The guide books (Alan Lucas) recommend the Percy Isles as a stopover on the passage to the Whitsundays and I reckoned it was sensible to go with Alan’s recommendations for my first passage up the coast. The Percy Isles certainly exceeded all our expectations!

We arrived at South Percy Island at midnight after a long day of trade wind sailing under spinnaker we eased into our anchorage for a peaceful night.

The following morning, in deference to the late night, I enjoyed a quiet morning on deck with coffee and my “Ouma” rusks while the crew slept peacefully. At about 9AM we set sail for Middle Percy Island and anchored West Bay for the day.

We spent a delightful day at Middle Percy. After cleaning the boat (great crew!) Sarah swam out to the beach while George and Vicky paddled out. They spent a lovely morning exploring the island and the shed on the beach (the “Hilton”!)that has the greatest collection of artifacts left by yachties over the years.

I, meanwhile, set about doing some essential repairs.

First on the list was the alternator… While it was still charging, more or less, it wouldn’t get over 12.6 Volts, and I suspected the engine electrical panel and alternator warning light/field circuit. When that checked out okay, I stuck my head into the engine room where the fault was immediately obvious: the earth wire to the alternator had broken off! This was easily fixed by crimping a new lug on the wire and. voila she was charging at 14 volts or better again!

My second task was to re-splice the anchor chain to rope connection. This had started to fray after a couple of trips through the windlass gypsy. Now it got jammed in the windlass every time and I was also worried about the strength of the splice. I soon had that spliced and was well chuffed with the appreciative comments from the crew!

Later that night, after a lovely beach barbeque, the crew took a (surplus to reqs) danbuoy back to the shed suitably inscribed it and left our token.

The crew decided that preparing food on dry land was a good idea and a barbeque was soon planned. While we swam and fished Sarah put everything together. George and Vicky were on the beach already, collecting firewood, and Sarah ferried me to the beach at sunset.

Having a barbeque on the beach was a lovely change of pace. We were treated to a stunning sunset, the food was great and the three trips back to the boat in the dinghy felt like just the right way to end the evening.

Today was a lovely peaceful sail. Some of the time we motor sailed, some of the time we cruised along under poled out headsail. All very low stress. What a thrill to sail into the setting sun with the night’s anchorage (Cape Capricorn) in the distance…

I’ve always wondered how difficult it is to go up the mast while at sea. We’ve had to now do it twice in the last four days, which must be unusual!

Soon after leaving Mooloolaba, as the light began to fade, the Genoa suddenly started flogging and then slipped down onto the deck and partly into the water! Once we had the sail lashed to the lifelines we realised that the top shackle had come undone and the halyard and top-swivel was still at the masthead. Sarah Belcher, first-mate for this leg, offered to go aloft, despite being hungover – they obviously breed them tough in NZ… We set the mainsail and ran off to keep the boat as upright as possible. George and I winched her up, she attached a thin line to the halyard and was soon back on deck. The yalyard was pulled down, sail was shackled (and the pin tightened properly) and soon we had all the canvas up again. This was all in open water, with about a 2 metre swell running. Sarah says it was quite “snappy” up there: not a rolling movement, but rather a sense of the mast trying to “flick one off”!

Yesterday we noticed that the main halyard had badly chafed about 12 inches from the shackle and I was worried that something had gone wrong with the masthead sheave, so up I went this morning. Now we were gently drifting up the Curtiss Channel in what is really closed water. It was rather pleasant. A bit more rolly than when at anchor, but no worse than when the Scotland Island Ferry wake rolls the boat around! Found nothing wrong at the masthead but got some pretty amazing photos!

We left Lady Musgrave Island at about 7:30AM this morning. It was a bit of a mixed bag sailing wise, with some motor sailing and some sailig, but as a passage it was lovely and very relaxing.

There is very little swell behind the reef, which makes it almost like sailing in closed waters. We easily get 6 knots boat speed out of 10 knots true wind on the beam, and motoring is also quite comfortable.

We saw whales! Really close. For a while we had a little race on with two humpbacks cruising north and us heading north-west. We overtook them and at their closest point they were about 100 meters away. A bit scary when you’re in a little 33ft sailboat…

We’ve seen so many whales since coming around Sandy Cape. The previous day they were breaching, throwing those massive bodies halfway up in the air – truly spectacular.

The crew took extra special good care of me on my birthday and breakfast (bacon and egg sanwiches) was fabulous, again!

George and I put our trolling lines out and were delighted when we each landed a smallish mackerel. At least the ice is broken now and we know it IS possible to catch something. The fish was grilled on the barbie that evening, along with some pan fried potatoes and onions and grilled garlic zuchini – a great way to top off a perfect day!