The charms of Mackay marina having faded, we headed out to the Whitsundays. The marina at Mackay is a bit like an oasis in a wilderness. The modern buildings, hotel, restaurants are next to a medium sized commercial port mostly used for grain. Inland there is scrub until you reach the town of Mackay. Mackay's centre has obviously suffered to out of town malls, on the American model. While you can buy anything you might want in the massive malls that encirce the town, the centre itself is mostly bars. Manners here are different from NZ. In NZ and on the islands people you pass all say gday or hello or Bula, here they often blank you. Unusually this is so even on the marina. In general, people are less welcoming and are less likely to show an interest in conversation. There is far less of the heartiness of the Kiwis. The marina is very quiet during the week coming to life at weekends when local people head up to use the half dozen or so pleasantly situated restaurants. There is a huge breakwater encircling the marina. It is being rebuilt because of cyclone damage. The height at low tide is immense. Tides here being often 3 or 4 metres high. Our final day at the marina was brightened up by an unannounced firework display. Presumably a birthday party. Spectacular fireworks burst directly over the boat for about 20 minutes. Quite glorious.



We left the marina with various problems unresolved. Michael inspected the rigging and discovered that we had broken part of the furling gear. This cannot be repaired until we get a spare, take the sail off and feed the various parts up the front stay. Our wind vane broke down so we have no wind direction or strength meter for our instruments, and various reefing lines are looking tired. Still with 2 weeks to go we decided to go for it. Parts ordered, we set off and determined to use our gennaker as a fore sail and our eyes as the wind meter. Parts by the way are expensive here - the replacement wind vane is £360 here but only £220 in England.