Saturday 9th September 2017
It is a cooler and windy day today. I am
glad we are in the marina, and the sea is pretty choppy when wind and tide
starts working against each other. It died off late this afternoon, but we are
expecting another dose tomorrow, so will stay here.
Today is re provisioning day, as Mackay is
the only large shopping town for quite a while now. To make it easier we rented
a car from the marina, so we could easily get to the Butcher, Supermarket, Dan
Murphys and RTM (Road Tech Marine) where
we invested in a new collapsible trolley that we can use to move stuff too and
from our boat whilst shopping when in marinas.
It was a decent sized shop, a lot of it
from Dans as there are very few places in FNQ where you can buy decent wine.
Supermarket shopping was focused on fresh fruit and veg and few other
necessities. We have a favourite butcher here that we have bought our meat from
on the way up and back, and his meat looked as good as ever.
Miraculously, we arrived back at the marina
with a boot full of items and a bit on the backseat, and it all fitted into our
newly acquired trolley. It strained under the weight a bit, but everything got
to the boat safely.
Once we had unpacked and stowed everything,
we decided we should make good use of the car, so went for a drive to Slade
Point to have a look around and have lunch. The beachside housing there is
pretty upmarket and there are nice views south to Mackay Port and marina, and
out to Keswick/St Bees.
The lookout with Keswick/St Bees faint in the background
There was a nice lookout, that looked
reasonably new, and a pub at the end of the road as we drove along the beach
front in the direction of Mackay. The Seabreeze Hotel claims to be a hotel,
function centre and resort, so we decided to give them a go for lunch. It was
OK and the setting is nice, just opposite the beach.
Seabreeze Resort at Slade Point
On the way back to the marina we called in
to Debbies Seafood, a sort of fish market and café based in an industrial area,
that seemed to house companies mainly related to the mining industry. The
seafood on sale wasn’t inspiring enough for us to buy anything, but the café
looked nice, but a bit low on ambience.
From there we topped up the fuel tank and
drove back to the marina, having done everything we had planned to today.
There was a wedding under way at the Clarion
Hotel, in the marina precinct, so you had to squeeze your way through the
wedding celebrations to get back to our marina berth. It is still blowing
pretty hard and the marina is pretty exposed, but they were undeterred.
A quick check of the weather forecast
confirms we will not go tomorrow, but wait till Monday when the breeze is
forecast to drop to 10-15 knots from ESE, increasing to 15-20 knots later in the
day, but we should be at our destination by then.
A simple BBQ dinner on board is the plan for tonight.
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