An uneventful trip with only 5kt winds up our
bum. We passed South Molle Island and
watched a series of boats go through Unsafe Passage. As navigator, I looked at the passage, it was
shallow and narrow and said “Unsafe Passage” which I took to be a warning so
navigated Michael the long way around North Molle Island. I later found out the error I had made and
Unsafe Passage was the name rather than a recommendation not to pass.
As we rounded North Molle Island, we discovered why
everyone was cutting through Unsafe Passage as we got hit with 13kt winds from
the north and a 1 metre swell hitting us from the side. That made the next 6nm slightly uncomfortable
to say the least.
We approached Abel Point Marina entrance and lined
up the red markers to the left and the green markers to the right to make our
way through the entrance when an impatient touring fastcat decided he didn’t
want to get stuck behind us, sped up and cut in front of us between markers and
we got hit with his wash and were pushed sideways narrowly missing one of the
markers. The fastcat then nearly took
out another yacht and a dinghy… all in a day’s work, I guess.
We located our marina berth, our home for the next
week, and the space was sooooo narrow.
Michael did exceptionally well maneuvering Kidnapped into the tiny
space, I leapt off the front on to the dock and tied her off. We’re actually getting pretty good at
this. The guy in the boat next to us
came out and said “I’m glad it was you coming in next to me because if it was me
coming in next to you, my insurance would be buying you a new boat about now.”
Airlie Beach
Airlie Beach is beautiful. The week was spent doing
the usual… bathing, laundry, shopping, refuelling, fixing, bleeding and yelling
but we did get to have some fun as well.
We had pizzas at Sorrento’s at the marina, swam at the lagoon and
managed to catch up with a girlfriend, Liz, who invited us all to her home for
her special homemade pizza (and a damn fine pizza it was).
Airlie Beach Lagoon
No matter where we go, how far we try to put
Maryborough behind us… it still seems to rear its ugly head. The ugly head this time was John, AKA Captain
Kaos who we came to know pretty well in Maryborough. We only chatted for about 15 minutes at the
fuel dock before we went our separate ways.
Liz came to see us off and it was nice to have a
friendly face waving at us from the dock as we departed.
Kidnapped leaving our tiny dock space
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