We departed Trinity Inlet Cairns at 0730 passing Coconut Slipway in the morning gloom.
Rum Jungle did not look any more cheerie.
Clear Horizons followed us out.
The Cairns Port channel was busy with tourist boats zooming past us at between 12 and 20 knots headed out to the reef for the day.
We had a great 40 mile sail up to the low Isles, eventually pulling in a reef when we touched 9 knots. We had to skirt around the back of MV Sycamore at less than a mile. They even announced on the radio that they were commencing aircraft operations off the Low Isles.
Sycamore is the first ship to support the Australian Defence Force (ADF) designed from the outset to be able to operate unmanned aerial vehicles. She is fitted with the equipment necessary to operate Boeing Insitu ScanEagle fixed wing and Schiebel Camcopter S-100 rotary wing UAVs.
She is 94 metres (308 ft) long. In 2014, her design called for her to be capable of 23 knots (43 km/h). She has a multi-use space, which can be configured to help cope with disasters.
Sycamore will operate with a crew of 22 personnel, most of whom will be civilian sailors. The ship can accommodate up to 71 ADF personnel overnight.
We arrived at the Low Isles and all the public moorings were taken so we anchored in a bit of a tight spot that had us dragging our anchor to get it to hook up. Which put us a bit close to an un-used commercial mooring but it was 2pm so probably not being used today.
WRONG. not 5 min later the bloke arrived and tied up abot 10 metres behind us.
At least he will be gone before dark and not back till tomorrow.