Sailing the Whitsundays

At the start of the trip, we had tossed around the idea of chartering a yacht to sail around the Whitsundays.  One of Jenny’s friends had done it and said it was awesome.  It was pretty expensive though and neither of us have sailed a boat that big (strangely, they’ll still rent you one though.  We just didn’t feel that confident.)

We’d spoken to Ross and Barb about it and they were keen too.  Luckily Ross has sailed a fair bit (smaller sail boats but enough to be confident) so we decided to charter a yacht together and spend 4 days sailing ourselves around the amazing Whitsunday Islands.  We highly recommend it - it was absolutely awesome!

Our boat was a 41 foot Bavaria yacht called Y-Knot.  It has three cabins, 2 toilet/showers, 2 sails and an enormously oversized steering wheel which we all joked about.

On board our home for the next four days.

We moved into the yacht on a Sunday afternoon, packed all our gear away and stayed overnight in the marina.  The boys shared the cabin up the front of the boat while the other two cabins were at the back.   

The boys in their snug sleeping quarters.

We had a 4 hour briefing the following morning.  One of the guys from the charter company came on board and showed us around and how some of the things worked.  He was a bit casual about it but we felt confident with Ross’ experience and Jenny’s very thorough study of the manual they had given us.  We sailed out of the marina with him on board and practiced putting up and taking down the sails, dropping and lifting the anchor and attaching / detaching from a mooring buoy. When he deemed us capable he hopped in his dinghy and sped away.  If was a bit of a surreal moment when he left.  We all looked at each other and said ‘right then, off we go in this huge yacht..’.

Ross was an awesome skipper and he and Jenny navigated us around without any issues.  There are buoys, sand bars, reefs and rocks to avoid and we didn’t have any problems.  We all took turns at steering and each of the adults was responsible for a particular job on board. (Ross – skipper.  Jenny – navigation.  Barb – anchor and mooring. Lou – looking after the dinghy that was tethered to the boat.)

Helmsman Ben!

We sailed to Nara Inlet that first afternoon and saw dolphins along the way.  You have to be anchored by 4pm each day and we found a sheltered spot with plenty of room around us.  The sunset was spectacular and the boys had a swim off the back of the yacht. 

Gorgeous sunset.

Inflatable fruit ninjas.

We had bought them some inflatables (Daniel had a big round lime and Ben had a giant strawberry which he named Logan) and they had a great time jumping from the yacht onto the blowup fruit.  

Jenny swam with them and then went out in the dinghy with Ross to snorkel on the reef.  Lou and Barb did some fishing and didn’t see many fish but did see loads of squid.  Barb caught one but the others eluded her squid jig.

At this point any fish is a good fish to catch.  This guy went back of course.

Every morning you must check in with the base station on the radio and tell them where you are going that day.  They broadcast the weather and based on conditions will approve your intended route or suggest a better location if they think that winds or tides will be unsuitable where you want to go. Our route was approved so we set off towards Tongue Bay.  We set the sails that day and had lots of fun sailing rather than just motoring along.  We saw a big mackerel jump up about 3m out of the water next to the yacht.

Us under sail - shot from Ross' drone.

We moored in Tongue Bay amongst a load of tourist boats and did two trips in the dinghy to ferry us all to shore. 

Dinghy ride into shore.

We left the dinghy and walked up a well known trail that takes you to a lookout with spectacular views of Whitehaven Beach which was on the next island, across a channel.  It is absolutely breathtaking.  The deep blue of the water and pristine white sand is unforgettable.   

Amazing views!

Something caught our attention...

We walked down to the beach of the island we were on and could see small sharks swimming in the shallows.  Jenny had a quick swim and Ross flew his drone to get some great aerial footage.

Down on the beach.

Another drone shot from Ross.

Ross' drone footage at Hill Inlet

We went back to the yacht, intending to sail over to Whitehaven Beach but the wind had picked up and it was getting really choppy the further we went in that direction.  We also had a technical issue when Ross suddenly lost power to the GPS and all the components at the helm.  We radioed base for assistance and they ran through all the switches we needed to check.  When we switched one of them on the problem was resolved.  We have no idea how it suddenly got switched off and think that Jenny must have accidentally lent on it when she had been in the area a short time before.  With the rougher seas and the time we lost fixing the controls we realised that we wouldn’t have time to go to Whitehaven and still get to our overnight stop by 4pm. We were bummed not to go there and headed to Mocona Inlet where we would anchor for the night. 

 

Heading to Macona inlet (link to Ross' video)

 

Drone footage on the way to Macona inlet from Whitehaven Bay

 

On the way we saw some green turtles.  They were huge and slow and it was great to see them out in the  middle of the ocean.

We had better luck fishing that night, catching a few small ones but were teased for hours by a school of huge fish that circled under the light at the rear of the yacht.  We tried all kinds of bait and lures and even some very unorthodox fishing methods but weren’t able to catch one. 

This was the super moon night.

The following morning the wind had really picked up and there white caps on the waves all around us.  The yacht bounced up and down and when we were at the helm we got splashed as the prow bounced up and down over the waves.  Poor Jenny had picked up a virus and was down below in bed all day coughing her lungs out.  It can’t have been pleasant in those rough seas.

The seas got rougher.

We put the sails up again for a while and later when the wind had quietened a little, Ross put the drone up to film us sailing.  It was hard to launch from moving platform and Barb had to hold on to it and let go just at the right time.  ‘Catching’ it when it was coming back to the yacht was a feat in itself too.

Unorthodox drone launching.

We sailed to Manta Ray Bay and did some great snorkelling before heading back through Hook Passage to check out the area around Hayman Island.  We saw a huge school of tuna and threw a line in but they managed to avoid us yet again.

After a snorkel, Ben collected pistol shaped coral.

The guy who had done our briefing recommended we stay at Stonehaven Bay near Hayman so we hooked onto a mooring buoy for our last night.  The wind was still pretty strong and were confused as to why he had said that place had good shelter.  We tried to fish and caught one reasonable tuskfish but the boat kept swinging around and tangling our lines in the mooring rope and the last thing we wanted was to tangle them on the rudder or keel. 

A better sized fish..

It was an awful night, the boat bumping against the buoy all night and even riding right over the top of it a few times.  We swung around it this way and that and we had to tie down the sun shelter over the helm so it didn’t get damaged in the wind.  No-one got much sleep with the wind gusting strongly and the buoy bumping the hull all night.  

The following morning we headed back to the marina in strong winds.  The boys loved getting splashed by the waves and when we bounced up and down on the waves it was like being on a trampoline.  We were amazed at how different it was to the first day’s sailing when the sea had been as smooth as glass and we had given the boys (and Lou) a ride being pulled along in the dinghy. 

Lou's turn at the helm.

Jenny in charge.

When we arrived back at the marina one of the staff came out to meet us in a dinghy and took the helm so steer us to the refuelling dock and then into the tight berth at the marina.  He did an inspection and then we unpacked everything, heading back to the Big 4.  Poor Jenny still felt sick and went straight to bed.

We said farewell (again!) to Ross, Barb and Daniel the following day.  They traveled with us to Mackay where we stopped at a park that had ducks and turtles in a pond.  The boys had loads of fun feeding them and having a final play together before we continued south and R,B & D found a spot to stop for the night.