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