Captain’s Log: Cape Upstart, Horseshoe Bay on Magnetic Island

June 7-11

Hi All,

Cape Upstart: It was indeed very trawler like weather and we pulled in around 4:30pm as expected. The conditions remained bright sunshine and very trawler like…..winds <5 kts, seas <1’….sweet as!!! We did fish but not catch……whaaaaa!!! We met up with Bella Vita at the anchorage but both of us were too tired to do anything but talk on the vhf!!! We expected very nice holiday homes on the island but we found more like w/e sand dune homes……still looked very idyllic and relaxing!!!

The next day we were off at 6:30 am for the 67nm run to Horseshoe Bay on Magnetic Island, about 10 miles from Townsville. Again, very trawler like conditions……sweet!!!

We really liked Horseshoe Bay and wish we had more time in the area. The first day we went into shore, checked out this very cute beach town/resort area, caught the bus to Nelly Bay, did some provisioning for fresh stuff, and checked out the ferry schedules.

We came back to Horseshoe Bay and found Exit Strategy and Mersoleil had arrived from their overnighter from the Whitsunday’s, so we got together for a late lunch at the Blue Marlin……excellent seafood and very cold Fat Yak pale ale….. a very relaxing and pleasant afternoon!!!

The 2nd day we got up early to catch the bus and then the ferry to Townsville. We went to the Tropical Museum of Queensland…..wow, what a find. They had a lot of history on the HMS Pandora…..that was the British war ship sent back to the South Pacific to hunt/capture the Bounty mutineers in 1790. The ship captured 14 of the mutineers….not all of them but a lot, and then wrecked on the GBR on their return voyage. Through heroic efforts about 2/3’s of the crew survived and made the journey to Timor…..close to 1500nm away in long boats. They found the wreck in the last 1990’s and did a huge excavation and now have most of the remnants in this museum….fascinating and very well done!!! The museum also had an exhibit of the various coral found on the GBR and an exhibit of the tropical rainforest we will be seeing over the next 400 miles or so.

We then met Brett, Stacey and Kalle at the Aquarium…..again a really good one……they had tons of GBR fish….a lot we had seen but many we have been trying to see so what a treat.

Then it was off to a local Irish pub to sample Molly’s Guiness pie and another several beer lunch…..yummers!!!!

But alas, our time is being cut short by Mr Weather. A huge HI (1040) down by Tasmania is creating a huge squash zone up here and starting tomorrow, the forecasts is for 20-35 kt winds for the next 3-4 days with seas building to the 9-12′ range…..yikes. So, we are going to do an overnighter to the Cairns area…..actually Yorkey Knob a northern suburb. We will stay in a marina for 3-4 nights to wait out these high winds/seas…..this is the last big city we will be in before Darwin so we will be doing a big provisioning run for food, liquor et al. We also need to find a dive shop as for some inexplicable reason several of our dive gear items are starting to fall apart…..my fins, Kathy’s BC, my instrument console….like everything is deteriating at the same time…..ugh!!!!

Conditions will be just ok…..10-20G25 kts ESE-SE, seas in the 3-6′ range….but all pretty much behind us so it should be a moderate condition ride for us!!! It’s 160nm and will take us ~20 hours so we will arrive around 8am tomorrow (Sunday)!!

Boat Stuff:
Watermaker: Still running around 220 psi (normal is 190psi). Still no word from Spectra which is so unlike them???

GEN: Hurray, we found the problem….it was a loose hi temp exhaust safety switch. It was loose maybe a 1/4 turn…tightened and mysterious shutdown syndrome went away!!!!

Hope all is well!!

John
Mystic Moon
GO MYSTIC GO!!!!