We left Cairns Monday morning around 9:30 in rainy and cloudy weather. As we left the harbour the winds were light, in the 5-8 knot range. I thought great, another day of motoring up the coast. However to our surprise, the winds filled in as forecasted and we had a great overnight sail up to Lizard Island. As we had 20-25 knots of wind on the deep aft quarter we were able to sail with a headsail only and actually ended up rolling in about two thirds of it. We were still able to maintain 5-7 knots of boat speed, completing the trip in just short of 24 hours. We arrived to Mrs. Watson's bay on Lizard Island around 8 in the morning. We had heard the anchorage was windy but were not prepared for the 25 knot plus winds with pelting rain that greeted us. We spent 36 hours in the bay and the wind howled the whole time. We finally got our dingy in the water only to find the floor was leaking and the outboard wouldn't start (the subject of another blog). Without a dingy we were boat bound,so exploring Lizard Island wasn't in the cards. But we did run into friends there, and they were happy to visit the boat-bound couple! Our plan was to make Margaret Bay the next stop on our journey and because of the distance and to time our arrival during daylight hours we had to leave Lizard Island at 4 pm on Wednesday. The trip, depending on speed was between 40 and 48 hours, meaning we would arrive between 8 am and 4 pm. We raised anchor with some regret as we had heard so many good things about the hikes on Lizard. Oh well maybe we'll come back here again someday and stay at the Resort. The wind Gods that had challenged us while at anchor were very good to us over the next 40 hours, again with 15-25 knot winds on the aft quarter. We only had one patch of a few hours where it was light enough to motor, but the batteries needed charging anyway! Again the majority of the trip was sailed under a full genoa. We are now sitting in Margaret Bay and contrary to reports about it being a comfortable anchorage, it is very lumpy and rolly. Not to worry as we plan to head on to Escape river this evening.