Sail to Stonehaven

Tuesday 4^th July 2017

This morning we are definitely leaving the marina to go out into the islands. The weather forecast is close to perfect and we have an impressive sunrise.

By 9.15am we were ready to go, and motored out into Pioneer Bay , to set the sails. The winds are light but coming from the SE which will suit us fine as we plan to sail to Stonehaven on the western side of Hook Island, not far from Hayman Island.

What starts out as a slow, but comfortable sail, quickly changes to a fast and still comfortable sail as we reach across the Molle Channel doing around 7 knots in a 12 knot breeze.

It took us about 2.5 hours to get to Stonehaven, which is already busy with all of the charter yachts that are out at the moment. We tried to pick up one mooring in the southern anchorage, but as we approached it was clear that the mooring rope had an encounter with a propeller and the loop was missing.

We headed up to the northern anchorage where we found one spare mooring designed for vessels up to 35 metres and 34 knots of breeze. We managed to secure ourselves to the super long rope, and enjoyed lunch.

It is a pretty popular place with the day snorkelling tours, as the coral here is quite accessible

A few hours later (there is a 2 hour limit on the moorings) , one more suited to our vessel size became available, and we moved to it.

We will stay the night here as no one moves after 4pm , and we watch the hoardes of charter boats descend on us. There are plenty of moorings available, but they are quickly taken up by the flotilla from Airlie that we can see racing across the water in our direction.

Many of them have no idea on picking up these huge mooring lines or anchoring, so we are entertained for a while as they arrive, tie a rope around the mooring line and let it out, soon to realize they are about to hit a boat on a nearby mooring.

Or with no moorings available, decide to anchor and drag for a very long way before something grabs hold.

Condor, a racing yacht with a few years under its belt now, ( but still competes in the Hamilton Island Race Week each year), put on a bit of a lte arrival display, sailing into the anchorage, and putting in a few tacks, before pulling their sails down and motoring off in the direction of nearby Langford Reef.

It turned out to be a busy anchorage, but it is a big area and well protected from the SE trade winds. The reef is very close, so they advise you not to add additional lengths of line to the mooring line, but to haul it up on deck and secure it. None of the charters pay any attention to this advice.

There is going to be very mild conditions tonight, so it is unlikely there will be any dramas.