curlew magic

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.

So after a few jobs … haircut, new dinghy wheels, washing, Netflix, Elvis, prawns and a Piano Man performance … AND … FIVE days of constant RAIN (and COLD) … in the Keppel Bay Marina, we, along with several other yachts, finally headed north.

We do like our stays at Keppel Bay as it’s a great place to socialise with fellow yachties at the Sailing Club nearby (thanks Pete on Lukim Yu for the music, a great night) or the marina’s restaurant, a bus comes to the door along with the generous option of a Marina courtesy car, and we now have our friends on Vivacious living in one of the Keppel Bay units overlooking the marina, with Vivacious in prime position on their jetty out front. We also caught up with our caravanning friends John and Tess from home over a meal of local prawns!

The highlight of this last passage was definitely Curlew Island.  As Noel Patrick’s Curtis Coast  puts it, ‘doubtlessly the jewel of the area’.  Curlew Island has a long graduating golden beach with a spectacular high bluff on the western end. It is truly a beautiful anchorage.

Looking east …

… and west …

Here’s a few pics from our walks …

I did get my drone up a few times at Curlew.  There was a bit of wind around so I’m still a tad cautious.  Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to capture the spectacular western bluff from the air.  I know I need to be more adventurous, just give me time. But I think I did manage to capture the beauty of the water’s aquamarine tones and its expansive golden beach, especially at low tide.

We were lucky enough to spend some time here with Illakai and Blue Pearl.  A big thankyou to Milan off Blue Pearl for his feed of fish.  A fisherman extraordinaire!

Next stop Scawfell Island, the Whitsundays. We woke to a very blowy morning and unfortunately an unexpected engine problem. It wouldn’t start! And we had some oil leaking in the engine bay. Next stop Mackay.  A howling wind, a jib and one motor got us to the Mackay Marina where we’ve spent the last few days sorting our problem.  One big problem turned out to be a coincidence of two small problems.  We were very fortunate as Jim the mechanic not only identified the problem but was able to supply a recycled part as there were no new Yanmar oil supply pipes in Australia.  We live in a new world don’t we?!