We have had a wonderful week of sailing and, by lucky chance, caught what looks like the last of the good weather before we leave next week. We wanted to revisit favourite places and chose Fitzroy Island first as it meant beating to windward into the prevailing south easterlies. We thought we would get that over and done with at the beginning of the week! We had first visited Fitzroy with the children and Tom last August when its tiny bay was full of yachts and the beaches full of day trippers. This time it was all much quieter and, by the second day, there were only three yachts left in the bay and the sands were more or less empty. We discovered some lovely snorkelling - I hung around watching a turtle eating for what seemed an age and, although I was close enough to touch it had I reached out, it did not take fright. Usually turtles are tolerant of close observation up to a point and then decide to leave with an astonishing burst of speed that leaves you standing. The island is a rocky extension of the mainland covered with rainforest and gum forest. Our attempts to walk to the summit had been thwarted last time by burning off. This time we succeeded. The view was stunning. We could see the inner barrier reef laid out before us and were able to pick out places we had visited including Green Island and Vlassoff Reef. To the south lay the mountains of Hinchenbrook - again fantastic memories of this year.

We savoured the 8 hour lyrical downwind sail northwards to Low Islets. Simon suggested putting up more sail at one point but we couldn't bear to cut the sail short. We just wanted to keep going and feel sad that now the boat and us are ready to move on from Australia, we have run out of time to do it... for now.

We were the only yacht at Low Islets although there were prawn trawlers sheltering behind the reef from the offshore winds and, on the second day, we awoke to the arrival of a Fisheries and Boating patrol boat and a Customs and Immigration Police vessel. Both boarded us at once and inspected all of our paperwork and safety gear. They left satisfied, as were we with our clean bill of health!

We had two black tipped reef sharks circling Kilo while we were there and one joined us on the reef when we went to snorkel. Thrilling and just a little bit scary despite their small size. Our dawn departure went with a bang when we hit the reef in the half light. We had been cutting a corner that we shouldn't have and now have a bent daggerboard to show for it. It wasn't possible to pull it up out of its casing to assess the damage but luckily with a bit of grinding down and shoving we managed (with Bruce and Dougie's help once we got back to our mooring) to push it out of the bottom of the case and float it to the jetty.

Mostly highs to be honest - literally and figuratively. Simon replaced the fluorescent bulbs in the masthead navigation and anchor lights with LEDs to reduce current draw. This was not as simple as it sounds! First the polarity had to be switched around and, as the bulbs only fitted in one way, this meant getting imbrangled (new word of the week thanks to Eric Newby) in the snakes nest of wires behind the control panel in the saloon, taking a deep breath, cutting a couple and rejoining them to their opposite number. Well done Si! It also involved me winching Simon up the mast around 5 times in total as, in the midst of this operation, an eagle landed on top of the mast and stole the top of the light casing leaving it open to the elements. We found a peanut butter jar lid that was just the job and are now on the look out for pesky eagles. Twanging a back stay seems to see them off.

Another success has been solving an overheating problem with the engine that occurred while the children were here over Easter and recurred this week just when we were setting off for a few days out and about. Very frustrating! Si traced the problem to the non-return valve that was not only hosting a nice collection of leaves but also a largish pebble.

So all problems solved ... for now. There are always problems on a boat but it does keep you on your toes!

I thought that it might be interesting to write about food afloat - what we eat and how we cook. We have very lucky to have a wonderfully spacious galley on Kilo that is a pleasure to cook in.

During the cyclone cooking was one of the favourite distractions - particularly since I hurt my back and couldn't sit comfortably and knit or read (my other favourite distractions) - and one of the cyclone days I spent all my time in the galley churning out wholemeal bread loaves to eat with soup, cinnamon buns to keep everyone's spirits up and yogurt based Iranian style bread (www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/28/dan-lepard-flatbread-recipe) to mop up the juices of the Turkish menemen we had for supper. Menemen is a new discovery thanks to Asha and Tom who learned it from a Turkish friend. It is a wonderful long, slow-cooked, caramelly ratatouille in which you poach eggs, crumble feta and eat with garlic yogurt.

I bake all of our bread, stepping up the rate of production when we have five aboard rather than the usual two and have finally, after years of trying on and off, got a recipe that works every time. Harry tried it yesterday for the first time at his house in Gold Coast and it worked for him too. He sent a photo and the loaves look wonderful. Being on board is perfect for lengthy cooking that can't be left alone as you couldn't leave the galley even if you wanted to. This suits breadmaking very well, with its long stages with nothing to do but wait and watch and flurries of activity when doing something is critical or the bread will fail. Ditto cinnamon buns but they are too dangerously delicious to cook too often!

Yoghurt making is also easy on board. I use 500ml thermos flasks to keep the warm (brought to the boil and cooled to blood temperature) milk mixed with a spoonful of the last batch of yoghurt at a constant temperature for up to 8 hours by which time it is set and ready for the fridge.

But most of the time it is too hot to spend much time in the galley or there are far more interesting things to do so we eat quick meals. Pasta with broccoli, chilli, cheese and garlic; lentil dal and chapatis (the East African ones not the Indian ones); omelette and salad, spaghetti puttanesca; and menemen are current favourites.

Fresh vegetables and salad are difficult to keep for long.I have learned from other cruisers to wrap vegetables individually in newspaper or kitchen towel as soon as I get them back to the boat and refrigerate if there is room (which there often isn't) as keeping them dry is the key to stopping them rotting in the tropical heat. Nevertheless we have had our fair share of brown gooey lettuces and rotten (incredibly bad smelling) potatoes.

Needless to say we are both missing the children dreadfully. Kilo really comes to life when they are here.

We have had a wonderful few days out on the reef. The weather has been perfect and we fulfilled a long held ambition to get to Vischoff Reef - one that has a reputation for the pristine nature of its coral and the clarity of the water. Vlassof Reef lies in the centre of a ring of reefs including Arlington, Upolu and Michaelmas (see google earth image on the map). The channel in is well marked up to a point and we glimpsed hints of the coral cliffs either side through sitings of large turtles and the shadow of a very large ray (I am holding out for a manta ray). Once the six marker buoys were behind us we were sailing more or less blind as it was early and the angle of the sun meant that light was reflecting off the water rather than revealing what was underneath. We were forced to rely almost entirely for our position on the electronic charts on my macbook and there were some nailbiting moments when we thought that the cay had moved and tried to very quickly work out what that meant for the national park mooring we were heading to. We failed to work it out, were briefly very philosophical about it all and then we were there and all was well.

The setting was perfect. Small cay apparently in the middle of the ocean surrounded by a turquoise sea shadowed by bommies of coral gardens. Could this be Kim's best birthday yet? Hmm - neck and neck with stepping off the balcony of the guest house onto the back of an elephant in Nepal on his 14th birthday perhaps?

The day was dominated by chocolate cake and snorkelling - what better? - and as darkness fell we were still the only yacht there.

Green Island has the drawback of lots of day trippers from Cairns but the coral and sea life are truly spectacular so it is still well worth a visit (or two or three). On the day after the all clear was called after the cyclone there was the added bonus of no tourists and we snorkelled amongst shoals consisting of thousands of sardines that flowed like rivers through the coral and sea grass. Kim spent a long time in the midst of them so that in the end they were swimming through his hands and streaming around his body without fear ("Harry go away, they are just beginning to accept me!"). Later from the jetty we stood with George Craig (or crocodile fame - see earlier posts) to watch the sardines being herded into the shallows by trevally and black tipped reef sharks. The shoals were then picked off from all sides including by dive bombing sea birds. The frigate birds didn't come that day but we saw one at Vlasoff harassing terns so that they regurgitated and dropped their latest catch and then swooping down to the sea surface to pick it up. They are truly spectacular in flight, almost prehistoric and just a little intimidating.

PS new photos in the gallery

For a different ( and more informative) view of sitting out the cyclone on a boat in Cairns see the blog of Carmen and Simon, friends of ours on a Gemini cat.
http://www.matey-musings.blogspot.com.au/2014/04/dodging-ita.html?m=1

The cyclone is now behind us (or technically south of us) but I am recording the position of our cyclone hole on this post. We were there for two and a half days - two anchors out and moored fore and aft to each bank of the mangroves. Joe chose the creek out of the more than 100 this inlet offers. He sat out Cyclone Yasi there in 2011. We set off from our moorings at first light and high tide on Friday morning with Joe on Saltaire leading the way followed by us on Kilo, Max on Alexander (Fontaine Pajot Bahia catamaran), Bruce on Enchantress and Geoffrey on Whisper L. Harry and Kim had gone over to Doug with the aim of helping him cast off from the jetty but his engine wouldn't start so we left him to wait for Roger's help later in the morning.

We went into the creek in order of draft - us, the Bahia, Joe, Geoffrey then Bruce. We anchored but had to wait until the port authorities announced the port closed before putting out our lines to the mangroves - a very unpleasant job and not without a considerable number of bites from the mosquitos, sand flies and green ants. But no crocs thank goodness!

The closure of the port meant that all vessels in the port had to leave the marina or wharves and anchor in the mangroves. This included navy warships, commercial fishing vehicles and ferries. We listened to the VHF Channel 16 as boats that had not moved since the last major cyclone three years ago limped up the inlet, some requesting assistance as engines, steering or skippers (!) proved not up to the job.

In the end the cyclone crossed the coast to the north of us at Cape Flattery and then came inland around us, losing much of its power in the process. We had a day and night of very heavy rain and some high winds but were well sheltered and suffered no damage. Others were not so lucky - again on the VHF we heard people on boats with anchors dragging and skipperless boats careering off on their own.

This is a first for Kilo. It has never before been involved in a major weather event without getting damaged demonstrating, I think, the value of someone being on board to keep everything battened down and to make sensible decisions.

Despite being the first up the creek, we were the first out - desperate to get some blue water sailing in before Asha, Harry and Kim leave on Friday. We squeezed past everyone else and are now enjoying post cyclone blue skies and flat seas out at Green Island. Bliss! We were all getting cabin fever.