19 July - Jan arrives at Hamilton Island - great weather

Woke up to lovely weather for the sail down to Hamilton Island to collect Ian's lovely sister Jan.

You have to pay an hourly rate to go into the marina at Hamilton, but that is reasonable and at least Hamilton doesn't look like it will close like many other resorts up here.  You need to book ahead, then radio the Hamilton Marina when you are near the entrance, they tell you whether you have to prepare  a Bow entry and Starboard tie up or otherwise and when you are ready, you move into the marina where a raft type craft meets you and directs you to the pen.  They also help you tie up, take your rubbish and help in whatever way they can.  Great service.  You can fill up with water or have a shower in their facilities.

Hamilton Island is just lovely, certainly worth staying there for a holiday.

Was wonderful to pick up Jan and then we sailed off to Whitehaven Beach, which could be one of the best beaches in the world.  We enjoyed the wonderful views and a pretty quiet night anchored off the beach with about 25 other type of crafts.  Dozens of day trippers are transported here each day in large rubber duckies, catamarans, gaffers, seaplanes, huge trimarans, ex racing monohulls and catamarans and every other craft you can think of.   Budget to well  - prices beyond my imagination. 

20 and 21st July - we sailed down the Whitehaven Bay into Tongue Bay, where we spent our time watching the turtles around the yacht and then a group of dugongs were fishing near us!!   Magic.  130,000 visitors come to Tongue Bay each day!!  If you do the little walk and look down Hill Inlet (too shallow for our deep draft to sail into, great for cats) it would be one of the most magic views in the world.

Popped back into Nara for a night and then we had to show Jan our favourite - Cid Harbour - also had lots of turtles - Ian went exploring in the RIB and saw so many turtles.   I caught a Tusk fish - red this time and we also got a small Trevally, and we let them go. 

Jan's six days ended far too soon, so we popped back to Hamilton for a few hours.  Enjoyed morning tea, lunch, did some quick grocery shopping before Jan had to catch the shuttle bus to the airport (abut 5 mins away).

We really miss Jan's wonderful company, however were rewarded with the arrival of my TAFE friends, Helen and Colin and their daughter-in-laws' dad, Charmon from Germany.