it’s a wrap

By | November 11, 2023

Our 2023 sailing season has come to end. We are back on the Gold Coast where we have packed up The Bossa and hit the road to return home.

lady elliot … definitely my last snorkel

By | November 4, 2023

I’ve been wanting to snorkel the Lady Elliot reef for a long time. I finally have! It’s such an exposed island with little shelter and only two public moorings, so it’s really not an overnight stop. Anchoring is difficult due to the depths, but its really about picking a day that’s calm with little swell… Read More »

the keppels

By | October 21, 2023

After our wonderful week with family on board in the Whitsundays it was time to think about heading south.

wow … what a week

By | October 2, 2023

We’ve just spent a week cruising around the Whitsundays with family. Tim, Kaycee and our two-year-old granddaughter Ava jumped on board.  It was a whirlwind visit with lots of activity.  We had a 2 year old to entertain!

duncan and walker reefs

By | September 14, 2023

Duncan Reef is 25 nm north of Kelso, approx’ a 4-hour motor. We decided on an 8.30 am departure. Late enough to see our way out of Kelso with the sun and following our entrance track, but also early enough to arrive at Duncan Reef for an early afternoon snorkel of course.

lodestone and kelso reefs

By | September 10, 2023

Back to the reef! We anchored in Radical Bay, Magnetic Island, when we returned from our first reef adventure with Vivacious and Chances. The wind arrived with rage during the early hours of the morning. After an aborted attempt to move around to Horseshoe Bay, we spent the morning at Radical Bay instead, watching the… Read More »

colours of the reef

By | August 29, 2023

After two very enjoyable days at Faith Reef we dropped anchor in 5 metres of crystal clear water at the nearby Darley Reef.  We were deep inside Darley Reef and while it was technically not a lagoon, we did feel we were surrounded by reef, giving us the comfort of plenty of shelter. 

reef magic

By | August 22, 2023

After sitting out a rather long and unpleasant SE blow in the Whitsundays, we finally set sail north … via the outer reef. Yay! 

when there’s two boats

By | August 8, 2023

We left Keppel Bay Marina in the company of Chances and Vivacious. That’s three boats! Once the wind eased after a few days in the marina, there was a ‘conga line’ of yachts heading north, not just our three. Our plan was to sail three long days through the Percy islands to the Whitsundays before… Read More »

friends aboard

By | July 29, 2023

Two weeks with the Walsh’s on board!  And we are all still talking.  What’s that saying? “Guests, like fish, begin to smell after three days!” Not the Walsh’s. We did let them shower of course and we had so much fun.

back to the bossa

By | July 7, 2023

It’s 2023 and our sailing season on The Bossa has begun. After our special time at Wakatobi I am now looking forward to returning to the Great Barrier Reef and playing with my cameras in the Queensland waters. This will be our ninth year on the water, eight cruising the Queensland coast (New Caledonia and… Read More »

goodbye to Wakatobi!

By | May 20, 2023

We are now back home, in Australia, after another relaxing week in Sanur, Bali, where I also found some time to catch up on photos and updating my blog posts. This is my final post on my Wakatobi trip.

day seven …

By | May 14, 2023

Dive sites – Magnifico and Turkey Beach Save the best for last?  Magnifico was my first snorkel for the day and there was no doubting why it was called Magnifico.  It was so pretty and the water so clear. 

day six …

By | May 13, 2023

Dive site – House Reef Unfortunately, I woke feeling a tad ordinary, so I transferred today’s two boat trips to tomorrow.  With the house reef beckoning I was happy.

day five …

By | May 12, 2023

Dive sites – Roma and Dunia Baru I booked the 9.30 am and the 2.15 am boat trips today.  I needed a sleep-in and some time to catch up on some photo sorting and editing.

day four …

By | May 11, 2023

Dive sites –      Barracuda (and The Zoo) – Fan Garden – House Reef This was my first time on the dive boat ‘on my own’ – 7.30 am and 9.30 am. With a visit back to the resort in between, (hopefully to sneak a freshly cooked donut from the Longhouse!). We hadn’t booked any boat trips… Read More »

wakatobi!

By | May 6, 2023

It’s taken three years to get here!  My ‘bucket list’ snorkeling trip. I booked this trip way back in 2020, two weeks before the Covid ‘bomb’ dropped. 

time to go home

By | November 28, 2022

We have returned to The Boatworks. It does seem to have been a long season this year. Perhaps that’s because we arrived in May and we’re leaving in late November. It has also been a challenging one too at times. But as always, it’s the good times we’ll remember!

lady musgrave island

By | November 23, 2022

There has to be a last snorkel so the Southern Reef is always on our list travelling south.  Fortunately, the weather finally obliged for a visit out to Lady Musgrave.

a little slice of heaven

By | November 14, 2022

We’ve visited Yellow Patch a few times over the years.  It is a special place and it never disappoints even in 20+ knot howling winds and this time we had it all to ourselves!

monkey beach

By | November 7, 2022

One of my favourite spots is Monkey Beach on Great Keppel Island. It’s a small bay and if you’re lucky you can tuck in close, right next to the small fringing reef.

whitsundays wanderings

By | October 8, 2022

We’ve spent the last few weeks wandering around the Whitsunday islands, and enjoying the best weather!  We’ve also had guests aboard for a week.  They told us they ticked every box on the ‘brochure’ and I think maybe we just we nailed it … apart from the sailing box (no wind!). We’ve spent the last… Read More »

keeper reef

By | September 15, 2022

It had been three weeks since we’d seen a shop or laundry so after a quick visit to Townsville to reprovision and visit a laundry (3 weeks’ worth of washing is big), and some unexpected socialising with Lukim Yu and Pacific Dreams, we dropped by Maggie for our last stopover for this season. It had… Read More »

hinchinbrook island

By | September 3, 2022

I’m writing this blog post while anchored in Seventh Creek on Hinchinbrook Island and I’m listening to the pouring rain outside. It’s our fifth day here which is a long time to spend in the mangroves.

colours of the reef

By | August 26, 2022

Since our last visit to the outer reef we’ve visited Townsville and spent some relaxing time at Magnetic Island with friends. And, we’ve snuck out to the outer reef again!

reef hopping to maggie

By | August 9, 2022

Yay!! We had a calm weather window in sight so we decided to sail north from the Whitsundays and spend these rare calm days out at the Great Barrier Reef, between the Whitsundays and Townsville.

whitehaven beach

By | July 29, 2022

We have made the Whitsunday islands.  Lots of photos in this post both from above and below. We are often greeted by a big blow when we reach the Whitsundays. Sure enough wind and heavy rain were forecast.

curlew magic

By | July 16, 2022

We call it ‘crossing the paddock’.  This is the stretch of water between Great Keppel Island and the Whitsundays.  There are limited mainland anchorages, pretty much island hops.

where’s the warmth?

By | June 28, 2022

After two cancelled flights, we did manage to return to a rather cold Melbourne to celebrate our little Ava’s first birthday, and it was well worth the ‘detour’.  First birthdays are special!

here we go again

By | June 5, 2022

Yes we are back on The Bossa, our home away from home. While it hasn’t exactly been a “sunny” Queensland with endless days of rain in the workyard and now a gale warning on the water, there is always much anticipation returning to our home on the water.

it’s a wrap

By | November 23, 2021

Another great sailing season has come to an end. We have been very fortunate getting to our boat again this year.  We left Victoria back in July crossing the NSW and Qld borders, but little did we know Victoria and NSW would experience more Covid lockdowns and that there would be more border closures.

a last hurrah

By | November 18, 2021

There has to be a last snorkel! Sitting at the Gladstone Marina for nearly a week, waiting for strong SE weather to pass through, we had plenty of time to plan a Lady Musgrave visit but I think we must have exhausted the alphabet with the number of plans we came up with.  Tides, winds… Read More »

monkey beach

By | November 11, 2021

We have visited Monkey Beach on Great Keppel Island many many times and I’ve snorkeled here most of those visits.  But this time we scored the perfect anchorage. My ‘dream’ anchorage is one that lets me snorkel straight from The Bossa. There’s no need for Neville to hang about in the dinghy. He can return to the… Read More »

airlie to keppel

By | November 3, 2021

The strong northerlies have been blowing forever and with daily thunderstorm warnings we decided to stay in the Port Of Airlie Marina for a few nights (no anchoring off Airlie in northerlies). We were also waiting on two packages, one being our new screecher which we had been missing big time since our old one… Read More »

reef hopping south

By | October 15, 2021

What a wonderful 10-days we’ve had, all because of a perfect weather forecast – gentle northerlies!  Yes, they take us south, but it also meant we could reef-hop south from Cairns to Magnetic Island rather than via the familiar mainland anchorages.

what a game … in cairns!

By | October 4, 2021

What a game!  What a game!  What a game! What a great time we had in Cairns.  Nearly two weeks of catching up with Leanne and Steve who now live in Cairns. We met these two five years ago on their Fusion cat Easy Tiger.  Easy Tiger has a new owner but our friendship has… Read More »

beaver reef

By | September 23, 2021

I could call this post ‘Dumped at Dunk’ I suppose, but no, I’ll stick with Beaver Reef for the moment. The ‘Dumped at Dunk’ story … you’ll just have to wait!

our hinchinbrook haven

By | September 11, 2021

Phone and internet at last! We have been enjoying the sights of Hinchinbrook Island for over a week now, primarily due to weather constraints, but there has also been an eagerness to enjoy and explore the natural beauty of this island.

john brewer reef

By | September 6, 2021

Oh the strong SE trade winds!  They have been relentless since arriving in the tropics.  But, we did manage to sneak in a few days out at John Brewer Reef with a welcomed calm forecast recently.

made it to maggie

By | August 27, 2021

Last season we only managed to get as far north as the Whitsundays due to our late start with Covid restricting our annual migration to Queensland in 2020.  This season we have made it to Magnetic Island and we are about to venture even further north via some outer reef stopovers.

crossing the paddock

By | August 16, 2021

Sometimes when you least expect it, long passages can be fun and full of surprises. We have crossed the “paddock” many times in The Bossa.  It’s the stretch of water between Great Keppel Island and the Whitsundays. No mainland anchorages, all remote and most are uninhabited islands.

great keppel island

By | August 9, 2021

Monkey Beach is a small bay on the western side of Great Keppel Island.  It has a fringing reef that attracts day visitors from Yeppoon, along with us yachties who want a quick snorkel.  In recent years this reef has looked a bit sad with algae growth,

how sweet it is

By | August 2, 2021

It seems so long ago that I was in the water with my cameras and at Lady Musgrave, but here we are again in 2021. Having said that, it doesn’t take long to feel like it was yesterday either.

back to the bossa

By | July 24, 2021

We’re back! I think we managed to navigate the arrival our newest crew member, baby Ava and Covid-19 remarkably well. Yes, we are grandparents and we now look forward to family visits on The Bossa with an eager young one to share our travels with.

it’s a wrap!

By | November 28, 2020

Our 2020 season has come to an end and it will be a year we will remember for a variety of reasons, but particularly for the world-wide Covid pandemic. It has been a year of mixed emotions – unfulfilled