We have finally left Airlie Beach…. After selling the car for a song (and a crap early 80’s song at that) we left Airlie almost immediately. We’d been stuck there for just on 3 months and whilst lots of necessary work on the boat has been done we have had enough of this little pocket of paradise….kinda along the line of ‘nice place, but you wouldn’t wanna live here’… so bright and early on the 3rd of November we motored our way towards Townsville.

Unfortunately sailing wasn’t much of an option as the wind was faint and basically straight up our ass! So rather than flog the genoa to death we just rolled her in and motored our way out of Pioneer Bay… aside from a wee Easterly around Gloucester Island we were pretty much relegated to motor sailing all the way round Abbot Point to a reasonably sheltered bay behind it where we set the anchor down for the night. We had quite a bit of swell until the early hours of the morning so not much sleep was had…but the anchor held beautifully and we did manage some rest before setting off across the bay, around Cape Upstart in 2-3 metre swells. It was rather choppy so we spent the whole surfing each wave individually all the way into Bowling Green Bay.

Right on the Cape Ralph hooked something HUGE (a 1 metre Cobia) on his trolling line, managed to bring it right onto the boat….but lost it when the leader line broke, Damn… we need a gaff hook me thinks!

Into Bowling Green Bay the swell dropped but right on cue so did the wind, so we were left motoring across the green water (yes it really is green) but at least the Autopilot could handle the calmer conditions so we were able to rest and enjoy the amazing sunset that greeted us as we pulled into anchor behind Cape Ferguson…. More swell here, but an easy anchorage nonetheless.

The next morning we set off on the last wee leg round Cape Cleveland towards Townsville on a warm sunny day and pond like conditions (yes, you guessed it, still no wind).

We reached Townsville after four or so hours of easy going feeling a little scorched but pleased with the seaworthiness of Hafskip. It has to be noted however that we are left with a few Engine issues to deal with before we can move on…. There’s a diesel leak to contend with and we still have some oil leaking from somewhere, which means there’s a little more bilge and engine time in store for Ralph! Not to mention some mast time for me to repair our lazy jack lines.

So here we sit… in absolute calm…no movement whatsoever, ready to begin our last set of repairs, modifications, provisioning etc… and wait for a weather window that will allow us to move on to PNG before Cyclone season hits.

What if we don’t get our window?..…. Well I guess we’ll just remain here till the cyclone season passes and we’ll look for some work to keep us afloat (pun completely intended).

Lets’ see how it goes eh.