Hanse 400e

Hanse 400e

Thursday, July 16, 2015

Hill Inlet, then Whitehaven Beach

Thursday 16th July 2015

Unbelievably, it is another perfect day. Bright sunny skies and warm enough to have a swim. The bay has filled up a bit more overnight, and a number of backpacker tour boats have arrived this morning and are busily ferrying people ashore in dinghies. We decide to have breakfast first and then go ashore and do the walk to Hill Inlet lookout.

The view today is stunning, with such bright sunlight and a high tide, you can see all of the different shades of blue highlighting the channels an shallow shoals in the inlet. A couple of catamarans have gone in on the high tide and anchored in one of the deeper sections. As much of the area around them dries at low tide, they will need another high to get back out.





There are lots of backpackers down on the beach, we think having a wash as they normally go out for around 3 days and I couldn’t imagine what the shower facilities are like on board for the number of people they pack on the boats.




Back on board Mica, we pack up, pull up the anchor and head for Whitehaven Beach , motoring of course as there is around 2-3 knots of breeze.

As we get nearer to Whitehaven, Koonya came up on our AIS, so we anchored near them, and they came across for a while for a beer. We had lunch and then went ashore to look around, do the walk to the Chance Bay lookout and have a swim when we get back to the beach.


Whitehaven Beach (you can see from the footprints just how busy it has been today)


Denis and Carole swimming at Whitehaven


Shelley 


A strong southerly change is expected to come through early Friday morning, so we are not going to stay at Whitehaven overnight. The plan is to go back to Cid Harbour, which is well protected from a southerly , and we should have a good sail back to Airlie on Friday.

To complete the tour for Shelley and Denis, we decide to complete the circumnavigation of Whitsunday Island and head down through Solway Passage at just after 3pm, go around past Hamilton Island, and back through Fitzalan Passage to Cid Harbour, arriving at just after 5pm. Once again Koonya was there, so we anchored nearby.


Mark and Janet came over and joined us for a BBQ dinner .



The usual Cid Harbour Sunset

No comments:

Post a Comment