Is this the best view in the World?

Is this is best view in the world?  I think it is the best I have ever seen?  I know that Whitehaven Beach is voted the best beach in Australia and it really is beautiful.  Not good for surfing.

I think that every Aussie should try and get up here and see this area - it really is lovely. 

I think this would be one of the best views I have ever seen.  From the Tongue Bay Lookout, you can see Whitehaven beach at the left and on the right is Hill Inlet - a Cat is anchored in here.  Our draft precludes us from going in here unfortunately.  We need a centre-board!

Watching a Catarmaran wend its way out of Hill Inlet.  The water was so clear we could see the deep channels that it would follow.

National Parks have made really great walks around the Whitsunday Islands.  This one is from Tongue Bay over the hill to Hill Inlet and Whitehaven Beach.  We had to wait for high tide to get across the coral reef, and then make sure we get back in time to get back to windChalmer.

Enhanced holidays for those who can afford a secluded beach day.

Photos of jan's Visit with us

We had such a wonderful time with Jan.  The notes are on a previous blog.

Virgin Blue plane just visible over Dent Island, next to Hamilton.  We were slowly motoring into Hamilton for our one hour booking.

Modelling the beanies I knitted for Kent and Ryan - and Jan is holding the Jan and Kelvin mad hair dolls which I knitted for them  :)

Sunset over Whitehaven Beach - we spent the first night of Jan's visit anchored here with about 20 other craft.  Very interesting just to watch the other boats coming and going here.

Beaver Seaplane taking off from Whitehaven Beach

Jan and Ian outside the Hamilton Island Post Office.  We didn't take lots of photos unfortunately, we were too busy having morning tea, posting items to our family and then Ian fed a sulfur crested cockatoo at lunch and his whole tribe arrived.  One ate all the labels off Jan's suitcase, and then they tried to eat our lunch - my sister would understand this.  :)

Sunset over Whitehaven

27 July - One Magical Day

Look how clear the water is here - amazing.

We left Hamilton Island at about 1 pm on Wednesday, 26th July and sailed again to Whitehaven Beach while waiting for Helen and Colin who stayed the night in Hamilton Marina.

Ended up a very rolly night and we didn't get much sleep.

Next afternoon, Helen and Colin took us to Windy Bay on Haslewood Island (only a few miles from Whitehaven Beach).  Despite the name, Windy Bay was perfectly calm and just amazing.  I dropped a peg overboard after we anchored and we could see it on the sand.  Bit eerie as you keep thinking that you may not have enough water under the boat in low tide.

Absolutely magical.  Great coral for snorkeling, swimming was lovely (but cold) and beach great to walk on.  Water so amazingly clear.

Helen and Colin's Cat in the Clear, clear waters, wonderful snorkeling and swimming here, magical day

From our anchorage in Windy Bay, looking towards Whitehaven in the distance

Great Coral, small shark, lots of turtles, stingrays, soldier crabs and we caught Mackerel for dinner!

Loads of soldier crabs marched around in formation with their lovely emerald blue backs.  We saw a shark (Ian thinks it could be a tiger shark, small), lots of turtles, and stingrays - had to be careful when walking.

Ian also caught 4 nice big fat mackerel, very yummy and have two meals frozen too.  Ian finally got to use the fishing rod which Ryan gave him a while back.

Windy Bay sure is a really pretty, lovely resource.

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.

Sunday 15 July Nara Inlet, Hook Island

Well the reasonable weather didn’t last long.  We woke up to a very misty morning (see photos on previous blog). Then it gradually deteriorated into the usual totally overcast and raining day.  Didn’t pour just drizzled here and there.  The wind got up a bit and we wobbled around on our anchor.  Our anchor has held really well though.  So it was a good comfortable day with an occasional burst of wind.  

When I checked the ABC 7 day weather forecast for up here, it forecast rain until Wednesday but at about 23% possibility, so that has really improved from the 70% possibility which was forecast at one stage.

Ian and I have spent the day reading, knitting (just me!), washing (cockpit looks like a laundry), looking out at the other boats especially now that there are seven of us here.  Two motor cruisers and five monohulls.  They are all crowded up at the entrance.

Mr Billy Goat Gruff – a brown and black goat, well we think he was a billy, came prancing around the rocks near us and then disappeared, probably to somewhere warmer.   A lot of the islands up here have wild goats.  They were shooting them, to clear them out of St Bees when Ian was over on Scawfell Island.  Most of the islands are now National Parks, so they are trying to get rid of them.  Tough job.

Saturday 14 July – One Perfect Day - almost

Well it was an almost perfect day.  We needed one.  Motored out of Able Point Marina at Airlie Beach into a totally pancake flat bay.  No wind.  Oh well, motoring today not sailing.  Luckily we don’t use much diesel per hour and still have some of the $300 worth of diesel we bought in Bundaberg!

Rain was supposed to leave us the previous Thursday.  Thursday it poured so Ian and I caught the bus to the Centro Shopping Centre and added to our supplies as Jan is coming to stay for six days from 19 July.  All the shopping centres around here seem to be really struggling.  Quite a few empty shop sites for rent.  Our umbrella got a really good workout.  

As we walked from the bus stop to the marina, we passed the sailmaker’s premises.  I said to Ian, ‘Wish the sailmaker would stay here late and finish our sail.’

Well he heard me.  Phoned at eight next morning to say, come collect the sail, all done.  Wow, he had stayed up to midnight to complete it.  His offside had broken his ankle during the week too.    So I hopped on his computer and transferred the money to him.  

So all the jobs were done.  We had come into the marina on the Sunday for two nights to get the rigger to put up the Profurl rigging, the sail recut and the bottom of the boat scrubbed.  All done finally.  The rain had held off all Wednesday while the rigger did a great job.  We made him cups of coffee and sandwiches for lunch and he just stayed and worked and got the job done.  Ian followed him around helping out where he could.  He said he had a great day with us which tickled our fancy.

It is an odd feeling to be in a yacht when your bottom is being scrubbed!  The hull that is!  Is moves a bit and you can hear snorting and bubbling depending whether the diver has his snorkel or scuba gear on.  Diver Rob was even more handsome than Diver Dan (David Wenham eat your heart out). He also put an anode on the propeller which arrived in time from Melbourne.

So time for us to go again.

We motor sailed out to Hook Island, up Nara Inlet which is 2.5 miles long.  Felt like a fiord with the hoop pines standing out within the forest again.  It was quite misty – see the photos. We settled down to a really lovely quiet night.  Only three of us monohulls in  Refuge Bay.  A little bay off the Inlet. 

Just about to enter Nara Inlet on Hook Island about 10 miles from Airlie. Good walk to see Aboriginal paintings in a cave.  National Parks have done a wonderful job with the walk, signs and cave.  Some wild goats around here too. 

Nara Inlet very pretty and safe anchorage unless it blows from the south.

Looking up Nara Inlet in the Mist

North Molle Island looking at Daydream Island and Resort in the distance.  You can sail between a narrow interesting passage between the islands.

Anchorages from Mackay

Here is a list of our anchorages from Mackay - more to come, as we are spending whole of July at least up here.  Might even stay one week in August.  Want to do some snorkeling.

Anchorages after Mackay

Date	Anchorage	Comments
5 June	Mackay to Scawfell Island	Ian by himself here, Robyn gone home for 2 weeks. Very bad rolly first night, but great for the rest of the week
13 June	Scawfell to Mackay	Back to pick up Robyn
16 June	Mackay to Brampton	Lovely Island, good anchorage
18 June	Brampton to Goldsmith Island	Lovely Island, good anchorage, careful of depths, tides and reefs
20 June	Goldsmith to Thomas Island	Pretty anchorage
22 – 27 June	Thomas to Shaw Island (opposite Lindeman) Phone coverage - yeah	Great calm anchorage is lots of rain. Rained Fri to Wed.
27 June	Shaw Island to Cid Harbour	Amazingly pretty harbor, great anchorage.
28 June	Cid Harbour, through north and South Molle and Day Dream Island to Able Point Marina (Airlie Beach)	Airlie Beach beautiful, great weather
30 June to 1 July	Took Pat and Chris from Airlie to Cid Harbor and back again.	Wonderful weather and anchorages
1 July to 8 July	Anchored in Airlie Beach Harbour – lovely anchorage.  Then started to rain and blustery	Good anchorage
9 July – 14 July	Able Point Marina (Airlie Beach) for furler to be fitted, btm of boat scrubbed by Diver	Very blustery and rained 9, 10 and 11 July.  Then good blue skies.