Sunday, August 25, 2013

Shaw Island to Airlie Beach

A fairly early start to head the 30nm from Shaw Island to Abel Point Marina at Airlie Beach.

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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