Whitsundays to Yeppoon

We celebrated the Second Mate's birthday at Whitehaven Beach. Happy birthday Second Mate, we can't believe you are ready to start high school.

 

Second Mate in action - a fine sailor and indispensable crew member

 

Vast Distances Are Covered

What the ?

The Rock left us in Cairns. Older, wiser, more suntanned and anxious to join the Hakluyt Society for original travel journal enthusiasts. The Second Mate also left us in Cairns with urgent business to attend to down south. We turned back out of Cairns in a few days after replenishing our stores and finally refilling our water casks. We left with memories and, in return we left behind our stamp on the marina: a spatula here, a pair of glasses there - claimed by the bottomless mud lurking at the bottom of the estuary.

The way ahead was South. Many, many miles of South. And some East. But mainly South. Our plans at this stage were mildly indistinct. There were friends to pick up further down the coast at specific dates vast distances away and beyond that a vague plan was forming to reach Brisbane by December. In either case, we needed to make like the black marlin and get moving in case we were caught in Cairns.

Paying our Respects

  'If a man does not keep pace with his companions

perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.

Let him step to the music which he hears'.

The Beachcombers' grave - Dunk Island