With South to South East winds we needed to make a couple of big tacks and arrived at Russell Island in time to find a public mooring. Unfortunately the wind shifted and we had no protection from the wind and sea that night. It was early to bed and ‘hold on’. Heading into the wind is so much slower, rougher and tiring so the bunk, no matter what the condition of the sea, was a welcome sight.

At dawn we headed out and timed our tacks to take advantage of the wind shifts expected. After 11 hours of mainly sunshine we anchored at Dunk and decided to stay an extra day so we could watch the Rugby test with good reception. Beautiful day, glorious anchorage but bad rugby.

Sunday was overcast with light winds, just enough to get some sailing in. As we began to motor sail into the northern entrance of Hinchenbrook Channel we noticed some fellow southern travelers, a whale mother with small calf. They kept approaching us so we cut the motor and watched as the mother stopped then started to feed her calf. Quite a sight. One final bonus, the Mackerel Mauler did its job and caught a decent shark which will be used as bait in the crab pot.