Middle Percy to Mackay

What with the endless tasks on a working sailing vessel it is difficult to find time to put pen to paper and update this journal. The First Mate sagely advised that the Captain should spend less time with the pen and paper and more time with a computer keyboard. It is this sort of insubordination that has seen many a mutiny and grounding of vessels.

We have learned previously of the catch of many fish at South Percy and our arrival at Middle Percy. The First Mate failed to mention that one of the crew reacted poorly after eating the BBQ fish. In fact, quite a serious allergic type reaction appeared that had us reviewing our distance from medical support. Arjuna carries a medical kit to rival that of many a hospital but in this case we lacked the sort of syringe full of potion that that one might stab into an ailing crew member's chest. The Captain prepared a traditional homeopathic remedy by dipping the bones of the offending fish into water and then diluting the solution 10000 times. By the time this was available however, the Second Mate had made some progress towards recovery. All in all, the episode simply provided further evidence that the Captain tends to catch either a) no fish, b) small fish or c) poisonous or dangerous fish.

West Bay, Middle Percy. The Gathering of the Fleet

We reach the reef - Lady Musgrave Island

We left Bundaberg at dawn and headed due north about 40 nautical miles to Lady Musgrave Island,  our first encounter on this voyage with the Great Barrier Reef. Lady Musgrave is a cay completely encircled in a natural lagoon by coral reef. It lies along with Lady Elliot Island and Heron Island in the Capricornia Cays National Park.

It was not that far north from here that Matthew Flinders' luck changed very much for the worse on Wreck Reef, after the Porpoise ran aground as he returned to England with his completed charts following his circumnavigation of Australia. In an amazing feat of navigation and endurance, he managed to return Sydney in an open boat to organise the rescue of his men stranded on a sandbar on the reef.