Wind and Rain Whitsundays 11th - 16th August

 

Bush Turkey nest Whitsunday Island

 

We have decided to park ourselves in Cid Harbour and see what happens with this windy weather. Each time we look at the forecast conditions change and the lovely weather window we saw a few days ago appears to have shrunk to only a couple of days. Tuesday dawned clear and sunny with little wind so we decided to motor over to Nara Inlet to take advantage of a beautiful day. We anchored in the corner at the head of the inlet and explored the Ngaro Aboriginal site up the hill. A short, steep walk up a well formed track brought us to a platform where there was a wall in which short anecdotes from local aboriginal women could be heard by pressing one of the buttons. It was very interesting listening to the positive comments of these people. A little further on was a rocky cave where paintings could be observed. We enjoyed this site and thought it was really well presented.

 

Listening to the Aboriginal women's stories

Later in the afternoon we made our way back to Cid Harbour as more wind was forecast. We anchored in our usual spot in Cowards Corner and watched many more boats come in for the night. One afternoon I counted nearly sixty boats in the bay sheltering from the wind and rain. We climbed Whitsunday Peak for the third time and it doesn't get any easier.

On Thursday Val came up with the idea of home cooked morning tea on Arkaydes. My allotted contribution was scones. I have not used the oven much on Rene as I can't seem to get the temperature right and also I think it would use a lot of gas. I agreed to give it a go, with the back up of Arnotts pillow biscuits if things went pear shaped. We had the oven on full and the scones still took a few minutes longer than they should have. They looked Ok until I turned them over. Burnt!!  Everyone was very complimentary though and no-one even cut the bottom off, which I suggested. What good friends.

We have met Milton and Jenny from Magnetic Attraction, a beautiful 39' mono from Townsville. We had drinks on board MA on Thursday evening with another Townsville couple. Lovely evening. Then it began to rain and rain and rain. Lily looked like a swimming pool on Saturday morning when we poked our head out of the companion way to check out the scene. Still raining, but at least we had some beautiful fresh drinking water. Peter bailed the dinghy and went to discuss the weather with Ric and Val. It looks like the rain will lift and there is a few days of quiet weather forecast. We decided to take the trip back to Airlie Beach to restock etc and hopefully at last be able to go to Whitehaven Beach and the outer bays on the eastern side of Whitsunday Island and nearby islands. We will be out of range for five days or so.

 

Our bucket is half full (We're still being positive!!)