DEPARTED CAIRNS

31 August 2023

Finally, at last, by the 29^th August the trades had moderated and I let go from the mooring as the tide turned to ebb and headed out from Cairns.  Truce had been tied up there for nearly a month and developed a nasty scummy slime around the waterline.  Time to sail it off.

The first stop out from cairns was Low Island.  We had a good SE wind of 15 to 20 knots to take us along briskly with just the headsails again.  I am still doing the lazy sailing and resting my arm as much as possible.  With the trade winds here you don’t have to do much thinking about sailing, just steer in the direction you want to go and put some sail up, engage windvane and settle back for the ride. 

By early afternoon I picked up a public marine park mooring just off the lighthouse on Low Island.  The wind continued blowing into the evening and there was no opportunity to put the dinghy in the water for shore leave.  Anyway, the first night out I was very happy to stay on board and relax.

At two in the morning I was woken by a banging on the hull.  We had a wind against tide situation.  The wind was coming off the mainland and the mooring buoy was trying to bash a hole in the side of the hull.  I quickly started the engine and went astern to get the buoy off the side of the boat.  A look around the other boats at anchor and on moorings showed similar chaos.  Two fishing boats just beside us were anchored one behind the other, they had managed to tangle their fishing gear and flopper stoppers.  The guys on deck were trying, unsuccessfully, by the looks of it, to extricate their boats from the tangle. They had bigger problems than me. 

I decided to move out immediately.  I dropped the mooring line and motored to the north clear of the anchorage then set sail and all was peaceful again.  Half an hour later I saw that another boat was following me, shortly after another boat from the anchorage followed.

It was a horrible start to the day, but on the upside we had a good early start on the day and were able to clock off an impressive seventy two miles before anchoring in the afternoon under Cape Bedford. It had been a long days sail but easy in the trade wind conditions, sometimes single handed sailing is not too difficult.