Hunter Island

Sunday 18^th June 2017

A later departure this morning, we motored out of Pearl Bay at 7 am with Kite Runner for what looks like an encouraging days sail to Hunter Island. We have a SSW wind of 10-12 knots and the mainsails are up as soon as we have enough clearance from the Pearl Bay Entrance.

Kite Runner raising her main just outside the entrance to Pearl Bay

We are both sailing immediately and engines are off, and it looks like a beam reach at least for the first few hours.  We are sailing comfortably side by side until Kite Runner Rolls out their Code Zero Headsail. Unfortunately, ours is still below decks after its dunking the other day, and setting it with the dinghy on the foredeck is not attractive, so we continue on with our full main and headsail.

Not surprisingly, Kite Runner takes off with the code zero up and we were left behind.

Kite Runner leaving us behind

The breeze gets very weak along the shores of Townshend Island, and we were down below 4 knots , so we started the engine and spent 45 mins catching up to Kite Runner and recharging our batteries. Once we cleared the top of Townshend Island we were in clear air , with 10-12 knots of breeze at 90 degrees apparent. We were moving along nicely at around 7 knots and this took us to within an hour of the Duke Islands, where the wind disappeared and we both motored the rest of the way.

Anchors were down by 3 pm, and we put the dinghy in the water and went in to have a walk along the beach before going over to Kite Runner at 4.30pm for Sundowners.

We are anchored a long way out, as it is almost high tide, and at low the shoal runs out a long way

The tide was coming in, so we were not in danger of getting stranded on an outgoing tide. The tides here a getting bigger (high here this afternoon is 4.6m, fortunately we are still at the end of neap tides, so the low is around 1.2m), nevertheless it is a lot of tidal difference, so you need to anchor well off the shoal areas.

The shoreline is still very attractive and the wild deer on the island were coming down the hill to graze as we were motoring back to Mica. Whist enjoying the scenery on Kite Runner over sundowners, we counted 8 deer on the hillside grazing away.

The beach at Hunter Island

This little guy was standing perfectly still hoping he would go unnoticed as we walked by

Dark comes early, and by 6pm we were heading back to Mica to get our dinghy back on the deck in bouncy conditions (mainly tidal) in preparation from a departure tomorrow morning at 7 am for Curlew Island.

There are strong winds coming up the QLD coast as the result of a low down south, and we are doing our best to stay just ahead of it. No doubt it will catch us in the next few days.