The wind howled last night, bouncing the boat around on the marina berth, accompanied by some early morning rain.
It is a designated shopping day today and we caught the bus from the marina into Canelands Shopping Centre at around 9 am. We gave Woolies a good workout, I had a haircut, loaded up with a few other essentials and caught a maxi taxi back to the marina after a light lunch at the shopping centre.
When we unloaded all of our groceries from the cab, there was not a marina trolley in sight and it is a long walk to our berth. The trolley shortage here is frustrating, and we will try to avoid provisioning in Mackay in future.
We caught up with a few of the other yachts we have seen along the way and discussed what everyone is thinking for the next few days. There are a few looking to leave tomorrow, as we are, but the challenge is to get to the next secure spot before another bout of strong winds. In our case we will head for Airlie Beach. If conditions are right in the morning, we will sail to Goldsmith Island, and anchor there overnight before moving on to Shaw/Lindeman the next day.
Trip planning from now on, and on the last couple of legs, requires careful attention to the tides, as the worst seas are generated by wind against tide, and strong tidal currents. In this area the flooding tides flow south and the ebb tide to the north, so the most comfortable sailing in a strong SE breeze is running with an outgoing tide. This generally results in flatter seas and a bit of help from the current.
Rambler, owned by Lex who we met at Curlew, is on a nearby arm, also looking at leaving tomorrow
Boats are prepared and ready to go. Koonya has found there are plenty of places to hang the washing which dries very quickly in these windy conditions.
Keeping the sheets out of the water was the main challenge
We decide to have dinner at The Deck Steakhouse at the marina tonight, and had a good meal at a reasonable price. We will have an early night and hopefully when we get up in the morning, the conditions will look good to go. The forecasts look fine at this stage and hopefully it won't be bucketing down with rain.
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