Back to Chapter Eleven - Club Sailing Chapter Twelve
Whitsunday Sailing
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Chapter Twelve Whitsunday Sailing |
In 1997 I felt experienced enough to charter a yacht in the Whitsunday Islands. My crew was Eileen, Ryan, and his girlfriend Vicki. We drove to Airlie Beach, met the people from the charter company, and Ryan and I went to the on-shore briefing. The girls went shopping for provisions. Most charter companies will have this done for you on request, but we wanted specific items.
At the briefing there were several other charterers ready to listen to the information on the Whitsunday cruising ground, the local weather forecast, tides, radio procedures, and island facilities. Then we were given a briefing aboard the yacht we had booked, a 39-foot Beneteau. We were shown how all the systems worked on this particular vessel. We went for a short sail, and after the representative from the charter company was satisfied that we would be able to safely operate 'Cafetier', he returned to shore, and we sailed a short distance to Long Island for our first night aboard. Regulations in the Whitsundays, and many other charter areas around the world, state that all chartered vessels must be anchored by 4pm, and must not move before 8am. This is too ensure there is sufficient daylight to see both other boats and landmarks, and into the water, when selecting an anchorage. Many charterers are inexperienced, and there are a lot of very expensive boats in relatively close proximity to each other in these cruising grounds.
Next day we woke to a morning fog. Another charter boat that was anchored nearby brought up their anchor and headed off out into the Whitsunday Passage. I remembered the two old salts aboard from the shore briefing. I thought, "They must have more local knowledge than me. I'm going to wait until the fog lifts".
A few hours later we had reasonable visibility, so we also headed out. We had a pleasant beam reach as we sailed across to Whitsunday Island and our next anchorage of Cid Harbour.
While we were having our onboard briefing back at Shute Harbour, Eileen, only half jokingly, asked where was the TV. The man responded by telling us to just listen to the VHF radio. We would get all the entertainment we needed. His favourite story was about the family that radioed in that they were short of linen and when would more be delivered. The charter company assured them that they should have sufficient, even if they had to do some washing. It transpired that the family had at one time chartered in the Caribbean. It was normal in the particular area they were in to wrap dirty linen in plastic bags and it would be collected by native islanders, washed, and returned. It appears there were several garbage bags of linen floating around the Whitsundays.
As we were sailing past Cid Island, a small island that forms part of the shelter for Cid Harbour, I noticed the same boat that had left Long Island before us. They appeared to be very close to Cid Island. Then our VHF radio came alive.
"We cannot raise our anchor. It appears to be caught around a coral head and either our keel or our rudder is bashing up and down on the coral."
When a charter is finished, there is a de-brief held back on shore. When we eventually returned our boat to the charter company, our de-brief lasted about two minutes, but I had to wait for about two hours for the two 'old salts' to finish theirs first. I also noticed they had finished their cruise on a different boat to that on which they had started.
As we continued our cruise we had our first experience of bullets. Not the lead kind, the windy kind. The Whitsunday Islands were originally formed as part of the volcanic mainland. After the last glacial period the sea level rose, leaving the higher coastal peaks as islands. These peaks are indeed high. As the prevailing wind hits one side of these peaks it is thrust up and over, then down the other side. A boat sailing on the 'sheltered ' side of a high peaked island in comfortable 10 to 15 knot breezes, can be hit by sudden bursts of 20 to 25 knots coming from the land. Quite normal when you are used to it. Quite disturbing when you are not.
We anchored in Butterfly Bay next, on the northern end of Hook Island. Sometime between 1997 and 2000, the national park authorities laid mooring buoys so that boats would no longer anchor on the coral instead of the sand. This is one of the best coral viewing spots in the Whitsundays. Lots of live coral and lots of colourful fish. Ashore you will find the reason for the name; thousands of Common Crow Butterflies, sometimes also called the Oleander Butterfly.
As we were enjoying sundowner drinks in the cockpit, I noticed a young couple rowing a dinghy towards us. As they drew closer the girl yelled, "May we please use your radio to contact our charter company? Our dinghy motor won't start, our radio won't work, and our refrigerator is warm."
We agreed and they came aboard. The girl sent her boyfriend below to use the radio while she stayed in the cockpit and chatted. And chatted some more. And shared some of our wine. And chatted some more. And shared some more of our wine.
Eventually I got sick of her ramblings and jumped down into their dinghy. I opened the fuel tank air vent on top of the engine cowling, squeezed the bulb in the fuel line a couple of times, pulled on the starting rope once, and the engine started.
The boyfriend emerged from down below muttering something about how the charter company would send someone out to them first thing in the morning. Then they motored back to their boat. I sort of wondered how much attention they had paid at their briefing about running the diesel auxiliary engine to charge batteries and cool down eutectic refrigeration tanks.
Not everything we did went according to plan, but we had no major incidents ourselves. The fishing was good, the snorkelling was good, and we didn't have our anchor drag at any time. I did muck things up a bit in the marina at Hamilton Island though. One of the most difficult things to do when boating is to bring a vessel alongside a berth to tie up. This was my first time. Alan had never let me try. At that time Hamilton Island had a couple of + shaped berths in the middle of the basin. I mistook the instructions from the marina office and went to tie up to one of these. Despite each finger of the + being only about the same length as our vessel, I managed to get us in to where Ryan and Vicki could jump onto the pontoon and tie us off.
I should have realised something was wrong because to pay the fees that were asked, you would not expect to have to dinghy ashore. The marina office came on the radio and complemented us on our parking, but then told me that was not where they meant us to be. So in a matter of minutes I got to bring a boat into a berth, leave again, and bring it into another one, this time part of the marina proper. Nothing broken, no-one bleeding. It was a good landing, eventually.
Friday nights are Polynesian nights on South Molle Island. A smorgasbord of food, wine, and Polynesian dancing. We motored ashore for the evening in the dinghy. The meal and entertainment were excellent. Everything was fine until we prepared to return to 'Cafetier'. Where was she? It wasn't that we couldn't see her anchor light. It was that we could see every other anchor light in the anchorage as well. Which one was ours? I made a mental note to make better mental notes of where we leave boats in future.
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