We left Airlie Beach on Sunday (25th) and had a nice sail up to Bowen, although found it a bit tricky going through the Gloucester Channel as it is quite shallow. We decided that it might be a bit roly to anchor immediately off Bowen so spent the night at Stone Island which is 1.7 miles from Bowen. Although very windy we did have a reasonable night there.

Monday morning we motored over to Bowen and anchored outside the Marina and went into the marina by dinghy, left the dinghy tied up by the Cruising Club and walked into town - a 20 minute walk. Bowen is a small town with lots of the shops having lovely murals painted on the walls and very wide streets and the town is very spread out so did quite a bit of walking. We managed to get a few things there that we needed and I had a long awaited hair cut and blow wave and am very pleased with the end result. We treated ourselves to a nice lunch in a nice cafe.

After lunch we headed back to Pied A Mer and headed off around to the other side of Bowen to anchor off Queens Beach for the night. Don't think it was the best of moves - we might have been better staying at Stone Island although it did settle down a bit later in the night.

Yesterday we up anchored just before 9am and had a lovely 37 mile sail up to Cape Upstart, arriving just after 3pm. Caught two tuna (one of which we threw back) and the one we have kept is to use as bait in the crab pot. Also had a Spanish mackerel and got it right up to the boat, it did a flip and broke the trace so we lost a good lure as well, one which Dave found on Great Keppel Island. We had a very calm anchorage last night - was like a mill pond.

We had intended to head to Bowling Green Bay today and then on to Townsville tomorrow to pick up a remote switch for the inverter but on talking to our friends on Kassoumay they said it is a very roly anchorage and to come on up to Magnetic Island which they say is the nicest place they have been to so far and we can catch a ferry across to Townsville. Took until this morning for Dave to decide to do that so we took off just before 8am. It is a 66 mile trip so will probably be about 8pm before we get there. Have about 20 knots of wind from the South West, averaging about 6 knots, but we have a swell coming from the South East so it is rather roly. Decided I needed to take a sea sick pill.

Have found that I can send updates to our sailblog remotely by email so this is one of those which I am trying for the first time and I can do it through sailmail as well which will be great. Will just have to train everyone to look at it regularly!!

The big surprise as we have been sailing up from Bowen is that we have cell phone service and I have been able to use the internet on my Vodem. Haven't got Broadband but I can chat (type messages instantly) on skype with those who have it and are on line at the same time. Caught up with a few friends yesterday on it and managed to get Rachel on to it this morning. She did not know you could do that. Caught up with our friends on Windspirit in Fiji this morning as well. I haven't used it until now either but it was friends, Jeanette & Barry in Hamilton that started chatting to me.

The next update will be when we have been to Magnetic Island