Cape Grenville

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A long passage to next safe anchorage (it’s still blowing like crazy) so we left 4am. Arrived at Morris Island 12 hrs later. Morris Island isn’t an island as such, more like a glorified sand bar! However, it has a large reef, so once again, even though the winds were very strong, the sea was protected and calm and we were very comfortable. We didn’t launch our Zodi at all as it was quite wet, very windy and neither of us felt like going ashore. By now, I’m really over the winds. I know we need some for sailing, but surely we can have a day off when we’re at anchor!!



Winds were predicted to ease off to 20-25kts again so we decided to do an overnight sail to our next safe anchorage. There were some closer places we could’ve gone to, but they didn’t seem as protected as other ones. Departed Morris Island 3pm arrived Cape Grenville 9am the next day. Both of us really enjoyed the night sail and boat handled it really well (Although I claim it rained more when I was on watch than when Phil was on). And talk about ships!! We didn’t see any all day, but heaps that night. And a the worst possible times. 2 channels were merging into 1 at a narrow dog let and we had 1 ship coming towards us, and 1 coming up from behind. We contacted the one in front to ensure it had seen us, and told it we would stay well to Port. Thank goodness for our new plotter that helps us see the ships. WE could easily tell that they were both going to pass us with plenty of room.



And today it is Wed 15^th May. We’re having a couple of days here at Cape Grenville. Soon after we arrived, Phil saw a very lage croc just cruising in close to shore. It’s still very windy with ‘isolated showers’ so we haen’t gone ashore. I baked bread today and we’ve done a few boat jobs, so settling in the routine very well and liking it very much.



As you could imagine, ‘croc watching’ has become our number 1 activity for the afternoons. Another smaller croc – about 3m was much closer to our boat over the next hour or so he kept popping up about 40m from us, just looking around. We watched him circling until it got dark. As we were eating our dinner, we heard a large bang and felt it through the hull of the boat. We immediately jumped up, I turned on the instruments and spreader lights, and Phil raced up on deck. I thought we may have touched bottom (not that we were anywhere close to shore) but saw we had 2.1m below our keel. So still not sure what it was, but pictures of the croc close to boat were in the forefront of our minds. Don’t even know that crocs ‘bump’ into boats. Sure they’ve got some sort of sonic device to prevent this. Ahh the mysteries of the cruising lifestyle!!

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