Yeppoon to Mackay (29th May)

Sharpie Worship

As planned we had our steak dinner at the Waterline Restaurant at the marina and it was every bit as good as last time.  Monday is a pretty crappy day in Yeppoon so we have hired a car to do our provisioning and also check out the sites of Yeppoon and the surrounds.  We went down and saw the famous Singing Ship which is a monument to Captain James Cook who explored and named Keppel Bay.  We also went to the Keppel Bay Sailing Club which is my spiritual home - they worship Sharpies in this place.  So much so that they even have one mounted at the front door for all to revere and have even named some of their meals after Sharpies - naturally I had to try out the Sharpie Caesar Salad for dinner!!..

By Tuesday morning we are well over marina world and itching to get on our way again and luckily the weather outlook is looking promising for our trip through the islands south of Mackay.  Last time when we were heading north through this section of coast there was a solid 30-40knts blowing across the deck so ended up getting blown out of the area literally and were back in port at Mackay in 3 days so are hoping for a bit better this time.

View from Hunter Peak

Our first stop on Tuesday evening is Port Clinton which is a nice calm anchorage in the Shoalwater Bay Military area.  Naturally we have lots of company as it would seem that most of the yachts cowering in Yeppoon have decided that today is the day to get going.  Wednesday and we are off to Hunter Island which is pretty neat for Hunter owners.  As it is a really nice spot and the anchorage is pretty calm we decide to stop for a couple of nights so that we can go ashore for an explore.  We wandered along the lovely sandy beach and across to the other side of the island to check out the 'Lola Montez' passage which we will be navigating through on our way out - it is quite re-known for strong currents and is also fairly narrow.  We also did some bush bashing up to the top of what we now call 'Hunter Peak' which offers some excellent views.   We are not ones that are much into selfies but even we couldn't not take a photo of the Hunter's (with our Hunter caps on) on a Hunter at Hunter island :)

Friday and the weather is looking good for us to head over to West Bay at Middle Percy Island.  This anchorage is quite famous amongst boaties.  One of the early lease holders of the island had the great idea to build an A frame which is where yacht owners mount plaques sporting their boat names and it also provides a great area for socialising and sun-downers.  The other story behind Middle Percy is that we have never managed to get their yet.  This is Mark's 5th attempt to visit West Bay and finally we are going to make it so we are very excited.  West Bay is also quite infamous for being a very rolly and uncomfortable anchorage so we are hoping with the calm easterly weather that we have a reasonably comfortable stay. 

We had a lovely sail up from Hunter Island and straight after lunch the dinghy is down and we head ashore.  On the way we pick up Mr Kobyashi (not his real name but he is Japanese) and take him ashore with us for a look around as he is a lone sailor and has some troubles launching his dinghy.  It is great to wander around and check out all the names in the A frame and quite a few of them we recognise including Michael Arcaro's yacht 'Verve' and naturally we arrange to come back in at 5pm for drinkies which is when we get to meet up with Cate who is the current care-taker / lease holder of the island.  It is well worth while googling Middle Percy Island and checking out the history of this place in more detail!.

Gypsy Rose - Mr Kobyashi's

On the Saturday (24th May) we did the walk up to the homestead which was great as the vegetation is continually changing along the way which made for a really interesting walk - we think we have found our new Butterfly Island (Brampton was previously known as Butterfly Is.) as the place is absolutely full of them which is really pretty.  As the forecast is still predicting calm weather we decide to stay on for Sunday and the BBQ lunch in the A frame which ended up being lots of fun with the crew's from Speranza, Rambler and the boys from Sundowner's.

Middle Percy Homestead

Monday and we decide it is time to finally depart from Middle Percy and continue our way north so we are off to Curlew Island for the night and maybe two if the anchorage holds up.  Unfortunately the night if pretty rolly at Curlew so we are up and out of their early on Tuesday morning bound for marina world again at Mackay which again is not a bad thing as it is a really nice Marina precinct plus we have a few things to pick up from the office (including my new comfort seat) and are also picking up Barry and Ros (friends from RMYS) on Friday who will be on board with us for the next couple of weeks.

A little bit of a side note - our GPS receiver on board has been a bit temperamental since we left Manly.  On speaking with the Raymarine people it would seem that the internal battery has gone kaput which is not surprising after nine years of loyal service.  Anyhow as we have an older Raymarine system is not as simple as just bolting a new one in but they do have a kind of adapter thing which allows the new to talk to the old.  We ordered and picked up our shiny new GPS receiver in Yeppoon however, after a few goes at trying to get it up and running still had no luck.  However, after much communication with Raymarine it looks like Mark has got it all sorted so he is currently in the process of running wires and installing our new GPS receiver.  It hasn't in all been a bad exercise as it has forced me to spend more time working out how to use and get a bit more sense out of our back up chart plotter which is Open CPN on our lap-top.

The plan from here is to meet up with Barry and Ross on Friday.  Do some provisioning on Saturday and head out into the Southern Whitsunday Islands on Sunday with our first stop either Scawfell or Brampton Islands.