Palm Island to Orpheus Island
Today saw us do a short hop from Casement Bay on Palm Island to
Pioneer Bay on Orpheus Island. The fleet has coalesced into a core group
of five boats: led by Leon and Nirvana on Nirvana's Kitchen, with David
and Sonia on Galadriel, Bill and Dianne on Seas the Moment, David
and Jenny on Kailani and us on Gypsy Princess. Also close
by are Graham and Leanne on Echo Beach and Jim and Clem on Mix'd Nutz.
On the way to Orpheus we had a
short stop at Fantome Island which once housed a leprosorium (ie, a leper colony)
until its closure and destruction in 1973. We looked around the few
remains of the facility, which isn't much. It’s now largely been
reclaimed by low scrub. Although we couldn't see any signs of a
graveyard, I understand that over 200 people were buried there. It’s
a lovely place now, but must have been a horror island in those days, when it was
a case of “out of sight, out of mind” for the rest of the population.
Orpheus is home to a small but
exclusive resort, which doesn't welcome grotty or any other type of
yachties. It doesn’t have any good anchorage anyway, so we continued past
and anchored in a very protected bay to the north. Drinks were ashore on
the beach.
Things are starting to really slow down within the fleet. We have only a short distance to cover over
the next week or two so we plan to spend several days at each of our key
anchorages. Leon has proposed a plan for
our stay here which still leaves quite a lot of time for sitting around and
enjoying the experience. I personally
don’t find the bay unusually pretty, but then my benchmark for “pretty” has
been pushed to some extreme heights since I started this cruise. No doubt I’ll get a few photos in before we
head off.
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| Very much a cruise in company - here is Kailani and Galadriel just off our port side, with Nirvana's Kitchen a bit of a speck well ahead |
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