We're really peeling back the miles now. The wind is a bit light on so its motor sailing most of the time, but when there's a good breeze Bella makes even better time. There is between 0.5-2knts of current - yes of course its running south- which makes the days even longer. Chris and I have discovered that its best to get an early start during the night and sail after an early sleep by leaving in the early morning. This way we get moving while the breeze is still good, we can take shifts to catch up on rest and the bulk of the days sailing is done before the kids are up. It also places us first in the anchorage to get the prime spot for the day. As we're trying hard to catch up on lost time this has worked well so we arrive midday and have the afternoon for the kids to explore before making tracks again the following morning. Even better is that Kieran completes his school work first thing while we're sailing (that as long as the sea is kind) so he has the afternoon free for arrival at our destination. Our aim is to get to the 100 magic miles in the Whitsunday Islands so we can slow down and enjoy the warmer weather again amongst the Islands before continuing north on our trek. Monday 13/6/11 we arrived at 'Pearl Bay' at 2pm, surrounded by steep cliffs, the sounds of the rainforest and fresh water seeping down the beach - this is cruising !. Then Tuesday was on to 'Middle Percy Island' the cruising Mecca. Not exactly the best of conditions with a stiff onshore breeze but one has to land here to add to the yachty shrine. We added a wooden plaque with 'Bella 2011' roughly engraved on it. It was here that we discovered many of these islands have a nasty prickle that burries in the dogs hair amazingly fast and which could easily result in almost hours on the beach teasing them out. The prickles being an unfortunate side effect of many years of goats and other European influences. But the short bush walk to fetch a couple of fresh coconuts was worth the 40min on the beach removing the prickles from the dogs. That night we were woken at 1am with the boat bucking at anchor we agreed that as we both couldn't sleep we may as well get going again. The kids later woke to find we had already covered 30 of the 70NM to 'Scawfell Island'. Against a 2Knt current we arrived Wednesday afternoon after almost 14hrs sailing and spent the remainder of the afternoon and Thursday soaking up the sun and exploring the bay.