Gypsy Cruising

5 August

Gloucester Passage to Upstart Bay

The 100 nautical mile stretch of coast between Gloucester Island and Townsville / Magnetic Island is relatively bare from a cruising sailor's perspective. There are no islands to visit along the way and only two large bays, each protected in the trade wind season by capes, mark its length. The passage is therefore little more than a drag race. The rest of the fleet is planning to do the whole distance in two long days of sailing. Having discussed the matter, Celeste and I have decided to do it in three days and avoid the necessity of doing a 70 mile day. We therefore plan on doing one day to Upstart Bay, along with everyone else, then stop at Bowling Green Bay on the second day and catch everyone up at Magnetic Island by midday on the third day.

The other boats left Gloucester Passage just after first light today. I couldn't see the need to be up so early, and waited over an hour before we left.

Rain showers covered Gloucester Passage after our departure, creating a glorious picture, but sparing us

We have the advantage of being the only boat in the fleet with the ability (some might add the lack of caution) to fly a very large symmetrical spinnaker off a spinnaker pole, which gives us at least a knot speed advantage and often much more when sailing deep downwind as we are today. I expected we'd be able to close the gap quite effectively on everyone and in the event we managed to pass two of the other four boats.

Along the way we passed the Abbot Point coal loader, one of the largest capacity loaders in Australia. Its jetty runs for almost 3km off the mainland.

We ultimately rounded Cape Upstart around mid afternoon after a fairly uneventful though fast spinnaker run up the coast. Upstart Bay is large with flat, protected water but we quickly found the wind got funnelled through a large valley and hit us with more force than the prevailing wind had done offshore. This seems to be something we just have to put up with for the night.