We’re now at Lady Musgrave Island after a perfect overnight sail from Rosslyn Bay.
We had bought some cooked prawns and dressing as well as those lovely hot chips and aeoli from the Rosslyn Bay Marina restaurant – awesome dinner! I sailed through until 1AM when I woke Yvonne to give me a break. The autohelm (must think of a name) steered all night, but you still want a pair of eyes on deck! Just before I woke her I had signalled a fishing trawler that appeared to be on a collision course. I check his bearing with the hand-bearing compass over a period of about 15 minutes and it stayed nominally the same, so I flashed my head torch at him. He flashed back to acknowledge he’d seen me and turned onto a parallel course until we’d overtaken them (thanks!)
The rhumb line from Rosslyn Bay to Lady Musgrave was also not without obstacles, so we had to thread our course carefully. You couldn’t safely do this in the dark without the chartplotter and previous experience of the area, both of which served us well.
We motored into Lady Musgrave lagoon at around 11AM. I was tired but happy!
Yvonne was speechless at the beauty of the place. That afternoon we went for a walk on the island. Note to self: take shoes next time! The beach is almost all coral shards: razor sharp and hell to walk on!
We saw amazing things while walking around the quay. The vegetation is unbelievably lush – very unusual for Australia. We also saw sharks and turtles as well as the Strawberry Land Hermit Crab (Coenobita perlatus) in the photo below.
Our neighbour in the anchorage, Kevin, kindly came out with his dinghy (and outboard) and towed us back to Sunny Spells.
