Whales everywhere but no good photos!

We had a few lovely days sailing with friends Julie and Farley.  Both had sailed with us once on our old boat, Sankara and Farley had done a fair bit in his native America.  The weather forecast was not great – rather too much wind – and their visit was all too short.  We decided to head to Nara Inlet for the first night thinking that we should have a fairly calm night.  We had a glorious sail across, hard on the wind but made it on one tack.  We estimated the strength to be nearly 20 knots but our wind instruments were still not working following the incident with our neighbour’s mast.  We need not have worried about Julie and the strong wind.  She took the helm and managed it as if she had been doing it all her life and she enjoyed the exhilarating experience.  We sighted whales, reasonably close up, just an hour out of Airlie Beach.  Nara Inlet was not as calm as we would have liked which was a bit of a puzzle as, in theory, it should have been well sheltered from the SE swell.  Julie and Farley had never been to the Whitsunday Islands before so were keen to see Whitehaven beach.  Thus we plugged on down the next morning and initially picked up a buoy in Tongue Bay.  We took the dingy ashore and did the Hill Inlet walk and enjoyed the spectacular views from the lookouts over the Inlet and towards Whitehaven beach.  Then we walked down the other side on to the beach and enjoyed a walk along the wonderful white sand.  When we returned to the boat there was a fair bit of swell, as there often is here.  Those who read the blog regularly will have heard about some of our terrible nights in this bay!  We dropped the buoy and moved a little further down into the bay and anchored.  There was definitely less swell but during the night it got quite bad and we had an uncomfortable night.  However, if we were to see Whitehaven in the time available, we had no choice and we all agreed that it had been worthwhile.  Next day we made an early start (none of us were asleep anyway) and headed for Cateran Bay to snorkel.  We had a brisk sail up there and picked up a buoy.  We enjoyed the snorkelling but the water was 3-4 degrees colder that it had been a week or two earlier.  After lunch we made for Macona Inlet and, as we were considering anchoring, decided that there was too much swell so we headed back round into Nara.  Fortunately it was lovely and calm and we had a very peaceful night.  Next day we had a swift sail back to Airlie.  Julie hardly relinquished the helm for the entire time.  That suited all of us and Farley decided that he is a rope man and loved working the sheets and halyards.  He also turned out to be a fantastic wild life spotter and we had many whale sightings including a brief, but very close encounter as we approached Pioneer rocks on our return to Airlie.  We had dinner that evening in our favourite, Mr Bones and sadly said farewell to Julie and Farley next day.

Julie took the wheel as soon as we had raised our sails. 

She occasionally let Farley have a go.

About to do the Hill Inlet walk.