A nice change to have a good nights sleep in still water, despite plenty of wind noise in the marina. We awake to a fine day with a breeze similar to yesterday, but predicted to increase later in the day.
Fully rested, we catch up on our communications with everyone, having been out of touch for the last 5 days. Following that, we go for a late morning walk out along the breakwater, and are surprised at how extensive the cyclone damage to the wall has been. Obviously it is now under substantial repair.
As we are walking out, a ship is heading towards the harbour, so we sit down and watch the whole process of the ship entering the harbour and being docked in a very strong crosswind.
Ship "Alexander Spirit" entering the outer harbour
Tugs working heard to push her towards her berth against a strong southerly wind
During the docking process, the outer harbour is closed to traffic, and no-one can leave from the marina. There is a catamaran going around in circles in the inner harbour for at least half an hour waiting for clearance, and when it is finally clear, six fishing dinghies race out into the outer harbour, followed by a large trawler. There is lots of activity around the areas where the tugs have stirred up mud from the harbour bottom, but we have no idea what is going on.
The fishing boats race out into the harbour whilst the mud stirred up by the tugs is still there
Soon a trawler appears, seeming to co-ordinate activities
The trawler then headed out to sea towing all of the fishing boats ?
The catamaran finally gets up his sails and heads North (why in these conditions ?), and the trawler emerges with the six fishing boats towed behind him heading out to sea.
After an entertaining time watching all of the boating antics, we strolled back to the marina, deciding to have lunch at the Mackay Yacht Club on the way. The club was very busy, obviously a bit of a favourite place to go on a Sunday. Initially, we had to sit in the back of the club with no view, as all the good tables were reserved, but soon they left and we had a nice lunch with lovely harbour views.
With full stomachs we headed back to our boats, for a bit of a rest. We have agreed to eat on board tonight and are looking forward to a seafood curry that Carole is cooking, using some green prawns we have had in the freezer from Yeppoon, some queenfish from our mates on "Charm" and a Kerala seafood curry mix we bought in Yeppoon.
It was great !
As we go to bed tonight the wind is howling and the boat leaning against our berth so hard I have put an extra fender there to absorb the load. Glad we are in the marina, because anchoring anywhere in this would not be pleasant.
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