Living the dream

Airlie Beach anchorage – 02/07/09

Yesterday morning we took our time before getting ready to move as we were only going a bout 7 nms to Airlie from South Mole Island. I thought the longer we waited the wind might kick in but that was being hopeful as the forecast was for variable winds, which really means none at all.

We finally made the move at 0940 hours arriving in Airlie around 1100 hours; we looked around for a closer spot to the sailing club anchor to save distance for the dinghy. There are a few areas in between the moorings where you can drop the anchor and not interfere with the moorings.

  Yachts on the horizan are the sailing club twilight races

We then lowered the dinghy and went ashore to get a snorkel replaced that we purchased and leaked, the shop owner replaced it without question. We paid our temporary membership to the sailing club to use their dinghy dock and then went and had lunch. They serve very nice meals at the Rum Food Court at the fish place next to the bar. They have standard restaurant prices but very nice meals. After ordering the meals I bought Nancy a wine and I a beer, we had our meal then I went to get another drink, the barman asked if I was ready for rum yet. I said I don’t drink rum. He then asked if I drank spirits and I told him sometimes I have a Jameson’s Irish whiskey. With that he brought out a couple of bottles of rum from Trinidad and port some samples, after tasting them he asked what I thought and my reply was not bad. He said don’t judge all rums from by one. He then continued to pour me another sample of liqueur rum from WA. I said you get me drunk, he laughed I finished the tasting and returned to tell Nancy with our drinks.

We stopped by ‘Zianna Rose’ and spoke with Bill and Val, they will be here for about three more weeks as they have ordered a new mainsail to be made, they are doing away with the furled mainsail and going to a fully battened mainsail. This will give them more sail area.

Once back on board we started to plan the voyage north, we have 350 nms to sail before reaching Cairns and we have decided to leave on Saturday, we still do not start a voyage on a Friday, not that I am superstitious, but we did one time and copped a storm, so Nancy said not again.

We can day hop up the coast, some will be long days unless we get good winds but if we have to go through a night or two so be it.

 Dawn this morning.

Today will be hiring a cheap car and topping up with stores etc. We are going into Proserpine to do a bit of business and we will have a look around whilst we have the car.

The dawn light was beautiful again this morning, the weather here has been good, it cools in the evening and is a little fresh before the suns up, but the days have been around 27 – 29 degrees. The boat stays around 20 degrees during the night so we are quite comfortable. I do not miss the winters in the south.

Cheers