yeppoon to the whitsundays

We have island hopped our way from Yeppoon to the Whitsundays over the last few weeks.  We’ve seen so many whales, fortunately from afar … until …

… Curlew Island.

But let’s backtrack a bit first. 

This passage is one that involves many island hops all the way to the Whitsundays.  It’s often one we jump through quickly if there’s a looming forecast, otherwise its nice to spend some time at a few of the islands along the way.

We left Yeppoon with Vivacious and Waterfront. After an overnight stop at Pearl Bay we enjoyed a spinnaker run all the way to South Percy Island. The Percy islands are a bit of a ‘go to’ destination due to the iconic yachtie A-Frame on Middle Percy Island.  

The Bossa and Vivacious with our kites up. Thankyou Jo for the photo.

We dropped anchor in North West Bay, near Howard Islet, on South Percy Island.  A spot our friends on Pas de Chat told us about some years back. With our Starlink activated, we were even able to give them a call.  

There seemed to be a lot activity on a yacht that had just anchored ahead of us, particularly from their tender which was doing laps around their boat. It turns out they had accidently kicked their anchor capstan overboard (the cylinder on top of the anchor winch which is a crucial part for a working anchor winch), hence they were trying to spot it in the sand. Perhaps an unlikely undertaking in 6 metres of water. We were told it really topped off their ‘shit of a day’… an expensive pair of sunglasses had fallen in the water and the water police had nabbed them for fishing in a green zone! And now they had to manually pull in their spare anchor.

The same water police boat had checked out every boat sailing through this same Green Zone, including ours. Green Zones are a ‘no take’ zone, so no fishing. Big big fines. The fishing maps are everywhere and with the Eye On The Reef app, it’s easy to follow the rules so there’s no excuse for not knowing. Not to mention that we all need to be attentive to addressing the declining fish numbers.  We did catch a spotted mackerel on this passage (not in the green zone), but unfortunately we lost it just as the Captain hauled it in to the back step. Damn!

South Percy

Middle Percy Island

Our next stop was Curlew Island. We had a very brisk sail across to Curlew with Waterfront hot on our tail.  We actually first met Brenda and Marty on Waterfront at Curlew in 2016.

Our sail to Curlew Island. A rather brisk and quick trip. We did keep Waterfront at bay for some time but eventually they caught up.

We love Curlew.  It’s a very picturesque island with a high bluff at the western end of the bay and a long elongated sand bank on the northern side of the anchorage.  It’s often referred to as the ‘jewel’ of these islands. 

Sandbanks are always a treat from the drone, especially at low tide.

Then there was the fishing at Curlew.  We’ve watched friends fish from their tenders in previous visits, often catching big fish here.  So we thought we’d give it a go. On our first lap, just near where The Bossa was anchored, we caught a spanish mackerel and not far away, Waterfront caught two queenfish.  We actually fished each day we were at Curlew.

So … the whales? On our last fishing expedition at Curlew, in our tender, we’d actually almost given up, no fish today.  Then, bang, the line took off.  I was dreading a queenfish as those things are monsters. This fish was big.  But then … a whale popped up … right beside us! Yes, right there, maybe 4/5 metres away.  It gave us such a massive fright. We had a bloody great big fish hooked, a whale right there hence we were a tad muddled as to what exactly we should do next. But wait … a second whale appeared! This one had come from under our tender and surfaced behind the captain, again not far away. I did manage to pull out my phone for a photo (while holding on to the fish), but it really doesn’t capture just how close these whales were. Too close!!

So the fish? We waited, until we were sure the whales had departed. Then, with one eye on the departing whales, and several unsuccessful attempts to land the fish in to our tender, (and a tangled line) we recalled some advice from Waterfront.  Drag it to the beach and deal with it there.  Which we did.  It was a northern bluefin tuna and a big one too.

There were so many whales during this stretch of the coast, perhaps more than we’ve seen in past seasons.  As we rounded Scawfell Island to enter our next anchorage, we stopped for two pods of whales in our path. We had quite the whale show.  Unfortunately, my camera glitched at the wrong time.  But I did manage these whale tails.  And sometimes it’s all about just ‘being there’.

And then there was the sky!

While Scawfell Island is technically the first (maybe second) in the southern Whitsunday islands, it’s really not until you get a bit further north you feel like you are in the Whitsundays.  We stopped on the northern side of Thomas Island for the night, with our friends on Skedaddle and Vivacious. We can’t believe we’ve never been here before!  What a beautiful spot.  A snug anchorage with three sandy beaches, calm water and shallow water for easy anchoring.

We had two days of calm weather coming so it was straight to Whitehaven Beach.