A New Adventure - To Tasmania

Well it's been 3 years and 8 months since our last cruising adventure and poor Winkali has been sitting idle for most of that time with only the very occasional short trip since then.

It's finally time to dust her off and go cruising - to Tasmania.

We left Port Douglas on 1 November for the first leg of the trip which took us to Townsville. Winkali was due her 2 yearly haul out for a bit of maintenance. Sailing was quite uneventful with calm seas, meaning we had to motor most of the way. 

We had a bit of a hiccup as we left Orpheus Is when Ian noticed a bubble in the hose leading from the water pump. Worried that it might burst and leave us motorless, we headed back to Orpheus Is to the safety of a mooring.

On closer inspection, the bubble seemed 
to a result of corrosion on the metal pipe to which the hose was attached. The following day we had fair winds in which to sail which brought us closer to Townsville. From there we were confident the hose would hold out and we weren't disappointed.

Travel lift awaits

Now hauling a yacht out for maintenance is always an interesting thing. First up we manoeuvre into a u-shaped enclosure where a travel lift awaits.

Two giant slings are then carefully (we hope) placed into position under our boat so as to lift it without tipping the boat out. Incidentally, we are still on board as we haven't had a chance to get off yet. You can see Ian standing at the bow.

Winkali is carefully lifted out of the water.

The travel lift then drives forward far enough so Ian and I can step off the bow onto land.






Winkali is then lifted high into the air to clear the dock.

From there she is taken onto dry land where she is lowered so all the growth and sludge can be guerneyed (high pressure hose). Ian kindly offered to take a photo of me doing it, however, OHS rules mean that we stand and watch while someone else does it for us 😊.




From there she is parked and propped up so we can work on her. 

I dressed up as a marshmallow and did the painting.

Ian dressed up as a tradie and did the mechanics.





We both worked very hard and completed our work within two days and were ready to be set back in the water first thing on Friday.

Unfortunately, strong winds arrived which made it unadvisable to launch without risk. Not wanting to damage the paintwork, and the rest of the boat under the paint, we decided to delay. This meant having to wait till Monday as all the workers around here have weekends off. How inconvenient!!





Might as well make the most of it and get the washing dry. Winkali becomes a clothes line for the day.




Winkali is ready to sail and we have three days to kill, so I google up the 10 best things to do around Townsville (for free).

Number 1 is to go to the top of Castle Hill, the only hill in Townsville. 
We have the choice to drive up there or to walk the Goat Track. Since we don't have a car . . . . . Mmaaaaa.

It's a fair old walk from the boat yard to town which is the starting point. We time it perfectly for walking in the hottest part of the day.

Castle Hill against the backdrop of high-rise units

We have already walked 3.5k to get to this point. Another couple of ks should get us to the base.

Getting closer

At last, the beginning

It's steep

The view from the top made it all worth while.







We even befriended an unsuspecting tourist so she could take a photo of us. We had to abandon her later though as she was too fast for us.

Now google hadn't listed our next major activity in the top 10. As a matter of fact, I don't even think google knows about this place!

Well, it's not a secret that Ian and I like nothing better than to go poking around swamps with our cameras, and our boat yard was located right next to a lovely tidal mangrove swamp. 

Tides out. Perfect!

This is what we found:

An enormous mudskipper, with an old man face.

A Great Egret eating an enormous mudskipper.

A Royal Spoonbill, looking for a mudskipper.

A Reef Egret fleeing from a mudskipper.

More small mudskippers, with a weird periscopic fin on their backs which they erected when they got aggressive.

These little ones were extremely territorial and would erect their fin and go at anything which stood in their way, even crabs. 

Ian emerges safely from the mangroves.







Well, fingers crossed. Tomorrow is Monday and we are hoping to get back into the water first thing in the morning. It's still windy, but it should ease off over night.

As I have already covered most of Queensland in previous blogs, I won't bore you too much by going over old stuff.