Townsville

Friday 15^th July Townsville

Ron was wise not to join me on this leg. The BoM website that I normally find reliable let me down.  Strong winds, gales, storms, rain (all depicted in vivid red on Met Eye) were forecast for most of the week.  Only Thursday looked like a narrow window of opportunity to squeeze through.

The original plan was to sail from Butterfly bay on Hook Island to an anchorage called Nellie Bay, just before the Gloucester Passage.  Then either sit it out there or press on to Bowen, then a couple of nights on the two capes, Cape Upstart and Cape Bowling Green.

However, on studying the predicted wind strength and angles it looked like none of these stops would provide good shelter.

The first day’s sail from Hook Island was magnificent (eat your heart out Ronnie) – clear blue skies and sunshine with a steady 15 knot breeze with full main and headsail set, which I boldly carried right through the shallows of Gloucester Passage. I’m getting used to seeing very low figures on the depth sounder.

 

The day was too lovely to stop early so I continued on to an anchorage past Bowen, Queens Bay. The next day’s forecast was for winds to abate to 10 – 15 knots before coming back with a vengeance on Friday, so I decided to push on through the night to Townsville.

For most of the day I carried reduced mainsail and sometimes a full headsail.  Having the wind dead behind made that flog, so it got furled in and let out again several times as the wind swung more to the South.

I kept expecting it to drop out but at around 1600 it was gusting up over 30 knots.  An accidental gybe (luckily I had a preventer on) encouraged me to drop the main altogether and just set a small amount of headsail.

 

The waves were an annoying washing machine cross pattern and mounting.  As it started to bucket down with rain the wind gusted to near 40 knots.  Not predicted!!

 

These winter days are short and it gets dark early, more so it seems in gloomy weather. The combination of complete blackness, strong winds, driving rain (the coldest night on record for these parts), and big confused seas had me shivering.

Wise call Ronnie, not to come along!  I was thinking I should have stayed with Ray and Di at Hook Island where it was warm and peaceful and so sheltered they were able to raft up alongside Shanti for the night and share the same mooring. However, here was an opportunity (I kept telling myself) to test boat and captain.

Shanti handled it beautifully, probably much better than the captain did, who, as we all know, is the weakest link in the equation.  It was quite a remarkable achievement that I managed to withstand the pounding, bucking, jarring, jerking motion – even down below (my dreaded place) without getting seasick. I’m definitely getting better as more miles pass under the keel.

In the dark of night you can’t see the size of the rollers that whack into the hull, but you can sure feel their impact as the boat gets stopped in her tracks and slewed off sideways. 

Not every wave is a Goliath – perhaps every tenth – but those that crash like hitting a brick wall send torrents cascading over the entire boat and you wonder if the windows will hold and how much water is coming in through unseen leaks.  The boat slews over on her side, lockers pop open and everything not tied down becomes a missile. Even the onions from the bottom of the hanging fruit net find their way out.

Every hard edged surface wants to colour in my bruises.

It was one of those endless nights, when even my mantra, “this too will pass” was wearing thin. There were moments when I questioned if we would make it through the night, but I just had to keep us on track, avoiding all obstacles, until one of us gave up.

How hard this single-handing can be!  There are times when wind and tide conspire to slow down progress to almost nothing and it seems like we’ll never get to that safe haven.

At 0200 the lights of an anchored fishing trawler, whom I had picked up on AIS coming up the coast, guided me to a shallow patch under the lee of Cape Cleveland, about 10 miles from Townsville harbour.  The surge was still very active and wind howling but I managed to close my eyes for a few hours.

At 0600 I got up and punched into waves, wind, tide and rain for the final leg into Breakwater marina.  A most welcome stop!