East Double Bay

[Kyle]We released our mooring at Tongue Bay on Whitsunday Island just after sunrise and silently sailed away to the north. Within a few minutes, tour boats started coming around the headland from the other direction, all motoring into wind and chop. We recognized some of them from the day before when they had left. These boats take in a lot in their fourteen-hour day tours. Their crews must be exhausted. Maybe they nap while the guests are baking on the beach.

Not beholden to the same itineraries, we were enjoying a nice, leisurely, downwind sail. I couldn’t help but notice that all of the sailing tours who passed us going the other way were motoring with just enough sail up for effect. These were therefore motorboats flying a flogging sail who were required to give way to an actual sailboat being propelled by only sail. These were big tours with boats by professional Captains, who know the rule. None of them actually did this and we had to swerve out of the way each time. Maryanne conjectured that maybe they were assuming we were also under power, like they were, but half of the time, we were still the vessel to their starboard, which still makes us the stand-on vessel. The other half, we were passing head-on, which would require both of us to alter coarse to the right. We were the only ones to do this, while the tour boats plowed right through. I know you’re tired from all of the fifteen-hour days, buddy, but turn ten right, will ya?

Double Bay is ringed by pretty mountains, but has little in the way of other diversions, like trails or internet, so we thought it would be a good chance to get caught up on a few less interesting jobs (the bay to the south does have internet, but we were happy to do without). {Maryanne: Ashore is Drylander National Park, so we probably could find stuff to explore if we tried hard enough.}.

The first surprise one of these came when our windlass acted like it really didn’t want to do its job. It was sluggish and reluctant, and then started smoking (very bad). We had had the wiring replaced professionally during our recent haul out.

I decided I needed to take part of the first morning to troubleshoot and resolve the problem. After dismantling the boat to get access, and after replacing the controller box (we had a spare), we discovered the problem was a badly corroded section of ground wire buried well within a long length of conduit. After looking at it, it was a wonder any current had made it through. (It turned out the recent repair had replaced a different section of wiring - the assumed problem, rather than the section with the actual problem).

By the time I had removed the offending length of wire, spliced it back together and sealed it all up, the morning was long gone. By the time the tools were put away and the boat was returned to normal, it was time to start thinking about dinner. Well, I guess it’s one of those “one thing” days…

We were relieved to finally found the electrical problem with the windlass (and avoid a fire aboard)

Whitsunday Island (Hill Inlet lookout)

[Kyle]The last time we were in the region, the wind was not good for stopping on the east side of Whitsunday Island. This time we could and were headed for Tongue Bay. This is where the trail to the viewpoint at the “pretty end” of Whitehaven Beach starts (the classic Whitsunday picture overlooking the sands of Hill Inlet). I knew it was one of the places that Maryanne regretted missing, so it became our primary stop this time through.

We sailed through the narrows between Whitsunday and Haslewood Islands, and then along Whitehaven beach as we headed northwards along the coastline. There was a steady stream of helicopters and more to this tourist hot-spot

Tongue Bay has fourteen public moorings, many of which were in use as we rounded the headland. Apart from us, they were entirely populated by a rotating fleet of tour boats ranging from fast RIBs to classic steel schooners. All would ferry a dozen guests ashore at a time in big zodiacs for their time to walk to the viewpoint of Hill Inlet at the northern end of Whitehaven Beach. The weather was supposed to be even better tomorrow, so we just stayed aboard and watched the parade.

Then, at about five o’clock, the place emptied out completely, leaving us all alone. That should give them time to make one more brief beach stop at the other end of Whitehaven before returning to either Hamilton or Airlie Beach in the dark. We ended up with the whole far side of Whitsunday Island to ourselves for a night of stargazing.

The shoreline at Tongue Bay has some nice sandstone features

The first tour boats rounded the headland at about seven o’clock. By ten, Tongue Bay was a madhouse again. Since low tide was later in the day, Maryanne and I didn’t go ashore until just after noon. By then, there was a lull in the one-day, round-island tour itineraries. We didn’t see anybody else until we reached the sand flats on the other side at Hill Inlet. They were all far away on a quick tour stop. We then spent a couple of hours scrambling along the rocks and sand and then took the trail back up the ridge and over to the lookouts. That’s the only time all day that we were actually close enough to anyone else to exchange greetings. Most of the morning, the beach had been packed like people waiting to get into a concert.

We crossed the peninsula to see the beach level at Hill Inlet

And then climbed the easy trail to reach the viewpoints with their better perspective

The view from up there is amazing. It looks a lot like Jenny Lind Creek, down by Bustard Head, only the sand here is the blinding white, quartzite stuff. We sat for quite a while, watching the sand disappear with the rising tide. Then we headed back down the hill to Begonia. The recent rains had clearly filled the basin with tannin rich waters. It was still beautiful, just not that classic turquoise image seen in all the brochures.

There was a different crowd at the moorings tonight. The other boats were either crewed or bareboat charters on what were mostly week-long itineraries of the Whitsundays. Since most of them collect and drop off their boats at the beginning of the week, they all pretty much make the same stops at the same time, with a little variation. I guess that’s why it was empty here last night and busy tonight.

Goldsmith Island & Lindeman

[Kyle]From Middle Percy Island, we set out in the late afternoon for an overnight sail to Goldsmith Island (among all the other "Smiths": Blacksmith, Tinsmith, Locksmith, etc). It was another of those places that we have missed as we have gone by, so we decided to spend a day there at Roylen Bay.

Another overnight sail gets us a tad further north

We got there just as the weather changed. My night watch had started with starry skies, but gradually the clouds moved in. By the time we picked up the public mooring at Goldsmith, Maryanne’s two-minute excursion to the bow to pick up the pendant had her completely soaked through from the heavy rains.

Maryanne was keen to get ashore (although she found no trails, just spiders and more rain)

Later in the afternoon, it cleared up slightly and she went off in the dinghy to explore the beach while I stayed behind writing. She got hit with another deluge that lasted almost hour. I could barely see the beach, much less her. She returned when it cleared up and told me she spent most of it sheltering in the campsite toilets. Fun!

Maryanne snuck in a snorkel too (not terribly rewarding)

From Goldsmith, it was a short sail of a few hours to Lindeman Island. The stop was mostly so we could break up the leg to Whitsunday into day trips. The rains persisted as well as enough swell for overly-surfy beach landings. The view was great, though, and very dramatic with all of the passing showers. I’m sure the people at Percy are very happy about all of the rain.

Sunsets and Rainbows at Lindeman Island

Middle Percy Island (at last)

[Kyle]We were just getting into the groove of our passage between the Great Sandy Strait and Whitsunday Island when Maryanne started hinting that she really wanted to go to the Percy Islands, just past the halfway mark.

It turns out there was a bit of confusion between us. She had said something like she wanted to go to "that island where a lot of cruisers stop that we hadn’t been before". Since we were heading for the Whitsundays, I thought she must have meant Gloucester Island, just up the coast from Whitsunday Island. Then she kept asking if we were going to stop in the Percy Islands. After a bit of back and forth, we worked out that it was Percy she had been talking about the whole time, not Gloucester. Fine, we’re stopping.

So, at the end of Day Three, we made the slight detour to West Bay at Middle Percy Island and dropped the hook next to two other boats.

Middle Percy is very pretty. The beach at West Bay is dominated by a big open A-frame building built by one of the earlier caretakers of the island. Since then, boats have been stopping by to share a barbecue or sundowners with each other and to leave a sign or a piece of artwork as a memento of their visit. The place is now so full of them that there’s no wall or ceiling space left and it’s hard to walk through without hitting your head on signs hanging from the rafters.

We headed ashore with our token sign (a mat woven with Begonia’s name made for us in Fiji) and found a place to squeeze it in. Then we went for a walk to the lagoon adjacent the beach. It is lined with mangroves and only accessible at high tide, so it makes an excellent hurricane hole.

The lovely A-Frame "Yacht Club" at West Bay, where we left a memento to Begonia among the many

We knew there was one boat in there since we could see the mast from Begonia. We were surprised to find many more, including two monohulls that were standing on the bottom, lashed to homemade high-tide docks. Diamond, the watchdog for one of the boats, alerted them to our approach.

We were soon having a long, meandering conversation with Kerri, a Mauri woman and her South African husband Malcom. They were one of two caretaker couples who had been awarded freehold leases by the government to manage the island and look after the National Park which is 5/6ths of its area.

We talked until it was proper middle-of-the-day hot and then we climbed the hill to the homestead at the top. There, we met Ann and Colin, who immediately welcomed us in and offered us cold limeade. Ann and Colin were the owners of the other big boat in the basin.

We disturbed a kaleidoscope of Blue Tiger Butterflies on our walk - magical
And yes, kaleidoscope is the accepted group name for butterflies - just perfect!

We were delighted to meet (and be looked after) by the resident custodians
Kerri and Malcolm, and Annie, and Robin

Kerri and Malcom had beaten us there by taking a four-wheeler up the longer, shallower leg of the loop track. We stayed for a while, chatting on their veranda and then Malcom took us to see the garden. He was a landscape architect in a previous life and was in a long program of trying to increase the variety and sustainability of the island’s yield of produce. Hopefully, in a few years they will only need to import grains like rice and wheat from the mainland. Their biggest problem at the moment is that they have missed all of the recent rains and were getting really low on water.

It was now late enough that I was starting to get a little worried about completing our loop hike before dark, so we bid them all farewell and started the gentle meander back down to the beach. Our plan was then to quickly clean ourselves up a bit and then return to the A-frame for sundowners with Kerri, Malcolm and the others on what was now five other boats in the bay.

The walk was a treasure trove of wildlife and amusing signs and ornaments to discover

We got there, just as one other young, (strangely aloof) couple was leaving to go to another boat. Kerri and Malcolm never showed. We met a young single-hander on the trail down and he said that he had been invited to dinner at the Homestead. I suspect Kerri and Malcolm were swept in as well. That just left a group of three catamarans, all of the same make. They seemed to be in a pretty impenetrable clique when we had tried earlier to bust in with waves and hellos. They seemed to have all decided to gather on one of their boats for sunset.

Sundowners ashore

That left just Maryanne and me to populate the big party at the A-frame that night. We opened a bottle of wine and I tried regaling Maryanne with some of my more amusing stories. She’d roll her eyes and then start correcting me, which seems much less amusing when it’s just us. Once the sun was well down, we decided we could be doing all of this in the comfort of our own home without having to face the crooked dinghy ride back to the boat. We packed up the rest of the wine to finish it there.