Going over to Lady Musgrave Island in convoy with Caroline & Huey who we met just before going through the wide bay bar. Set off at 6 in the morning in 15 knot winds for the 50 mile trip to the island - all good. 40 iles from the land we get a high wind warning coming over the radio for exactly where we were, but there was no way to go back. Dropped the sails and motored into the island
Oh shit!
No just kidding - we all got there safe and sound.
And at the end of the day a wonderful sunset. Maybe the wind will go down tomorrow.
Very odd being anchored at a coral reef - when the tide comes up, the coral dissappears and you appear to be anchored in the middle of the ocean, with the added danger that if your anchor does slip during the night, your only a few metres from razor sharp coral to rip your boat apart.
Sweet dreams!
The actual island is very small, but absolutely covered with really green trees, which are filled with any number of birds which seem totally unbothered about our presence.
The wind stayed up so we didn't really get to have much of a snorkel, so we made do with a walk around the island and a bit of a walk over the reef at low tide. Loads of azure kingfishers, I thought they were exclusively british. Couldn't really get close enough to get a good photo, but still pretty exciting bearing in mind how rare they are back home.
So many fish here even Rob managed to catch one. This was a remora, a fish with a sucker on the top of its head that often attaches itself to sharks. So up until now on this trip, I've caught one shark and one remora - what would dad think!
Gill's finally decided that maybe trip was worth it. Hopefully by the time we come back down, we will have forgotten how bad the trip over was and concentrate on how good the island was.
And of course a beautiful dawn to wish us off. During the previous night the chart plotter had errored saying that there were too many points in the track and did we wish to delete the existing points. It was 2 am or so, so I deleted them, 1 second later, I realised that I'd just delete my route out. So we crawled out of the anchorage in the morning with Gill stood at the front of the boat directing me away from any bommies. (Bommies are little islands of coral that grow vertically from the bottom, right up to the surface). Unfortunately with the sun at such a low angle, you just can't see, and we gave one a bit of a kiss. Fortunately no damage to the boat (sorry coral), but it could easily have been a tragedy with us 50 miles from the mainland.