June trip, Day 2. Magnetic Island

 Day 2, Sun 10th June 2024

The new +5C sleeping bag, an Ozetrail Kingsford" was just right. 10C last night, which is cold for the tropics. It was caused by a northbound Antarctic airmass (which had warmed up as it moved north).

Cooked "first bacon and eggs" on Teria with the gas mode Trangia. Tested a fold down silicone basin for washing dishes, a good size. After use it folds down for compact storage. Some grey silicone drain mats (k-mart) also double as hot pot trivets.

Cooking up a hot breakfast

Washing up dishes, silicone basin

Dinning table and hot pot area (cork lined galley box lid/door)

A siren was blaring in the port. It was HMAS "Adelaide" (L01), one of two landing helicopter dock (LHD) ship of the Royal Australian Navy. She's 757ft (LOA), 105ft beam and 27,000 tons. 23 ft draft which is shoal draft for size allows entry into secondary sized ports. She can carry rotor wing aircraft (Blackhawks, Chinooks, even USN Ospreys), 4 landing barges, some high speed RIB's, light - armoured vehicles and over 1,000 troops in addition to the ships regular crew. She has a distinctive "ski jump" bow (not in use for now). She's done some humanitarian relief work in the South Pacific and been deployed to several joint naval excercises. Home port is Sydney. HMAS Adelaide - Wikipedia

HMAS Adelaide visiting port

Fast passenger ferry cats and the slower car ferry cat were plying to and from Magnetic Island. The Duckpond has no ship or speedboat wakes due to the rock wall.

Duckpond yachts, one sank.

Went past a sunken yacht in the Duckpond. It's hull and cabin were under, and she settled almost upright into the soft mud bottom. No bad weather events, so could have been something like a failed through hull fitting perhaps?   I've noticed that other sunk wrecks in the Duckpond or Ross river are usually removed after a month or two, there are salvage barges with cranes etc and commercial divers operating from the Rosshaven commercial basin, Ross River. The Duckpond is calm all winter months so the sunk vessell has a good chance of  being raised and re-floated intact.

Still upright in the soft mud bottom

Cruising yachts

Hills and bay, East coast of "Maggy"

Yacht motor-sailing,  shipping channel markers, Townsville.

Headed out at 10am into light winds. Tried the tiller-pilot but no power was getting through. Traced the fault to a loose power wire in the cockpit wall socket. Luckily I had a leatherman tool with the finest of screwdrivers, as the sockets wire holding screws were miniscule in size. The helm impeder also helped keep Teria on course while doing this repair. (note to self - test tillerpilot at home before leaving!)

Motor sailing past Magnetic Island

Motor-sailed over to/past Magnetic Island for 2 hours with "George" steering. What a difference! As it was a calm weekend, there were allot of speed-boats and some cruising yachts etc plying this route, so had to keep a watch, adjust georges course or take over to avoid other boats.

Australian Volunteer Coast Guard vessel, "Rotary Rescue" 

Bright yellow "Rotary Rescue" was out and heading back at high speed. She's the flagship of Townsville coast guard, QF8.  Next year the State Government is going to merge  the two volunteer coastguard organizations existing in Queensland (VMR=volunteer Marine Rescue and AVCG = Australian Volunteer Coast Guard.) They will be re-badged into one taxpayer funded entitiy called MRQ (Marine Rescue Qld) which will simplity things. It will operate under the water police department, who will coordinate/delegate rescue missions, but Marine Rescue boat's won't enforce marine law just do rescue work as before. It will remove a huge financial burden off the shoulders of each self-funded VMR/AVCG rescue unit, so they can concentrate more on practical tasks. It's estimated that MRQ's budget will be A$27 million per year, some new boats can be bought and operating costs will be covered.

Off Orchid rocks about 1pm a 10-15 knot easterly sea breeze finally kicked in and broad reached further offshore for a decent sail. Had to hand steer for this, as the waves were on the quarter as well. Tillerpilot doesn't like this point of sail much. A few miles out passed an anchored trawler and a lone fishing tinnie.

Trawler anchored out

Gybed to a starboard broad reach and ran down into Horseshoe Bay. 

On course for Horseshoe Bay

Approaching..

Entering Horseshoe Bay, White Lady Bay beach.

Allot of boats were anchored in there (peak season) so started the engine early and George steered while I lowered and furled the sails. It's easy and far safer to control the speed and heading of the boat while entering a tight anchorage.

Idled in slowly, weaving through the fleet, until the sounder read 8 feet deep (near lowest tide), which was close to the beach and hills, so there were only small wavelets and it's calmer waters. The anchor chain rattled out, was secured and Teria reversed to set the anchor for the night.

Wharram cruising cat dried out on the beach at low tide.

Large shoal-draft crusing cats can anchor close inshore.

Atmospheric dust makes for nice sundowns at anchor

The cabin with galley box and 4 day ice-box

Twilight at anchor

Amazing red-orange sunset evening, then finger nail moonset about 8pm, followed by bright starscape sky.  Saw a couple of quick meteors burn up in a flash. The milky way was clearly visible, and the star finder app located and identified stars. (Many double or triple star systems, single star systems like our sun are the odd ones out.) It's always great to have an astronomy session and think about our small pale blue dot spiraling through the cosmos when away from the city lights.

Tested the trangia/galley box inside cabin to re-heat dinner. Got some through-ventilation going and the carbon monoxide (CO) alarm remained at zero ppm.

Also it's a few degrees Celcius warmer out here at night than on the mainland.