29th June Curlew Island to Mackay 46nm

 Curlew Island - very picturesque

Waking with a seedy head is not good when the swell is rocking and rolling the yacht. The wind was reasonably strong so we would have a good sail into Mackay. We weighed anchor at 9am and with a good wind we poled the head sail out and with a full main we were making good headway. However with tide turning we had current on the nose at times up to 1.5 knots. While we were sailing at speeds through the water at 7 knots we were lucky to make 6 knots over the ground. Again we had to put the diesel on to get our average speed up over 7 knots to make the marina before 4.30pm when the marina office closed.

I had the fishing lines out not expecting to get anything as the water temp is quite cool – about 20 degrees – and bingo a nice spotted mackerel. We had enough food in the freezer for the next 2 days and I thought for just a moment about letting it go. Would I prefer fish over sausages or chicken? The fish one and it was slaughtered. We had enough fish to feed the crew of Billabong and Boomeroo twice over.

 Spotted Mackerel

We arrived at Mackay at 4pm after passing all the anchored empty coal ships waiting their turn to go to the coal loader.

We took possession of the marina key and promptly had a most enjoyable hot shower and cooked a up a great feed of fish and shared it with Steve and Maureen on Boomeroo.

30^th June  Mackay Marina

Billabong will have to stay at Mackay for 4 weeks while I travel south to be with Tamara for her operation. Tamara has been visiting her elderly mother in Russia who was not expected to live much longer but she managed to see Tamara off back to Australia.

We spent the day cleaning and tidying up the yacht.

I fly out on 1^st July with crew member Graham.  If all goes well with Tamara’s operation I will be back on 28^th July to resume the journey north on Billabong. Stay tuned in 4 weeks !!