We ended the last blog on Monday 29 April when we were at Burning Cove on Shaw Island watching Cyclone Zane develop. Zane stayed well north but we did get the strong SE winds from a ridge up the coast. After 3 nights we made an early start and headed to Cid Harbour, catching the last couple of hours of the ebb tide so the 20 - 25 knot wind and tide were going the same way. The sea was smooth and we sailed along making 8 knots and more at times.
Following several nights at the picturesque anchorage of Cid Harbour with poor phone and internet coverage, and no TV, the wind blew and blew with gale warnings posted then easing to strong wind warnings. The anchorage remained fairly calm with bullets causing us to move around a little. Just over the hill at Hamilton Island they were recording a steady 25 knots and the charter vessels were restricted to the western side of the Whitsunday Islands. We had good company in the anchorage with Pam and Barry on “Minx”.
I spent two days trying to problem solve the generator that would run but not produce power, eventually we booked ourselves into Abel Point Marina at Airlie Beach and contacted an Electrician making a tentative appointment. The night before we left Cid Susie did some research on the Net and found an article dated 2007 which closely described our problem so after a bit of poking around and cleaning contacts we managed to get the generator working again. However, we still went to Airlie Beach and did some shopping before leaving only to bash directly into the wind and waves to get back to Cid Harbour. We were covered in salt spray but fortunately a couple of timely showers passed over and washed the boat for us. We had really wanted to do the 4 hour walk to the Whitsunday Island look-out but the rain made it unpleasant for walking, so that will be “a next time must do”.
Leaving Cid for Nara Inlet on Hook Island 5 miles away, we had a fast sail under full rig. We did do the walk to the caves where the aboriginal art is located, this is a walk we have done before, but the council has made improvements. It is quite tastefully done with a talking tree! We also had a visit from one of the local cockatoos who sat on the davits and squawked at us, no doubt it had been fed by charter boats, but it was not getting anything from us!

The first night the generator played up again but it worked the following morning and we managed to charge the batteries. I’m getting very frustrated. Once again the gale warnings were forecast with winds of 25-30 knots for the next couple of days, with rain and overcast conditions the solar panels are not very effective. Quite a swell managed to creep into Nara particularly at high tide which made conditions ordinary at times. It was a restless night with the strong gusts coming in the Inlet and heavy rain at times. With such conditions we stayed put instead of being able to visit some of the nearby bays where the scenery is supposed to be very pretty but the anchorages more swell prone in strong wind conditions. At least the waterfalls were all in full spate.

After 4 nights in Nara we needed a change of scenery, the forecast was for the winds to ease. We up anchored and sailed to Stonehaven anchorage on the NW corner of Hook Island overlooking the Hayman Island resort. We picked up a public mooring with a 3 inch diameter pennant, the buoy kept bumping us until I pulled it up as short as possible, we had a good night. It is very pretty.
Leaving Stonehaven at first light to make the 30 mile sail to the mainland, under fast sailing conditions dodging cloud bursts of rain and seeing a couple of lovely rainbows en-route. We keep hearing of people trolling lines and catching fish and we have trolled but have caught nothing and I suspect that our lack of catching is probably due to sailing too fast in ordinary conditions.

We arrived at the anchorage at Gloucester Passage, the well-known home of Montes Resort and the now even more famous Shag Island Yacht Club. A new eco resort was built here 8 years ago so we picked up one of their moorings and had fish and chips ashore for lunch. The mooring cost us $25 per night which was a bit rich but worth it to be able to dump a week’s worth of garbage and have a long hot shower. We used our own anchor on the second night after having had lunch at Montes Resort. Susie maintained that it was only fair to eat out twice to compare the two restaurants. Montes’ is the better! The winds have finally eased and a few calm days will help make up for the blasting we have had. It is also a change not to be surrounded by the ever moving fleet of charter boats in the Whitsundays.
We thought we would be motoring across the bay to Bowen but ended up having a pleasant sail and the wind eased when we entered the very tight confines of Bowen Harbour where we leased a berth from the North Queensland Cruising Yacht Club for a week for the princely sum of $214. Unfortunately the bistro was closed for renovation but the beer is still cold and the people are very friendly.
Once again we caught up with the crew on “Minx” who had been in Bowen for a couple of days and also the crew from “Second Wind” who we had met in the Sandy Straits last year. It was purely coincidental that they had come down from Babinda to check on “Second Wind”, they had also met “Minx” last year too, so it was a good get together.
Old friends from the Gold Coast (John & Dell) live in Bowen for part of each year and have generously taken us our for tours of the town and it’s several beaches and bays. We were spoilt. We had lunch out with them one day and then dinner at the Golf Club on another and roast at the Pub on another. We enjoyed the Bowen, the friendly people, and the many “murals” decorating some of the walls around town.

We stayed an extra day, hoping for better weather and left early before the wind strengthened making manoeuvring out of our tight berth not too hard. We had to get to Horseshore Bay on Magnetic Island for a special birthday party by Saturday.
We had a mixed day of sailing, catching a small shark which ended up chewing through the leader and getting away with Susie’s brand new lure. She was not happy!
Because of the south-south westerly wind with the potential for a north westerly we anchored in the southern part of the huge bay protected by Cape Upstart. Waterfront properties dot the foreshore of Cape Upstart beneath boulders, making for a nice outlook. The sunset was spectacular and it was a peaceful night but we were up very early for the 72 mile trip to Magnetic Island.
After 3 hours motoring which charged our dying batteries, the wind increased to a steady 20 - 25 knots gusting higher at times. With the just forward of the mast there was a fair bit of crashing and bashing and sea spray flying, not the most comfortable but fast! We arrived at Horseshoe Bay at 3 pm.
We celebrated Barry’s 65th birthday, skipper of “Minx” at a bistro called Noodies. Good fun with great company, except for the high tide on the full moon which meant our dinghy was a little bit too far offshore when we wanted to go back to the boat. The water was more than waist deep, with the wind and cooler weather it was cold, ho-hum!
Great excitement! We took the bus and the ferry to Townsville and collected our mail from Ashley and Brenda, great to see them after 4 years. Then took a walk around the re-vamped Flinders Street, dropped my broken watch for repair, bought new sneakers (the old ones had holes and anti-fouling on them) then had lunch of beer and shared pizza at the Post Office Brewery.
The generator continues to cause sleepless nights and exasperation (baldness). While anchored in Horseshoe Bay we relied on the generator to recharge the batteries, particularly in the windy overcast conditions. The motor would start but no power was being produced. A four pronged attack was planned, Susie was again unleashed on the internet following her previous success, whilst I went looking for obvious faults loose wires etc. I email to the manufacturer and sent a plea to the “cruisers forum” on the internet. Both Susie and I failed to produce anything new. The “cruisers forum” provided a good response which proved we are not alone in having this problem but then Northern Lights responded to my email, hurray! Over the next couple of days we exchanged information describing the normal use, loads etc.
The conclusion:
• If the climate is warm you should be holding the Preheat/Bypass switch for about 10 seconds before cranking and an additional 5 seconds or until the oil pressure has come up after starting.
• Load the unit very heavily almost over load it if possible but only for a very short time. By doing this you will put very high voltage to the exciter field and hopefully raise the residual magnetism of the Rotor.
• This magnetism is what gets the voltage going upon start-up of the unit, if it is low it may sometimes not get the AC Regulator started.
• When shutting down remove all load, let the motor run for a few minutes and then turn off.
This has worked well thus far, however I have ordered a spare set of brushes. Many thanks to Northern Lights for their advice, it’s a pity their User Manuals are not more prescriptive.
Note: Allan and Alison. Northern Lights confirmed that inverter / chargers are very hard on small generators and that if the charger is working hard it will upset the delicate controls of a washing machine. We had recently worked this out ourselves and the French bitch has been behaving since!
We are staying at Horseshoe Bay for a week before going to the Breakwater Marina in Townsville where we will stay for a month or more hopefully escaping to Horseshoe Bay from time to time.
There are 20 yachts in the Bay, mostly foreign and mostly headed for Darwin and Indonesia. We organised a beach BBQ which was fun. Eight foreign boats another Australian boat and ourselves came together, it was a delightful evening.

We have now settled into Townsville and are starting our long list of chore. The list was on my computer which died the day we arrived here. It is under an extended warranty and has since been sent for repair. Unfortunately we have had to replace the 8 batteries which form the domestic power supply, ouch! Several jobs have already been completed and we are now starting to catch up with our friends having been away from Townsville for ten years. Already we have bumped into people. Yesterday we had a delightful lunch with Nick & Erica “Jepeda II”, who are heading northwards to Indonesia and beyond.


Footnote
For those people who wish to keep more up to date with our position reports I update our position on a website called Skipr.net (http://skipr.net/wp/where-is/currently-cruising/) This site works well when we have internet coverage and is more frequently updated than the monthly blogs.
When we do not have internet we can still send and receive email, weather and position reports via our HF radio using my call sign VK4SLH. Go to Winlink (http://www.winlink.org/userPositions) and type VK4SLH at the bottom of the page. If you want to send us an email our address is also VK4SLH which goes in the To:… space and in the subject space insert the following text //WL2K Greetings from (your name) Emails are transmitted via the internet to land based ham radio stations who relay them via HF radio. Messages should be kept short and not contain photos or large files which will be hard to download. Remember the old days when dial up modems ran at 1440Mbs or earlier, it is like that.
We also appear from time to time on the Marine Traffic site (http://www.marinetraffic.com/ais/) Susie can transmit a signal to this site from her Ipad when we have internet coverage and we also appear when our AIS signal from the boat is received by a land based station or a ship connected to their system via the internet. This usually only occurs near major ports.