pruny and emerged with beaming smiles impressed with the outlines of our face masks. Wow, what a spot! We then got to see the sun slide behind the mountains of the mainland and then turn the sky pink. Happy Birthday, Maryanne!

Begonia and crew happy in their own private corner at Lodestone Reef