April 2010 - Middle Percy - Shute Harbour - Hook Island

Leaving Middle Percy Island our next stops are Digby Island (gorgeous), Brampton Island (gorgeous), Shaw Island (gorgeous), Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island (gorgeous), Cid Harbour (gorgeous) and finally into Shute Harbour where we catch up with more cruiser friends.  Such a social life we have!   

Pentecost Island (near Hamilton Island)

Most of these stops have been ‘overnighters’ but Whitehaven Beach is just so (gorgeous) that we decide to stay a couple of days. 

 Whitehave beach - just look at the colour of the water!

There is so much marine life up here – turtles, sting rays, exotic fish – the crew even got lucky one fishing expedition.

Still getting over the beautiful colour of the water!

Skipper gets a bit frustrated when BIG fish hover under the boat and then DON’T take the bait but they can afford to be choosey up here there are so many other things to feed on than just a pretty lure.

We cannot tell you how beautiful the Whitsunday Islands, indeed all the islands inside the Reef are.  The water is an amazing colour and clear enough to just sit and watch the variety of marine life pass by.  Like your own private aquarium.  The sands are soft and fine and all the while the sun shines everything is great.  Hard to believe three weeks earlier the cyclone passed through.

 

Speaking of cyclones, we have been moored in Shute Harbour/Airlie Beach for a week and still there are boats up on the rocks looking very sad indeed.  Each boat we pass has some sort of damage and apparently there are three on the bottom.  It will take months to put things back they way they were.

But apart from that we have had such a wonderful time catching up with friends we met in Eden three years ago who have been moored in Shute Harbour for a couple of years now.  So it’s dinners, drinks, shopping, washing dinners, learning to play Mahjong, drinks etc.

 The weather has however, taken a turn for the worse.

Beautiful one day……...

Uh oh!

Time to leave.  We have many miles to cover over the next couple of months and will need to keep pushing on up.  We are due to meet up with friends in Townsville who are also registered in the rally and look forward to the next leg of our journey in their company.  So for now we will anchor in a protected cove in Hook Island for a night or two before heading off. 

Nara Inlet on Hook Island is a popular anchorage with the charter yachts and while we are awaiting the nasty weather here several boats come and go.  What a shame to have hired a yacht for the week we are here with the shocking weather that has eventuated.  We take the opportunity in between rain squalls to climb to the aboriginal caves on the side of the hill. 

Nara Inlet from the Aboriginal caves

Sitting on deck one day we spy a couple of goats clambering over the rocks!  Apparently years ago goats were put on most of the islands in the event sailors where shipwrecked - they would have a food source.  Descendents of the goats still inhabit some islands.  The eroded rocks lining the shoreline have the most delicate shades of blue throughout and coral reefs dot the shallows almost the entire way around all the bays within the inlet.

Soft blue of the eroded rocks