Off to Airlie

Monday 31^st August 2015

It looks like another great day coming with a lovely sunrise. We pull up our anchor at 7.30 am, and motor through the Gloucester Channel at mid tide, with plenty of water under our keel.

Carole navigates us through the channel 

One of the channel markers is a perfect place for an eagles nest

We leave Shag Islet and the remaining boats still at anchor as we head through the channel

The incoming tide provides up with a boost of 1.5 to 2 knots so we get through the channel in good time and head out past Saddleback Island, before turning further South on our way to Airlie Beach.

No prize for why they call it Saddleback Island

The wind is variable 0-10 knots, so we do not bother to raise a sail, but keep on motoring taking full advantage of the favourable current. The breeze was mostly on the nose throughout our trip.

Several boats left at the same time as us and there was a bit of traffic through the channel, all in our direction, but directions quickly diverged once through, with some boats going out to the islands, and others heading to Airlie, like us.

Once we rounded Grimstone Point, and into Pioneer Bay, the breeze picked up to around 10 knots on a more consistent basis, but we were almost home so motored on. When we called the marina to get our berth allocation, we were advised that our berth was not yet ready, so we effectively had to waste an hour. Up went the headsail, and we had a relaxing sail around Pioneer Bay until our berth was available. We were tied up by midday, and after lunch, had to attend to the normal marina jobs. Carole put the laundry on, we had the gas bottle filled and I repaired a leak in the dinghy that was causing one side to deflate.

We met up with many of the people we have seen along our way as everyone seems to have gravitated here after Shaggers, or other cruising, for a few days reprovisioning etc before heading back out again.

We caught up with Steve and Kim from Wilparina, and Bill from Our Dream for dinner. It was good to catch up with them again and I am sure we will see more of each other in the next month or so.

Shaggers Grand Finale, The Pirates Lunch

Sunday 30^th August 2015

It is the final day of the Shaggers Rendezvous and the closing function is a Pirate themed lunch at Cape Gloucester Resort.

Phil and Wendy Jobe came across for morning tea, to see what we had done to our boat, as their Hanse 430e is a very similar boat and they are relatively new owners, anxious to see what others have added.

Their boat , Kite Runner, is essentially set up for racing, so they were quite interested in all of the bits we have added for cruising.

The Pirate lunch commenced at 11.30 am, so we went ashore at a bit after 12 noon, and settled into a seat under the trees with Phil, Wendy and their newly acquired friends.

There were pirates everywhere as we arrived

The Cape Gloucester  Resort was an ideal venue for this function. It is very spread out with shade trees overlooking the water, under which they provided tables and chairs, as well as the main dining areas up in the resort bar area.

A live band stage and dance floor was set up in the middle of the lawn, and the band played great 60’s music, which had lots of people on their feet dancing.

There were some brief official announcements, but it was basically a fun day.

Bill came under attack from a couple of young pirates

They have raised over $80,000 for the prostate Cancer Foundation, and one girl, a local hairdresser, earned close to a quarter of that over the past year through various fund raising activities including cutting hair for the duration of the rendezvous and donating the proceeds to the charity. As a finale she had her head shaved to raise more funds, what a great person !

The music was great and kept us there long after lunch, eventually heading back to the boat at 4pm, to prepare to head off to Airlie tomorrow morning.

Our last trip down Cape Gloucester beach on the way back to our dinghy

We had a great time at the Shaggers Rendezvous, and it is incredible that few people thought up the concept of starting the SICYC around 8 years ago, and now see an organization with over 4000 members and have an annual rendezvous where everyone has a great time, and so much of the proceeds go to such a worthy charity.

"Hands Across the Blue" and Swinging Sixties Party

Saturday 29^th August 2015

Today is the main day of the rendezvous and the official part. The morning activity is called “Hands across the Blue”, and involves assembling dinghies from the attending boats arranged in the shape of the Prostate Cancer Foundation logo in close proximity to Shag Islet. The main function of the rendezvous is to raise prostate cancer awareness and money to donate to the foundation.

Dinghies being put in position, all wearing Vice Commodore blue polo shirts

Once in place, some Vice Commodores settled in for the long haul

As you can imagine, it was quite a task to get everyone in place in a brisk breeze. Eventually they were happy with the result and the media were given the word to fly over and film it all in a helicopter. We are told it will appear in the media over the next few days.

The official party are based on a huge motorboat, called the Norseman, anchored nearby. They have a full PA set up to address all of the anchored boats to give instructions and deliver the official speeches, and have a live band on the marlin board !!!! Norseman is owned by the owner of Abell Point Marina

Norseman with a live band on the marlin board

There were some brief speeches from local dignitaries and representatives of the Prostate Cancer Foundation, some pretty generous donations to the charity from some of the sponsors, and then the live band provided some great music.

Eventually proceedings ended and the dinghy raft up dismantled, as Norseman had to get out of the area whilst there was still water under the hull.

This evening is the main dinner and entertainment, with a ‘Swinging Sixties” dress theme. Some of the shaggers really got into the dress theme, where a lot of us made a token effort. There was a group aerial photo taken on the beach, late afternoon, before that band fired up and it was non stop entertainment from then on.

Ken and Rhonda. founders of the SICYC

We had drinks with Phil and Wendy Jobe for the first hour or so, and caught up with Bill and Linda for dinner.

Bill and Linda embraced the 60's theme

Dinner was a buffet, with great seafood.

We headed back to the boat at around 9pm.

We received an update on the Magnetic Island race week results for day 2. It looks like they had very little wind and Koonya finished 5^th on handicap, having to give up an hour in handicap to the boat that came 1^st. Two boats ran out of time and didn’t finish. They are now running 4 th in the series.

Shag Islet Party

Friday 28^th August 2015

The highlight of the Shaggers Day today is the Shag Islet Party, which commences on the island from 12 noon. The morning is devoted to setting everything up on this tiny outcrop in the middle of the Gloucester Channel.

A team seems to have been flat out all morning setting up over there, with a sausage sizzle for lunch, live entertainment and kite flying by all those interested.

The water around the islet is very shallow, in fact you can almost walk across to the mainland at low tide. Dinghies arrive in great numbers for the start of festivities at 12 noon, which happens to coincide with a close to high tide.  Even then , you have to step out of your dinghy well before you get to shore and set an anchor in the shallow water before a reasonable walk through the shallows to the islet.

Vice Commodores walking up onto the islet from the dinghy mooring area

Some of the kites were impressive 

There are vice commodores everywhere in their blue shirts and we met up with our Hanse friends and joined them on the little patch of ground they had staked out. It quickly became clear that the sausage sizzle was under way, and we were advised to get up there quickly before the line up grew too much. There was already a decent line formed and the cooks were flat out.

The line up for the sausage sizzle was growing

Having got our sausages in bread we went back to our “camp”, ate our food and enjoyed a cool drink, watching the activities around us which included some very interesting kites, a kite boarder who was tearing backwards and forwards across the narrow (very shallow) channel in a stiff breeze and getting to know some new people.

I spent some time talking to Phil Jobe, who bought the Hanse 430e “Kite Runner” (from Rod Pearse) . We had lots of common ground in our careers in the building industry and have many common acquaintances. We ended up stopping over on Kite Runner on the way back to our boat to try and help sort out an autopilot problem they were having.

The  live band was good, and there was a ceremony to cut a cake (what is a party without a cake), portraying the island, that someone had gone to a lot of trouble to make.

It was pretty windy today, but everyone had a great time, and when it was time to leave the island, there appeared to be a great shortage of navigable water to launch the dinghies into to get home. Once again, having wheels on the dinghy was a major advantage in getting across the rocky shore to clear water.

Departing was a lot more difficult than arriving, the water had all but disappeared

 We went back to Mica to make some fresh water.

 Back at the boat I received a SMS from Koonya to say the had crossed the line well ahead of anyone else in their first race in Magnetic Island Race Week. They were 12 minutes ahead of the next boat in a 3 hr race, and only managed a 4^th on handicap. The conditions were a bit on the light side, so for a big boat they did very well.  Hopefully the handicapping might  be a bit more in their favour tomorrow.

Tonight’s  plan is to have dinner at the Cape Gloucester Resort tonight with the group we were with on the island.

The resort restaurant was very busy, but delivered a very nice meal and  the company was great.

The internet connection here is painfully slow, or non existent.