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.