Mustang Sally Cruising 2019 - Kiting the East Coast

We ended up enjoying two weeks in marina world at Bluewater Marina which is located up the Half Moon Creek just past Yorkey's Knob.  In essence it was located up a mangrove creek but it was a very nice mangrove creek.  The locals are lovely and with the hire car we were able to get out and enjoy all the tourist attractions that Cairns and its surrounds has to offer. My eye recovered very quickly and was given the all clear when I went back to the clinic on Wednesday which meant we could get out for a kite board at Yorkeys Knob which we did.  During our two weeks we managed to get out for a kite on about 4 occasions which was great.  The spot is really nice for kiting but we did find the waves a bit challenging to start with as we are far more used to flat water kiting but quickly got into the swing of it all and really ended up enjoying some kite surfing!!  At the end of each day we had a down winder to get us back to the car park which was always heaps o...

After a few days of travel we arrived at an old favourite which is Horseshoe Bay at Magnetic Island. We again caught up with our old friends Oscar and Graciella on Zenitude who we will leave at this point but may catch them when we go south again. We always enjoy our time at Maggie and this was no exception.  We explored some of the island on foot with walks past all the bays, Balding, Florence and Arthur and maybe a few more before picking up the bus at the Forts and also did the walk along the ridge from Horseshoe Bay to Nelly Bay where again we hopped on the bus for the trip home.  The walks at Maggie are pretty much all up or all down but very scenic and picturesque. On the 6th July we headed off early to go into the Breakwater Marina in Townsville for a week to explore  the local surrounds and more importantly attend a very significant iconic event - the V8 Supercars.  We went on Saturday and were treated to a great day of motorsport fun.  ...

Hamilton Island definitely lived up to expectation and we had a great couple of days enjoying ourselves in the resort like facilities.  We enjoyed an evening at the sports bar in the Tavern and got to watch a good game of footie (even though Carlton didn't get the win) and some great cricket, Mark took me out for a very lovely meal at the Beach Club Restaurant which was very yummy and the service exceptional and found many ways to remind me that it was my birthday :) As we have some lovely weather forecast for the next week our first stop is around to Whitehaven Beach which is chaos as always with a large number of tour boats dropping in each day.  We got the kayak out and did plenty of paddling around the anchorage and also did the walk over to Chance Bay with a stop over at the lookout. Moonrise at Whitehaven  Whitehaven Beach Local Cateran Bay - Border Island After a few nights at Whitehaven we sailed up to Cateran Bay at Borde...

Foredeck Macrame Last we left you we were making our way into Pancake Creek which was back at the end of May.  Pancake Creek was really busy when we arrived and for some reason the mooring's in there didn't seem all that popular so we decided we would have a go at one.  We quickly found out that they come with their own set of problems when you have a lot of current and wind especially when they are opposing each other.  This meant at certain times the mooring line would go under the boat and the ball would sit about half way down the boat which wasn't all that bad however it did mean that Sally ended up lying at all sorts of angles to the wind and current which wasn't always that pleasant.  After a night of this we decided to shorten up the mooring line which is a feat in itself as the ropes are more suitable for small ships than cruising yachts.  This is what we ended up with which looks like macrame all over the foredeck. We did a couple of nice walks...

Since the last report we made it to Bundaberg and stopped there for a couple of nights to get the usual boat jobs done and provision the boat while we waited for some calmer weather to get out to Lady Musgrave which is an absolute gem of a place to stop on the East Coast. LADY MUSGRAVE We departed from Bundaberg Marina very very early (i.e. 4:30H) on the 25th May and headed out to Lady Musgrave which is approx 52Nm almost due north from Bundy. We safely navigated the entrance at around 14:00H and were quickly advised of a spare mooring by our sister ship Perseides 2 who we originally met in Broken Bay back in 2014!!!.  Last year Parks put in a large number of moorings at many of the popular anchorage spots along the Queensland coast which is fantastic and a great way to protect the coral from boats anchoring etc. With the great weather forecast we were not the only ones with the great idea of stopping in at Lady Musgrave as we counted around 30boats at any one time ...