CLIENT: General Public Voyage
VOYAGE NUMBER: 20190422
FROM: Gladstone To: Brisbane
DATE: 25 April 2019
POSITION: Great Sandy Straits
REPORT BY: White Watch
We weren’t quite sure if we were beating upwind, or the wind was beating up South Passage as we battled a 25 kt headwind with 30 kt gusts, under darkened skies, no moon, no stars, and not much sense of vertical either.
For those not up on deck, rock and roll dreams pursued! We were grateful for our hull wall to sleep on and our lee cloth to catch us. We went to sleep (?) dreaming of our achievements tonight. It was a tough watch but we survived and thrived as a team.
We all awoke in the morning to the smell of Hugh’s amazing breakfast bacon & eggs, sausages and toast, cereals & porridge and juice.
After a hardy brekky, we sailed across the calm waters of beautiful Platypus Bay to Arch Cliffs and dropped anchor. The sun was shining, gentle SE breeze and shimmery waters. We launched the tender and headed off to the beach to explore. A small freshwater creek flowing out of Fraser, bound by paperbark swamp and lined by reeds and aquatic grasses is a well-kept secret and was a refreshing bath for many crew (we won’t mention the names of those who needed the wash!). The tender ferried us back to the ship, some decided more swimming was needed. Jumping off the ship in to the clear blue waters around Fraser followed – some even attempted kissing the mermaid and boarding by the bow netting.
Once everyone was aboard it was spaghetti time and chilling out. We later weighed anchor and sailed to our next anchorage at Kingfisher Bay, time for more explorations and mischief. The sun was setting as we re-boarded the ship for steak and roast veg dinner with cheesecake. We awaited the change in tides before departing again to cross the shallows in the middle of Sandy Straits before starting anchor watches at 00:30hrs.
We had an excellent day of sailing, exploring and creating lasting memories. We can’t wait to share our stories.