This day was memorable for two reasons:

• I anchored too shallow at high tide; and
• the crew went exploring and lost Melissa on the island…

I decided to move first thing this morning as the wind was forecast to back to the west, which would leave us a bit exposed where we were. We re-anchored about an hour before high tide, and I foolishly dropped the anchor in 5 meters of water, knowing full well that at low tide the anchor would be in 1.8 meters. We swung out into deeper water and, as long as the wind blew from the west AND we didn’t want to pick up the anchor at low tide, we would be okay. However, the 3pm weather forecast from Charleville predicted a southerly change in the early hours of the morning. That meant we could potentially swing into shoal water, or be unable to leave the anchorage. Not a good setup when on a lee shore.

By now it was low tide too, so I couldn’t really motor up to the anchor to pick it up, and nighttime was approaching. The solution? I put on my mask and snorkel (no fins) and “walked” the anchor about 40 meters into deeper water. Being submerged made the (42lb) anchor significantly easier to carry, but I had to do it while holding my breath! The 30 meters of chain also had to be dragged out to sea as there was very little breeze and so very little pull on the anchor line. An interesting exercise…

The crew decided to go for a walk on the island around midday. They planned to walk to West Bay and back, which is quite a long hike. When I saw them disappear in the wrong direction (despite giving them the handheld GPS with pre-programmed coords) and immediately split up, with Melissa going in a separate direction, I just shook my head. My skepticism was justified when Peter, Helen and Pascale returned mid-afternoon, sans Melissa. By nightfall she still hadn’t returned, and I was now beginning to worry that she may have fallen and hurt herself. I calculated that, had she gone to West Bay to rendezvouz with the others as they had agreed, the best we could hope for would be that she returned by about 6:30pm. Peter and I took torches, food, water etc and paddled to the beach at 6:30pm, intending to start our search at 7pm. We were all very relieved when Melissa appeared about 5 minutes before we set off…

I did my usual trick again this morning, weighing anchor around 5am and watching the sunrise on my own with coffee and rusk at hand.

I had a couple of trolling lines out, one hand reel as well as my trolling rod. About mid morning, while motoring, we had simultaneous strikes on both lures! Being a bit slow to get to the throttle, we lost the fish off the handline, but the reel-drag on the rod meant that one fish was still on and fighting. Peter killed the engine and I started bringing the fish in. Imagine my delight when I landed a 3kg frigate mackerel (a small tuna species)! This was going to feed us more than once!

We decided that we didn’t need any more fish, so the tackle was stowed. It was pretty messy cleaning the fish, but it was done and the gutted fish was stowed in the fridge for later.

The wind had been backing to the north, so I decided at the last minute to anchor in Whites Bay (Middle Percy Island) rather than West Bay. This gave us a lovely protected anchorage and we were soon exploring the beach.

After a series of early starts, ever since we left Kauri Creek really, I thought I deserved a lie-in today… However, “luck” would have it otherwise.

Around 7am there was a knocking on the hull. A person looking rather ‘the worse for wear’ peered at me over the transom, with his greeting followed immediately by “you wouldn’t happen to have a 16mm socket spanner, by any chance, would you?”

My first reaction was to deny ownership of any tools, because handing over my sole socket spanner, extension and 16mm socket could only have one outcome: loss of the tools. However, I took pity on my fellow mariner and handed him the wrench, but only after tying a lanyard on and encouraging him to tie the other end to himself. His response? “Ah, no worries mate, that won’t be necessary, I’m working in the boat’s engine room, not outside.” This did nothing for my fear that he was going to lose it out of the dinghy while paddling between his boat and mine, but hey, I tried…

Anyway, about an hour later my new friend returned, with wrench, restoring my faith in humanity. I invited him aboard for a coffee (“don’t mind if I do”) and gently prodded him for his story.

Appears he’s bought a (rather nice looking) 10m motor cruiser in the vicinity of Brisbane several weeks before, and was now trying to ferry it to his home base in Townsville. Along the way he managed to get washed up on the beach at the Wide Bay Bar when both engines failed as he was crossing the bar in the middle of the night. A long repair followed at Tin Can Bay. Subsequently he managed to lose a propellor on the way to Keppel Bay (another delay) and now he was stuck at Pearl Bay with a duff alternator (ergo the need to borrow the wrench).

He had engaged a commercial skipper who was now helping him, but still refused to motor at night because he knew that “there are people like myself who go fishing of a night without showing any lights…”.

The most priceless snippet was that his last name was “Luck”! “Just call me Lucky…” he said!

We had a lovely peaceful day at anchor, snorkelling, sunbathing and re-charging our batteries for the next leg.

Not much to report on this leg. We left Lady Musgrave mid-morning on the ebb tide and made good miles downwind. Reached Keppel Bay around 6am the next morning and tied up at the end of Red Arm, waiting for the Marina office to open.

The staff at Keppel Bay Marina are always friendly and helpful and it is a real pleasure to stop there. We were offered the use of their courtesy car, which helped tremendously with re-provisioning.

We bought a kilo of prawns from the Rosslyn Bay fish market, added a large bag of chips and aeoli from the marina restaurant (this is becoming an institution!) and set off around 2pm for Pearl Bay.

We motor-sailed quite a bit, but all in all it was pretty uneventful and we dropped anchor in Pearl Bay around 9pm.