Now that we are a bit further up the coast we have managed to find another catamaran to sail on.  Grace II sails to the Keppel Islands from Rosslyn Bay Marina, near Yeppoon. It’s skippered by Anthony with his 1st mate (& wife) Vicki.

They make a great team & have been doing this sort of thing for over 10 years. They had lots of “tips & tricks” & did a great job of looking after us for the day.

Check them out on www.sailcapricornia.com.au

We had intended to sail on Monday, to avoid the crowds, but Grace II wasn’t available that day. Luckily, the Sunday trip only had 2 others booked to go, so Jayne & I made it a total of 4. On a vessel set up to cater for 24, this felt like we had a personal yacht charter all to ourselves.

It was certainly a picture perfect day to be out on the water.

We set off from the Rosslyn Bay Marina and all was well for a minute or two until one of the motors stopped.  Oh no, I thought, should we jump off and swim back before it’s too late…  After a few anxious moments it was discovered to be just a fuel line that had been turned off during some recent maintenance. All good. Once clear of the marina it was motors off anyway and sails away till we reached the island.

Due to prevailing winds and a desire for a smoother ride we headed to North Keppel for our first dive and then on to Conical Rocks Reef, or maybe it was Corroboree Reef, for another snorkel after lunch.

Jayne was a little anxious about seasickness but to our great surprise she didn’t go green once. She couldn’t stop saying what a perfect day it was & felt great the whole time during the 3 to 4 hours we spent under sail. What a relief.

The water was about 25 degrees and a bit murky at first but cleared up later. Something to do with currents, the tide and a bit of boat churn.  The reef around these parts copped a bit of a flogging in a cyclone about 15 months ago and is still struggling to grow back.  As such there is a lot of silt, weed and dead coral about, but you can see on the tips where it is growing back. It’s going to take quite a few years yet.  We did see one or two outbreaks of brightly coloured coral that give you some indication of what the whole reef “should look like” and these small areas were spectacular.

We were told that the main Island of Great Keppel has a better display of coral, so maybe we’ll visit there next time…

Between swims we did a bit of exploring along the sandy island beaches.

These are about the last of the sandy beaches we’ll see on the way up the northern coast. From now on the mainland coast is tucked in behind the bulk of the Great Barrier Reef and the shorelines tend to become mudflats, as we saw in Cairns a few years ago.

Jayne really enjoyed the two snorkelling sessions (me too)  & she seemed quite relaxed. So much so that she may have been having a power nap in the shot above. We probably spent a couple of hours in the water.  As for me, after a couple of long hard snorkelling sessions I was ready for a noice cuppa tea & a lie down.

Lots to see. Sting rays, little tropical fish and some of the biggest golden trevally  I’ve ever seen. The photo below doesn’t quite do them justice. Most of the fish in this image are at least 3-4 foot long & there were hundreds of them. Lucky Jayne was back on the boat at this stage or she would have freaked! By far the biggest school of fish I’ve seen to date and not a single piece of fishing gear anywhere to be seen.

The whole day was magnificent and has renewed Jayne’s enthusiasm for sailing.

I’m not sure that we’re quite ready to trade the caravan in on a boat, but if ever we do get a boaty floaty thingy it would need to have a name something like this…

16 May This entry was published on 16/05/2016 at 10:52 am and is filed under Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post.