Once the anchor was off of the bottom, we drifted to leeward and slowly turned to face away from the wind. We were going about two and a half knots under bare poles, which quickly jumped to between eight and nine once we got the spinnaker unfurled.
Another early start to catch the tides
Oh, dear. That was actually too fast. If we kept that up, we would end up arriving in the middle of the night instead of at dawn. We kept it flying as a hedge against any decrease in the wind until sundown, then we brought it down and switched to the jib. Now we were only slightly fast, but it was easy to control our speed by rolling it in as necessary.
I came on watch at midnight to a brilliant moonless sky full of stars. I rolled in a third of the jib to slow us down further. A few hours later, the wind started dying, so I rolled it back out again. It was now calm enough that we decided to skip Double Island Point and head straight for the Wide Bay Bar.
We crossed a little early, but with no drama. The flood then pushed us halfway through the Great Sandy Strait before turning back against us. We picked a shallow spot out of the channel that was as far from shore as we could get in the hopes that we could minimize our exposure to the regions ravenous midges. They are barely visible and mostly clear, so they can only be spotted when the light is at just the right direction. They look like motes of dust floating around, but the bites they deliver while snacking on our flesh leave giant welts that have me especially clawing at myself maniacally in an attempt to relieve them. As soon as I spotted the first few, I bundled up to protect myself. (They made me wear socks!) Now I was sweltering in the windless heat, but at least they couldn’t get to me.
A little treat on arrival to distract Kyle from the bugs (one of the wines we'd purchased from our visit to Mt Nathan winery)
Our anchorage was far enough from shore that most of them couldn’t survive the long flight in the direct sunshine to get to us. That kept us safe until about an hour before sunset. Then our only hope was to shut ourselves in until mid-morning.
We waited in our Sandy Strait anchorage until Begonia was starting to wiggle around as she faced north. The current that was streaming by us was weakening. As we were waiting, I decided to kill some of the time by emptying the last of our extra water jugs into Begonia’s tanks. That turned out to be a big mistake. It was partly cloudy. Some of the midges managed to survive the flight from the mangroves and arrived famished like strangers crashing the buffet at a wedding. I think I may have felt a couple of tiny bites and might possibly have seen some strange motes going not exactly with the wind.
This is the genius of the little sand flies. It isn’t until about twenty-four hours later that the poor victim realizes they have been the scene (or source) of a big family picnic. The next day, I was madly clawing at myself and trying to talk myself out of getting one of our sharpest knives and just removing the offending skin altogether. I didn’t, of course, but it was four long days before it wasn’t my main thought.
I think I’ve soured on the Great Sand(fl)y Strait. It’s a good shortcut, the water is nice and flat and with planning, it is possible to get a big boost from the strong currents. The midges ruin it, though. Afterwards, I wished we had just sailed around non-stop while bucking the East Australian Current. The duration would have been about the same, when you add in our overnight stop, but we would have completely avoided the torment of those monsters. If we ever go that way again, we’re not going to go that way again. Anyway, back to the actual sailing bit.
We entered Hervey Bay right at sunset and had a ridiculously fast reach to the northeast side of Lady Elliot Island. Then we switched to spinnaker, turned northwest bound and had a beautiful deep-downwind run up the coast. The seas were from behind and had been tamed slightly by the outer Great Barrier reef. The skies were clear, giving sunny days and starry nights and it was t-shirt weather all of the time. It felt like it has been a while since we got to enjoy the weather instead of enduring or fighting it.
Beautiful overnight sailing north to Percy Island
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