5th sail to West Point, Magnetic Island

Saturday 15th March was forecast for calm to very light winds, good for a family outing. The esky was packed  and about 6 gallons (30 litres) of outboard fuel was loaded aboard. My wife and daughter took natural ginger based seasickness pills.

Ross River was glassy calm, as we motored out to our rigging up anchorage.

Ross River at Goondi creek embayment

Moored boats on Ross River

Rigging up, furling the mainsail.

We rigged up the mast with mainsail furled to the boom. Plan was to motor to West point, so the boom awning went up too for cockpit shade. Outside the entrance it was very calm and flat, so my wife Lin did most of the helming.    The  nav app indicted we were doing about 5.3 knots over the ground.

We sat on the bow and kept lookout for sea-life. There were a few small fish jumping, spotted a turtle popping its head up for a quick look and dive. Allot of black winged butterflies were crossing the bay and heading for Magnetic Island, its about a 3 km crossing.

West Point is a good day anchorage on the SW cape of Magnetic Island. Spotted a powerboat at the beach for a lunch break ashore. We anchored about 60 m out, broke open the Esky lunch then headed for the beach in the kayak.

West Point Magnetic Island.

A tourists Car was briefly parked on the beach ridge at the very end of the 4 wheel drive track but after that to beach was deserted.  It is a very quiet beach on a weekend considering the Islands proximity to Townsville City, only a few footprint tracks were below the high tide mark.

The wind picked up a bit by early afternoon, so sailed off the anchor and headed north of Cape Palleranda to stay out of the Islands wind shadow.  However it couldn't be avoided too long, so motor- sailed which allowed for a direct course at about 5 knots for Townsville.

Once clear of Maggy's lee, the wind came back for the final leg's close reach sail past the strand, Townsville Port and into the de-rigging anchorage at Ross river.

Cape Palleranda with it's distinctive radar dome tower.

We used about half a tank of fuel for the day, about 12 liters. This could have been reduced on lower speed, we went at 80% -90%  throttle and at or near hull-speed of 5.3 knots most of the way.