After more than three years on board Argos and sailing more than half way around Australia we have, over the last few weeks, been developing a whole new skill set - cruising around reefs!

Our first encounter with a coral reef was at Lady Musgrave Island – an incredibly beautiful coral Cay with a navigable lagoon that we were able to enter and anchor in. Lady Musgrave gave us a sweet taste of what might be ahead and an opportunity to begin to develop our much needed new skills!

We entered the lagoon via a narrow but well-marked passage and had the children out front spotting coral before we attempted to anchor, but we were very lucky the day we arrived – we had entered at low-ish tide and on a magnificent day. The water was pretty still and the bottom very visible. The following day when we set off to leave it was a totally different story. The conditions, had we entered then, would have made it so much harder for us to be confident of what was on the bottom and we would have run the risk of anchoring on or near coral. Some conditions make seeing coral harder – windy days of course where there may be white caps and chop, but it can be hard to spot when the sun is reflecting off the water! We had heard and were mindful that seeing coral later in the day was harder and we would add to this, that it is preferable to look for an anchorage towards low tide rather than when water is at its greatest depth!

Tidal range of course is another factor that makes anchoring up here interesting with tidal range in some places being as much as 9 meters! However back to coral!

After Lady Musgrave it was coral all the way. ‘Fringing reef’ is now a term we are very familiar with and watching for it our most noted activity when coming in to anchor. We have so far had only one incident where we unfortunately anchored just near the edge of a reef - near Keswick island. It was late afternoon when we arrived and the wind was up, and we were tired after a long day sailing. We had been unsure of where the best place to anchor would be and we had been without internet for some time and had picked up a little signal in some places as we approached this island. So naturally we looked for a spot to anchor that gave us internet! We had come in close to a couple of spots but as we got in closer the signal dropped out so by the time we reached the place we ended up anchoring we were quite over it all!

Into the setting sun and at high tide we approached an anchorage on the north of the island where another yacht had already settled for the night and dropped the anchor in what had looked like a clear sandy patch. It was the lurch that alerted us! It felt as though unseen hands had yanked the anchor from us as it dropped. Instantly we knew that we had snagged coral and not dropped clean into sand. It was a tense few minutes of gently pulling the anchor back, manoeuvring the boat so as to try to dislodge it and then as fast as it had been stuck it was free. What a relief.

In the go-to book about cruising the Whitsundays, 100 Magic Miles ( by David and Carolyn Colfelt) we learned that we were not alone. And that we have the most suitable anchor for the coral conditions – locals totally favour the CQR with all-chain cable and that, happily is what we were using – though we do carry other anchors for other conditions. Locals say that the CQR, unlike the popular Danforth, cannot be jammed with coral and of course all-chain means there is no risk of coral severing rope cords. Happily our incident was very minor and I do always feel that having an ‘incident’ alerts us to be cautious way more than if everything had gone completely smoothly.

We re-anchored slightly further out after this, where we were confident there could be no fringing reef and despite not being able to see the coral we knew we would be safe.

Anchoring up here is amazing. The wind has a behaviour all of its own! The geographic conditions of lots of sharp, steep peaks so close to the shore line makes for lots of strong and powerful wind ‘bullets’ that are shot at you, putting pressure on the anchor and being a great test of its resilience. We had encountered this unusual phenomenon before, in Refuge Cove at Wilsons Prom. The wind can seem quite low and benign and then suddenly you hear this ‘whoosh’ and the wind is whistling in the rigging and the boat pushed about and then it is gone, the wind just disappears! It’s crazy! In these kinds of conditions we like to put out a lot of chain (scope) and not be too close to other boats but up here with so many charter-boats it can be interesting to try and explain in yell to a boat operator that that’s a little too close!

We have, now, quite lost track of where we have been and what day it is…….happily I keep a log of our movements and it amazes me that the only way we usually can remind ourselves of where we are and how long we have been here is to consult it! Finally we have found the sweet spot where life has slowed down to cruising pace!

According to the log we have visited and anchored at (since leaving Burnett Heads on 4 September:

Lady Musgrave Island;
Hummocky Island;
Great Keppel Island (several spots);
Middle Percy Island;
Digby Island;
Keswick Island;
Brampton Island;
Thomas Island;
Whitsunday Island (Mays Bay);
Hook Island (Nara Inlet a couple of times);
Airlie Beach on the mainland;
Fitzalan Passage near Hamilton/Whitsunday Islands;
And Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island.

Coral has abounded and happily we have had no more issues with it!

We are relaxing now around Airlie waiting for suitable weather to head out towards the outer reef to enjoy some snorkelling. We need low-ish wind for this as there is no shelter out there. After that we will begin our slow journey back down south. The trade winds tend to abate from late September onwards providing the best time to meander south visiting some of the places we have loved and other places we didn’t stop at. At Burnett Heads we will take on board a new crew member, Capt’n Jack – a gorgeous Burmese kitten who we hope will learn to love this life with us!