Cairns No Plans
17 July 2014 | Cape Flattery, FNQ
David and Andrea
The date of the return of the passports from the Indonesian Consulate in Sydney just kept receding and accordingly the plans of all vessels in the fleet were put on hold. Everyone in the Sail2Indonesia rally was quite aware that there was almost 500nm to cover to Thursday Island with only limited and rapidly shrinking time available in which to do the trip. As a result, anxiety levels in the fleet were high. However, folk generally got on with maintenance work or land trips. The crew of Diomedea did some cycling in the Cairns area which was very pleasant indeed. Cairns actually grew on us. If one ignores the tourist hordes, there is a very vibrant, commercial town with active building, service, and marine sectors. In fact the marine side of Cairns is huge, with major ship building and servicing work going on. The RAN has a big fleet base there. The Marlin Marina was home to the 218 foot long tinny “Golden Shadow” which apparently is a “tender” to some other luxury vessel. This massive steel ship carries a vast array of water toys on its aft deck. Other super yachts came and went.
Eventually the visa saga came to an end with the return of the passports and so the fleet departed Cairns on Wednesday 16th July for the run north. Diomedea elected to stop at the very attractive Low Isles with the gorgeous cast iron lighthouse from yesteryear. No sooner had we dropped anchor than there were large bat fish and black tip reef sharks swimming right under the transom. My planned snorkelling to inspect the propeller got put on hold. We dinghied into the beach and chatted to a knowledgeable local who said there had been a tiger shark nearby but no crocs for some time. Yikes.
From Low Isles it was a 90 mile run past Cooktown, up to Cape Flattery and we did this in good order courtesy of the SE trades, 15-20 kts, with only an hour or so of darkness. Noice. Cape Flattery is home to a large silica mine with its scar clearly visible in the nearby mountainside. Otherwise this area is the beginning of the edge of the planet I think. Of course, the benefit to us of the mine is the Telstra tower! Hence this nice little blog.