Year 2 –4 May 2025 - Hazlewood Island – Whitsunday Island
It was a windy night and there were many bullets and something rattled on the deck. When we woke it looked like a different day and seemed initially a lot clearer with some blue sky. We had breakfast – cereal and fruit including pineapple and a nice coffee. A motorboat nearby left and we got our dinghy down and headed ashore.
We got the dinghy ashore and pulled it up on the beach. The sand was lovely and soft and fine. We walked along for some time south and the sun came out and we saw the beach in its best finery. We walked up the dunes and we walked toward the woods and the path run out. Peter, John and I then walked right to the end of the beach going North which was lovely and came to an end where there were rocks and mangroves. We could see some of the reef appear at low water. There were some sea eagles flying round and lots of gulls who would come and try and land on our dinghy. Paul and Angus had a swim instead of the walk and we then returned to the dinghy and Peter and I had a swim.
We returned to Stormbird and got the dinghy up and prepared to leave once we changed and showered. Paul volunteered to helm us to our next bay and we decided to go across to Whitehaven Beach and anchor for lunch. We motored there and the wind was very strong – some 20-25 kts and there was little shelter. We therefore decided not to stop and then put up the staysail and sailed up the east side of Whitsunday Island. The wind was gusting up to 30 kts and we were sailing well and in control. The sail was not long and after 4.5nm we came to Tongue Point and Esk Island was to the east. We sailed round the headland and put our sail away and motored round into Tongue Bay. We had seen the catamaran Nomad who had been moored next to us in Chalkie’s Bay ahead and they came round to the same bay and were already moored.
Tongue Bay is quite a large bay with a number of mooring buoys with a nice beach from which there is a walkway to the other side and Whitehaven Bay. There is also a walkway up to a famous lookout over Whitehaven Beach which we hope to explore. We found a mooring buoy and then had a late lunch. We then chilled and read and watched what was going on in the bay. It seemed to us that a number of tour boats come in here and take people to the beach. There were two large motor catamarans and a large sailing catamaran. There were then also two large monohulls come in with about 20 people each on board. On one of them I saw a person sitting on the back with a yellow sow wester oilskin coat on and I thought they were ill as the passage to the bay will have brought them through rough water. Sure enough they took this person from the monohull to the motor catamaran as they would get back quicker.
We had a sundowner and although the bay was nice there is swell coming into the bay so we are rocking quite a bit. We had the second half of our spaghetti bolognaise and a salad for supper. We hope to explore the shore tomorrow.
The picture of the day is of most of us standing on the dunes of Chalkie’s beach looking bay toward Stormbird.
Need/Opportunity Year Three
In year three I will be going from Thailand to Sri Lanka, India, Maldives and then on to Chagos, Mauritius, Reunion, Cape Town, St Helena, Azores and back to the UK. I am looking for crew from Reunion to Cape Town and from Cape Town to the UK. If of any interest do email me.
The blog will continue as we continue the journey. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog then do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com