Hamilton Island via Whitehaven Beach

Monday 6^th July 2015

Despite plenty of evidence of last nights rain on the deck, this morning is slightly overcast with a light breeze, and some patches of blue sky. We are heading to Hamilton Island today, as we have booked a game of golf at the golf course on Dent Island on Tuesday morning.  The booking process cleverly requires you to spend two nights at the marina, to be able to fit a game of golf in.

Koonya is undecided what they will do, so we will catch up with them later in the week.

We are in no hurry to leave, and given our last experience filling up with water at Hamilton Island, I decided to make another 80 litres of water to avoid having to get any there.

At around 10.30am, the sun was out and we pulled up the anchored and headed South, in the direction of Whitehaven Beach. There was about 10 knots of SE breeze and we were heading straight into it, so didn’t bother to pull out any sails, as we were there in 40 mins.

Approaching Whitehaven Beach

Conditions were ideal, with smooth water and only a light breeze at the anchorage. Once everything was ship shape, we rowed the dinghy into the shore to stretch our legs. There were quite a few boats already there and the tour boats started arriving just before lunch time. Two seaplanes also bought in a few tourists.

Carole on Whitehaven Beach

One of the seaplanes parked at Whitehaven

We went on a short walk to a lookout that looks over Chance bay at the bottom of Whitsunday Island. We also had a good view of the Southern end  of Whitehaven, Chalkies Beach on Haslewood Island, and  Solway Passage.

After a few hours there, we motored off to pass through Solway Passage to Hamilton Island, about 10 nm away.  

A couple of adventurous souls headed for Solway Passage

It was a pretty uneventful trip with begnign seas and lovely sunshine, so we just soaked up the scenery, and were tied up in our berth at Hamilton Island by 2.30 pm.

Hamilton Island in sight

The rest of the afternoon was spent having a bit of a walk (after lunch) to the marina office to check in, Carole did some washing, and finally with some internet access I caught up on a few things, including the blog.

We had dinner on shore at the Manta Ray Cafe, and returned to the boat for a good nights sleep ahead of tomorrows game of golf.