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!

We’ve been really fortunate with seeing amazing creatures. It is whale migrating season at the moment, and ever since we passed Sandy Cape (at the northern tip of Fraser Island) and entered the Curtiss Channel behind the Great Barrier Reef, we’ve seen dozens of whales.

The dolphins have also been amazing ever since we left Sydney. Every encounter is different though. Between Sydney and Southport we were flying downwind in a big swell, width foaming bow and stern waves. The dolphins came to play almost every morning, surfing in the bow wave and occasionally showing off with a big jump or even a summersault.

This afternoon two dolphins came floating up while we were drifting along at 4 knots. They just slowly cruised at the bow, right at the surface, while we hung over the lifelines to gaze at them. Just amazing!

We also saw a huge turtle inside the Lady Musgrave Island lagoon, and a monstrous shark just as we were about to enter the channel into Lady Musgrave. I still can’t believe we convinced ourselves it was safe to snorkel mere hours later!