Day 5, Year 3: A Day at Anchor
Date: Wednesday, May 14, 2008
Weather: Beautiful Day; Winds SE 10-15
Location: West Bay of Middle Percy Island, Queensland, Australia
Change of plans. We are still here in West Bay and we are not going to do an overnight to our next island location, Refuge Bay on Scawfell Island. Instead we are going to pull up anchor at 4 AM and head the 60 miles northwest. With the continued reduced winds predicted for tomorrow, it will be a long day, but it should be a pleasant one.
We spent our morning working on the boat. Our Amptech alternator started giving us trouble late yesterday and without an alternator, you have no power to run things like computers and radios. Since that is how we are navigating and communicating, having power is essential. Actually the alternator was fine. The problem was a loose bolt that was causing some sparking. Mark used a piece of one of those amazing little rubber hot pads as the insulator and found a way to fix the bolt situation. Actually
he discovered that the bolt was too small but he was able to add a piece to fix that. While Mark was working on this, I was working in the galley making granola. That was my big contribution for the day. And Donna and Gerry on Scot Free II also spent the morning working. They had their mainsail repaired in Bundaberg but unfortunately the stitching came out already. So they had to hand stitch the entire length of the Sunbrella UV protection along the edge of the sail. What a bummer to pay to
have work done and then have it pull out the first time you use it. Sure hope that doesn’t happen to us.
Both of us completed our jobs by noon and in the afternoon we put our dinghy in the water, picked up Donna and Gerry, and went to shore. The beach on this little bay is beautiful and the “structures” quintessential Australia. There is a little shack and a larger A-frame shack (really just a roof with no walls) that houses wooden signs left by the many cruisers that stop here. It is really quite unique. The A-frame structure has a sign hanging over the entry saying, “Percy Hilton.” The corrugated
steel roof has been painted green and is now rusting. It is definitely an outback Australian version of the Hilton. The little shack has a big wooden sign on front saying, “Telephone.” And out back there is actually a shower. Well, it is a pipe coming out the ground with a shower head on it. We didn’t turn it on to see if it works, but we read in an old guide that it did work a few years ago. We were the only boats here this morning, but by afternoon we had been joined by five other boats.
Most everyone was onshore and we talked to two couples from Australia and got some pointers on future anchorages. We all laughed about it being our main goal of sailing in Australia to keep our names out of the 6 o’clock news. Between the deadly jellyfish and the crocodiles, not to mention the sharks, the deadly little blue octopus, and oh yes, the aggressive dingoes on some of the islands, there are lots of things to watch out for. There is a homestead on this island but we were not able to
walk to it as there were signs posted saying that the government is hunting feral goats on the island at this time. That means they are shooting them, so we thought it best not to venture inland!
Tonight’s challenge is the computer. For some unknown reason, our GPS is no longer “talking” to our computer which means that we cannot use the computer for navigation. Not good. And until just a few minutes ago, our computer would also not “talk” to our HAM radio so we couldn’t send or receive email. That was a setting problem, but we have no idea how the setting got changed. So at least we can communicate and hopefully by 4 AM in the morning when we leave for Scawfell Island Mark will get
the navigation issues solved. He is working furiously to do so right now. So as they say, cruising is all about working on your boat in exotic locations. The work continues and the exotic places just keep coming. And I just heard an exclamation from Mark, “I got it.” So I do think we will have our computer navigation up and running.
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| 080514 Day 5 Middle Percy Island |
