Blogs from Brampton Island, Queensland, Australia, Oceania

Friday 2nd May - Three other boats left the anchorage this morning and headed north, whilst we upped anchor and headed deeper down into the South Arm of Port Clinton to find a safe haven from the variable strong winds coming. The chart plotter came into it own guiding us along the deeper channels of these unmarked wide indistinct mangrove expanses. We came across two other boats at anchor, one of them we knew from Yeppoon Marina as Naomi had helped make his bimini canopy. We chose to anchor a little further around the bend within sight of the army ramp to afford us better northerly protection, scouted the depths around and dropped anchor in 6m of water just before high tide. Thankfully there are less sandflies here and the breeze is starting to pick up ... read more

The last three days here in the southern Whitsundays have been glorious. Clear sunny days and starlit nights, with light winds and calm clear water. Saturday there was just a light southeast breeze blowing, so with the engine in idle as a backup, we sailed off the anchor and turned north away from Brampton Island. Under gib alone and with only about 5 knots of wind we coasted along quietly and the mere ten mile journey took 4 hours. But the water was flat, the bright sun keeping us warm, and with Alex sleeping we had lunch in the cockpit. Then out of the blue the tail of a humpback broke the water's surface a couple of hundred metres off the starboard side. A short while later we saw the two humpbacks arching their backs a ... read more