Where is Arjuna?

Well we are back in Cairns after 6 weeks of adventures in the north.  We got as far as Stokes Bay, Stanley Island in the Flinders Group before turning the bow southwards again.

Now everyone is busily catching up on schoolwork, boat work, paid work and paper work while the blog remains sadly neglected.

There are many crazy tales waiting to be told:

of monster fish caught . . .

The Journey to Lizard

It's the island on everyone's lips in these parts: Lizard. The nominal turning point for the multiple vice commodores of the Shaggers, the grey navy and the general cruisers as well as long term home for some yachties. We left the channel markers out of Cairns and turned our bows towards the north to make our push to these fabled, fantastical bays of Lizard Island. However, Lizard is not just down the road - its a triple digit nautical mile trip from Cairns requiring some degree of planning and the odd course correction that wrinkled the brow of even one of history's greatest navigators. This area of the coast bristles with the ghosts of Cook, Flinders, King and others. The water coursed with the descendents of the Endeavour's barnacles - and in fact several great grandchildren had taken up residence in our speed sensor rendering it completely inoperable.

An interesting camera angle makes the Low Isles lighthouse seem taller than it is. Eagle perched on railing

Marina Fever, Cairns Style

Things get busy at the big end of town

Far away and for many long nights and days, a team of dwarvish craftspeople, toiling under an ancient mountain, had woven and stitched, forged and hammered, putting every fibre of their being into delivering us between 43 and 44 square metres of the finest cross cut US made dacron sail that the internet can buy. And lo! as sun dawned on the morning of the 2nd it was delivered unto us by Ralph, of Ports North, in his mighty golf cart buggy, the
marina office at Cairns being too far away to carry such a hefty package on foot.

Platypi and a Pub

We've been in Cairns for about three weeks now and plan to head off tomorrow further north.



View from the Esplanade

Our beautiful new main sail arrived yesterday from Hong Kong and it was a bit like Christmas as the crew gathered round to unwrap the enormous box. The anticipation had been killing us.

A Grounding at Mourilyan Harbour

Finally the wind and swell settled enough to set off from Dunk Island to Cairns.


Able Sea Monkey found this plate sized starfish on our last day at Dunk.

This is a 70 nautical mile stretch so rather than attempt in it a single day we headed for Mourilyan Harbour south of Innisfail.