Monday 27th July 2015
We had a great nights sleep at Palm Bay,
dead calm, and after the sun went down the temperature dropped to a cool and
comfortable sleeping temperature.
Whilst there was a lot of condensation in the morning, a light breeze
seemed to keep the fog off the water, but there was a heavy haze over the
hilltops. It was a bit like sitting in the glacial sounds in the South Island
of NZ. Not surprisingly, the waterway we
are moored in is called Long Island Sound.
After a patient wait for the wind to
arrive, we finally decide to head out at around 10.30am for a very slow sail
back to Airlie, in around 5 knots of breeze behind us, plus about a knot of
favourable current. We are in no hurry, as it is low tide at around 1.30 pm,
and there will be not enough water in the berths at Airlie to go in until 3 pm
or later.
Wilparina leaving Palm Bay
There was plenty of tactical work going on on both boats to try to get the most out of the low and variable breeze. Smithy ended up poling out his headwall whilst we gybed our way home.
Wilparina with poled out headsail
Mica
When we eventually got to the Pioneer point
we could see a cruise ship had anchored off Airlie Beach, and we had our first
whale sighting of the trip, with two (maybe 3) whales performing off the NW
side of North Molle Island.
Finally we saw some whales
Cruise ship came into view as we neared the point
I dragged a fishing lure all the way from
Long Island with no luck. Nor did fishing with bait in Palm Bay yield anything.
It was too early to go into the marina, so
we sailed out around the cruise ship, which turned out to be the Pacific Dawn,
and then eventually had a good sail back into Abell Point on a 10 knot breeze
and a beam reach.
The Pacific Dawn anchored off Airlie Beach
After complaining about the shallowness of
our previous berth on X arm, we have been allocated a berth on E arm for this
stay. The low depth alarm fired up
pretty quickly as we entered the berth with 0.4 m under the keel, after about
1.5 hours of incoming tide. The berth is very squeezy, and our neighbour (a
Bavaria 42 Cruiser), and ourselves fill it with very little space to spare.
Dinner tonight is a BBQ on Wilparina. More lamb chops very well cooked , with Smithy's secret marinade !
No comments:
Post a Comment