We had a glorious sail across the top of the Whitsundays. Light winds but with the spinnaker 8 knots in a flat sea. We were aiming to go to Hayman Island where there is an attractive bay with some good reefs. Unfortunately there was a lot of swell in the bay so we moved onto a quieter anchorage not too far away. The following day we went to Luncheon Bay on the North of Hook Island. This was our first swim of the season. The Queensland coast is generally not very swimming friendly what with stinging jellyfish and crocodiles. However, we braved it in our stinger suits. The amount of fish and the size of them was quite exceptional. The coral was less exceptional - a few bummies and some rather bleached areas. After we arrived a number of commercial boats arrived with groups of snorkelers. The bay was transformed by little colourful clumps of snorkelers. We found the reason for the size of the fish - the guides on the boats fed the fish to enhance the snorkelers experience.

The following morning we left the Whitsundays heading for Gloucester Island. We weaved our way through a shallow passage to the south of the island and anchored in the island's lee. It's quite a pretty spot with large hills rising above the bay. The winds were still quite light so we had to have one of our engines much of the time