I arrived in Airlie Beach yesterday, flying into Proserpine and renting a car – it was cheaper than a taxi and I had to provision the boat.

Despite my regular nightmares about Sunny Spells sitting on the mooring unattended, she was just fine! Les Reumer ran me out to her in his dinghy and the engine started on the first try. I motored into the berth at Abel Point Marina where Les took my lines.

My berth was just a couple down from Les’s. After my shopping expedition that evening I took a bottle of his favourite rum over and we shared drinks and laughs for a couple of hours before I went back to stow all the food and stuff.

I left early this morning to make best use of the tide (it floods south in this area so I left the marina about an hour before low tide. By the time I hit the Whitsunday Passage I had almost 2 knots from behind. Just as well, because there was absolutely no wind! It was a full day of motoring, but I was able to sort lots of little things out AND have a hot shower on deck as the solar shower had been baked to a very toasty temperature.