PORT DOUGLAS - Our new home

EXCITEMENT as Grant meets us & escorts us into the
 Douglas River at Port Douglas

Doesn't time fly when you are having fun.  We can't believe we are almost into our 3rd week here at the Port Douglas Yacht Club Marina.  Grant gave us a lovely welcome by flying out of the Douglas River (as only Grant can) in his boat and joining us side by side as we finally came into the last port on our very long trip. Luckily we managed to get one of the last berths available and we got Silver Affair parked with many excited and willing hands taking our ropes.  It was time to party.

Grant escorts us down the Douglas River into Port Douglas

Settling in to Marina life at the PDYC

Motor bike mad just like his Dad

Now we have slotted right in to marina living and almost feel like a local.  Have enjoyed meeting our yachty neighbours and hearing the many interesting stories of how people ended up here in beautiful Port Douglas. 

We now have a bike each, thanks to Grant's good friend and Boss who is moving house.  It's an easy ride through a park and across one road and we are at the beach or if it's not too hot, we do the 10min. walk.  It's good to be swimming and loosening up those creaky knees and we are loving the tropical water temperature.  Grant has his boat parked next to us and he calls in after work each day and early most mornings when he and Col duck behind into the river and set the crab pots for the day. We have enjoyed quite a few yummy mud crab lunches. 

Have enjoyed a couple of nights up in the mountains with Grant, Nina and the kids and loved the early morning wake-ups from our little torpedo running and jumping all over the bed.  It's lovely to be able to pick up Tahla from school, she is growing up so fast.  We are all looking forward to being here for her 6th birthday in September when she will have both her Aussie and her German grandparents at her party.  Nina's Mum & step-father fly into Cairns on 10th Sept.  We will all have a day out on the boat to the reef and to Low Isles while they are here.

So now we settle down for the next 3 months enjoying 28 degree winter days.  We will be staying up with Grant at least one night a week to help with Liam on Nina's work day.  We will go to the reef for a couple of days a week and maybe towards end of September we will disappear for a while and head up to Lizard Island for a week or two.  End of October I suppose we will have to think about heading home.  Only time will tell.

NEARLY THERE - The Mothership arrives in 2 days

Left Bowen early with the aim of a leisurely sail up to Cape Upstart, only about 35 miles.  Was a perfect day with a nice 10-15knt SE from behind, which allowed the spinnaker to finally make an appearance.  Pleased to turn the corner at Upstart but as per usual the rocky bottom made anchoring tricky but the chart plotter was a great help this time in finding a bit of sand.  WJ  we had to have a toast to you here due to memories of past eventful anchoring moments. 

Next day was exactly the same with excellent conditions again and more spinnaker and our visitor from Germany loving every moment as he spotted one whale after another.  Had planned to just go to Cape Bowling Green but as we arrived there before lunchtime we decided to push on to Cape Cleveland at Townsville.  We rounded the corner of the Cape into a calm bay and settled down for our last night with Chaman.

Got into our berth at Townsville Breakwater Marina a little after 9am and headed over the hill to the Mall where we jumped in a taxi to the new Townsville Train Station.  Of course, trains being trains in Australia and unlike trains in Germany it was 45 minutes late.  We sadly said our farewells and Chaman settled into his single seat on The Sunlander for his 7hr trip to Cairns with the hope that we might catch up again one more time in Port Douglas before he flies home to Germany in just over a week.  We jumped on a bus back into the Mall, had some lunch and then wandered through the lovely park back to the Marina to visit the laundromat and get the boat ready for take-off again the next morning.

The weather is getting better and better every day and we left Townsville Marina at 10am, got the spinnaker up again and sat back and relaxed as the wind took us out past Magnetic Island and up to the delightfully named Rattlesnake Island where we anchored for the night just off the beach.  It was a more pleasant stay at Rattlesnake than another time there in 1995 when we were chased off by two big Blackhawk Army Helicopters. They use the island as a firing range and we thought we were close enough inshore to be of any nuisance or in any danger. WRONG.

Spinnaker AGAIN

Weather was even better the next day, spinnaker again, sit back relax again and we left Rattlesnake for Orpheus Island, arriving by lunch and decide to stay, read, relax a bit more and snorkel the reef.  We had our pick of about half a dozen good moorings off the beach in the next bay from the Resort.  Nice and quiet and peaceful until Col yells out "WHALES" and there must have been 5 of them a couple of hundred metres out from the bay and hurling themselves out of the water as they headed south.  It was an amazing sight.-


6.30am left Orpheus with the intention of sailing through the inside  (Hinchinbrook Passage) of Hinchinbrook Island, however the weather was excellent, we had the spinnaker up again so we had a great run and stayed on the outside.  The stunning mountainous terrain forming Hinchinbrook Island,  Mt. Bowen being 1150m high is a fantastic sight.

Passing Hinchinbrook Island

At this stage we could glimpse our Dunk Island destination about 15 miles ahead, Dunk being the most dominant island amongst a group of a dozen or so smaller islands.  



We rounded our favourite Dunk Island sand spit and anchored just off the now destroyed jetty - thanks to Cyclone Yasi.  Devastation would be the word to describe what Yasi obviously did to lovely Dunk Island, with yet another Island Resort wrecked and closed.   Most of the buildings are still there, but in pieces, however we still enjoyed going ashore, having a swim, wandering the beach and doing a bit of my favourite past-time, finding beautiful shells and just beach-combing in general.

Dunk Island sand spit

Destroyed Jetty at Dunk Island

Destroyed buildings at Dunk

Favourite Ulysses Butterfly survived at Dunk Island

Lovely to see the beautiful blue butterfly still prominent on the bottom of the pool, at least that survived.  Beautiful afternoon and sunset from the back of the boat and we had an early and very quiet night.  Just a hop, step and jump over to Mission Beach and we toyed with the idea of popping over for breakfast, but in the end, left that for next time.

After a few hours on the beach in the morning we left Dunk, sailing through the lovely North Barnard group of Islands.  Decided to have a morning tea stop off on one dear little island.

Some of the Nth Barnard little islands 

This Spinnaker musn't  know what's going on, out she came again, flying high, taking us on a short 20mile hop to Mourilyan Harbour which is a funny one and hard to find because it's only a fairly small opening between two hills.  Once you get inside, it opens up into a large harbour, but there are no facilities or shops around, only a sugar and timber mill operation.  The small town of Mourilyan is 10kms away. Innisfail is just a bit north of here.  Dead quiet night in Mourilyan and we headed back out to sea around 7am for a 40mile hike up to Fitzroy Island just off Cairns. YEHHHH.

 It's hard to believe we are here, it has been at times, a difficult trip, due of course to the bad weather we've had along the way, but it's making up for itself now with the past couple of weeks being brilliant.  Also can't believe that in less than 3 days, we will at last see our Grant and his little family, who are geared up to give us the big welcome at the edge of the Dixon Inlet, Port Douglas.  The Mothership (as he calls it) is almost there.  Hallelujah.