July 7, 2015

Our final purchase was diesel fuel to top off our tanks before heading out for Thursday Island which will be our check out point from Australia before going off to Debut Indonesia. We pulled up our anchor and went to the fuel dock (appointment only necessary) and topped off all the tanks and were ready to leave Cairns by nine a.m. ready for our trip to Lizard Island which required and overnight passage along the outside of the commercial shipping lanes inside the Great Bearer Reef. No snoozing on that watch. Big commercial ships coming and going and passing port-to-port or starboard to port. All the commercial vessels are talking about how they are gong to overtake or pass each other. Since we had chosen to stay on the fringe of the shipping channel nobody seemed to care about us. All ships big and small have an AIS, which allows everybody to see everybody else. Our small sailing vessel is the last to be seen but we are able to see the big ships 25 miles off so we have a good idea of where they are going and how they are going to affect us.

All went well during the night and we arrived 24 hours later in Lizard Island after leaving Cairns. Now we will explore Lizard Island hiking and looking for LARGE lizards...hence the name.

The Crew from Always Saturday