Capering round the Capes - Gloucester to Cleveland Bay

East cardinal mark, Gloucester Passage, with nestling chick.

Buoyed by our fantastic dinner ashore the previous night at Monte's Resort, we set off early from Gloucester passage across Edgecumbe Bay towards Bowen. We bid farewell to the wild and windy Whitsundays, although they had really had the final word: another wild sou'easter had blown up on our last day and shredded our mainsail as we headed across the top of Whitsunday Passage.




Arjuna rests in the tranquillity of Gloucester Passage after another wild Whitsunday day.

It was a long haul westwards towards Townsville of about 100 nautical miles (200 km). We passed Bowen, and some miles later the massive industrial jetty  and coal loader at Abbott Point. There was reasonable wind but it felt as though we were surfing rather than sailing up the coast on the southeasterly swell.

Pilot boat and tugs guide a bulk carrier into Abbott Point.

We anchored overnight off Cape Upstart. A chill southerly blew across The Cape that night and we heard that the snow was dumping down on the Australian Alps thousands of kilometres south - a subtle reminder that it was in fact the middle of winter.

Three capes.

The bays between these capes are so vast that from a distance the capes look like islands, while the mainland disappears below the horizon.



Jetty at Abbott Point - almost 3km long.

At Cape Upstart, we watched the cane fires burning in the Burdekin River basin to the west. The Burdekin is the last region in Australia to still burn the cane fields in the traditional way before the harvest.



"Red sky at night, cane farmers' delight" : cane fires burning in the Burdekin

Wednesday July 2nd was the day of three capes. Leaving Cape Upstart it was a long day's motor sail up past the never ending featureless sand spit of Cape Bowling Green to Cape Cleveland. We didn't sight another boat until we reached Cape Cleveland. There wasn't much to see or do so the Third Mate caught up on some movies and reading; the First Mate baked bread and banana loaf; the Captain all the while steered Arjuna onwards for Cleveland Bay and listened to podcasts. We settled in behind Cape Cleveland late in the day to a view of the bright lights, big city of Townsville beckoning on the other side of the bay.

Native Burdekin Plum (photographed at Magnetic Island)