Gypsy Cruising

17 July

Macona Inlet to Border Island

Another lovely day today. For interest (and a bit of fun), we're leaving the VHF radio radio switched on and scanning the bareboat communication channels.  We've heard one boat advise that they're coming home early, citing "disagreements amongst the crew", and another boat asking how to switch from one fresh water tank to the other.  When the charter base expressed concern that they'd used half their water on only their second day out, they noted "we've had a meeting with the girls about water use".

We've settled into a pretty easy routine, with slow breakfasts and departures around mid morning for short sails of an hour or two between anchorages.  I launched the drone this morning.  The footage I took didn't inspire me to edit it into a self contained video, but it will contribute to something in future.  At the least it did get me a very nice still image of part of the inlet.

Macona Inlet and our anchorage.  The fringing reef is quite evident as a darker patch.

I had the sails up almost immediately after exiting Macona Inlet and, as a first for me, I left them up through the narrow channel between Hook and Whitsunday Islands (Hook Passage). From there it was a glorious though short reach across to Cataran Bay on Border Island.  There are moorings available here, but they have a two hour time limit and not all are rated for our boat length.  It seemed far less hassle just to use our anchor in about 13-15 meters of water, so that's what we did.

A really enjoyable sail across to Border

David joined in the fun

The small beach in Cataran Bay

Once the engine was off we realised we had a problem somewhere in the domestic fresh water system.  Turns out that a stop valve on the stern shower hot water hose had broken and hot water was gushing into the stern locker.  This could have been more serious if I'd been accessing water from one of our larger tanks, because of the loss of water that would have occurred.  As it was we were still taking water from one of the small 50 litre bladders and the loss was minimal. I found a replacement part from my stock of spares (lucky!) and David and I managed to get the whole thing replumbed within an hour.  These are the little things that we have to deal with when we're doing a long cruise.  Hopefully we won't have any big things go wrong.

David taking a turn battling with a broken water hose