Whitsunday whip around!

12/10/2016

We finally escaped from Mackay on 10^th September, heading for the Whitsundays. Our first  32nm leg was to Goldsmith Island, where we anchored for the night. The following day it was on to Shaw Island and the Kennedy Sound. 

Not the best pics, but all we managed!

The sound had a mother and calf Humpback Whale pair: a combination we saw almost every time we moved around. The moms appeared to be teaching their offspring all the behavioural “ tricks”…breaching, flipper slapping and lobtailing!

"Hammo" as the locals call this island which hosts the reknown Race Week

From Shaw, we sailed up the Dent passage, where we passed the big Hamilton Island Marina complex, on to the Fitzallen passage, before doing a right turn through the Hull Channel into CID harbor, where we anchored off Sawmill Beach.

CID Harbour

Once there, I could not resist the urge to climb to the top of the Whitsunday Peak (at 434m), from where one gets spectacular views. It was a 3-4 hour slog, and Mary elected to give her heart a rest instead!

After 2 days, we headed into Nara Inlet, on Hook Island, which is a well protected anchorage, and quite lovely.

Sulphur crested cockatoos visited every evening

With the wind turning south, we took the opportunity to sail over to Airlie Beach….. famous and expensive! We anchored for the night, and went exploring the town, the market, and topping up on provisions at the local Woolworths.

Disgraceful mainsail trim!! But was a speedy crossing nonetheless

Airlie Sunset

After lunch, we sailed back to Nara inlet for the night, as the weather forecast looked good for a visit to Tongue Bay and Whitehaven Beach the next day.

Sundown in lovely Nara

So, with the tide being right for our transit through the Hook Passage,  we managed the often turbulent passage easily, and picked up a mooring buoy in Tongue Bay, on the north east corner of Whitsunday island. We took the dinghy ashore, and walked up to the lookout platform on Tongue Point, which offers splendid views over the iconic Whitehaven Beach, down to the Solway Pass, which separates Hazlewood Island from Whitsunday Island.

Turbulent Hook Passage

  With the 5-6 mt tidal range, the tidal current created in the passages and passes, can be anything up to 5-6 knots!  The direction of these tidal streams also reverse with each change of tide, so keeping track of tides is the No 1 priority in the Log!  The flooding tide (incoming) generates a southerly stream, and ebbing tide, a northerly current. Tide against wind situations can produce nasty overflows, which can at times dangerous, and  should generally be avoided!

From Tongue Bay, we moved on around to anchor off the famous Whitehaven Beach for the day. I enjoyed (?) my first swim off the boat in Australian waters. After the Fijian waters, it felt like Clifton!

Sheer Tenacity at Whitehaven Beach

The winds were predicted to turn north overnight, so we waited for the slack tide to negotiate the Solway passage, so that we could anchor in Chance Bay, (protected from North winds), and from where we could make an early start to our journey back south.

Solway Passage

Chance Bay

 We decided to use the winds on offer, and elected to do a 180nm overnighter to Port Clinton. It is not a port at all! More like a muddy, mangrove swamp hideout full of bitey bugs!

Port Clinton

Reflections......amazing!!

Nevertheless, it gave us a nice peaceful night, before we set off back to Great Keppel Island, 50nm further south.

We enjoyed a couple of days there, and were able to change anchorages as and when the wind clocked around.

Free from the sea on the way to Bundy

When the wind turned Northerly again, we again did an overnighter to Bundaberg, where we hoped to talk to the Customs people about our Cruising Permit and Visa situation.  

Thankfully, the Director in Bundy reviewed our records and had no problem with extending our cruising permit for another year. We just needed to get past the 3^rd November expiry, so this really relieved our pressure! 

Life goes on in Mackay!

11/10/2016

 

Happy reunion with Steve and Chris

It’s been way too long since our last blog on 7^th July, when we were still in the dark about the nature and severity of Mary’s “skippity “heart problem!

Our first really good news was that Steve and Chris (our great sailing buddies from Scott Free), were going to fly up from Brisbane to spend a week with us boosting our dented morale! We must have sailed over 10 000 miles together, but our routes from Noumea separated, as we aimed for Bundaberg, with a 7^th December flight booked to RSA, and they had their hearts set on Sydney for New Years Eve!

We had loads to catch up together, not the least of which was their horrific night in Coffs Harbour Marina, which got smashed up all around them in an easterly storm, requiring them to leave the boat at 3.00am and spend the night in a police station! Luckily Scott Free lived up to her name, and escaped any damage!

Their company was obviously just what Mary needed, because her heart did not misbehave the entire week!

Mary's birthday prawn pig out

We hired a car and spent a rainy lunch time at the Eimeo Pacific Hotel…. a place which normally has a fantastic view!

We had better luck the next day, when we drove out to the Eungella National Park, to seek out the illusive platypus in the Broken River.

Beautiful view of the valley

 We managed to spot a few platypus, but needed the binoculars!!

On our return trip, we stopped at the Finch Hatton Gorge, to view some of the rainforest.

Kookaburra

All too soon the week flashed by, and Steve and Chris headed back to Scott Free in Brisbane. Mary’s heart then expressed its displeasure, and started up its nonsense again.. We had been advised to go directly to the Emergency section at the hospital “next time”.  Well, “next time” was Sat 9^th July, so we rushed off to the Mater Hospital PDQ! Mary was all plugged up in a flash, and the GP on duty diagnosed Atrial Fibrillation, which was confirmed by the Cardiologist on duty, Dr Kumar, who it turned out was “THE” specialist in that field! He prescribed some blood thinning injection and betablocker tablets immediately, and had Mary transferred into the ICU cardiac unit for monitoring.

Of some concern to us was the fact that the hospital would not accept our BUPA International Medical card, and required me to pay R23000 in advance, before she could be admitted. Australia is the very first country where we have experienced this problem. (Mary’s eye ops in RSA and NZ, plus my procedure in Tahiti, were all handled between Bupa and Service provider.)

Mary’s heart responded after 2 hours, and she was monitored for the next 24 hrs , before being discharged, with a whole new bunch of meds, and a much thinner wallet!

Back on the boat, we then set about getting back into our walking routines, and learning how to manage the “condition”. 

The walkway above the marina

Lovely beach walk

In fact, the first set of meds did not do the job, so Mary was put on another BB option. That worked a bit better, but it was not until Mary increased the dosage, and dropped her regular Amlopodine BP pills, that things really settled down.

We ended up spending 12 weeks in Mackay Marina. The Marina staff were fantastically supportive throughout. For example, every night while we were still trying to Catch a Fib on an ECG, they gave me a hire cars keys, just in case it happened when the office was closed. I would return the keys the next morning, with no charge. It was this service that enabled us to get Mary into the Mater at 5.30am on that Saturday. So a very big thank you to Jill and her team!

ARC boats all dressed up

During our time there, the ARC rally (16 boats) were coming through from Vanuatu and Noumea, in preparation for their next leg from Darwin to Mauritius, via Lombok (Indonesia), and Christmas Island. With 1 or 2 exceptions, we found them a rather snooty/cliquey bunch, very pleased with themselves, and their big, expensive, fully crewed boats.  I still thought we were the most striking boat on the marina, so we put up our biggest RSA flag, just to show we had sailed more miles than them…. And only 2 up!  

Another interesting neighbour was “Kayle”, an ex racing boat owned by an NGO called “SWD- Sailing With Disabilities”. Every day they did 3 trips, taking out disabled folk of all kinds, and ages, for a day of pure fun. All the crew were trained volunteers, giving up their time freely. Quite a humbling experience. I made a point of being on the finger to help them with dock lines whenever I could.

One weekend, the Offshore Formula 1 Racing event took place. There were 2 classes . 600HP, and 1000HP. There were in addition, 2 Maritimo boats which were Unlimited, doing practice runs for the World Offshore in Dubai.

 

Spectators on the breakwater

Mostly airborn

There were scheduled to be 3 x  30 minute races. Conditions however, were horrid. In fact the whole program was reduced to 6 minutes after the leading Maritimo 1000HP boat smashed up into 4 pieces, after a nosedive landing at 100mph. Luckily nobody was hurt. The event was cancelled pending better conditions, which failed to materialize.

A piece of wreckage is towed in
The following weekend saw a massive grandstand being erected on the beach, for the Annual Beach Horse racing Festival. Entrance tickets R250, Special box tickets R2500, and the Aussies love their betting!

We watched a bit from the side, and came to the conclusion that the best thing on show was the 1976 Volksie bus!

By this time Mary had not had a fib for 4 weeks, and we were itching to explore the Whitsundays before our ridiculous Medical visa expired on 1^st December! 

Mackay – Time for Big Decisions

29 June 2016

 

MacKay Marina has a tidal range of 5-6m

Daily walk

An unusual neighbour!

We made a doctor’s appointment for Mary on Friday morning, and left Dale to continue fitting the water pump without the assistance of his “appie”.

We hired “the Bommadore”, (a shagged out old Holden Commodore, aptly renamed by the Marina), and headed into the Caneland Medical Centre.  At this time, Mary’s erratic heartbeat was almost back to normal, but having listened to Mary’s history and experiences, the doc said that a 24hr monitoring Holter was the next step. This however involved joining a queue at the local hospital.  Once our cruising status was explained, the lovely young Doc managed to pull a few strings, at the Private (Mater) hospital, and Mary had the Holter monitor fitted on the Saturday, and removed on the Sunday.

The 24 hours tested, only included a few hops and skips, and none of the racing which was so alarming. Hopefully, we thought, the condition which triggers the erratic heart beat would be the same, and that the Cardiologist would be able to “read” the cause.

At 6.30am on the Monday, Mary woke up with the heart doing the racing number, so we hired the Bommodore and rushed her through to the doc asap. Once there, she saw the doc, and was rushed through to the treatment room to be hooked up the the ECG. At this point, her heart was beating at 200bpm.  Sadly however, the nursing sister made some error, and instead of saving the data, she managed to lose/delete it! Then by some quirk, Mary’s heart returned to normal, so when they took the next ECG reading, she was 100% OK!

The Sister was embarrassed, and we and the Doc somewhat annoyed, as this was the exact data that the Cardiologist needed to make the diagnosis. Mary was then sent off to have blood tests taken,  as certain liver and thyroid conditions can trigger the problem.

Since then Mary has had no further racing heart situations, and we are waiting for the results of the Holter and blood tests to be assessed and communicated to us. It is now Thursday morning, and we have not heard anything further from either the Cardiologist or the referring Doc. We are hoping that this implies that things are not too serious! The waiting is however very frustrating!

With all these issues, I decided to cancel the Indonesian rally, as we would never make the start in the first place, but more to the point, we had no wish to head off into the unknown without being 100% confident that Mary’s ticker was Ok. At the same time, I have also made the call that this is in fact the end of our Circumnavigation, and that we will NOT be sailing back over the Indian Ocean to RSA.

We have had 7 or 8 years of fantastic cruising , doing things and seeing places we would never have dreamed of when we set out. Health comes first, and it’s the right time to say “enough!”

Meantime, we have some great news! Chris and Steve,  of “Scott Free”, our good friends with whom we have sailed since Grenada, are flying up from Brisbane, to spend a week with us. This will help to take our minds off things while we mark time in the Marina waiting for Mary’s diagnosis and treatment program to begin. Steve’s son is getting married in Italy, and this is really messing up their seasons cruising plans as well, as they will be flying to Italy in 10 days! We have so much to share and catch up on since we were  together last November in Noumea!

And, while scribbling this update, we have just received a call asking us to make an appointment with the referring Doc, which we have done. Time to pack up and find out the news!

Sadly, it was a wasted appointment……all we ascertained was that the bloods were all fine and that Mary should now have an Echocardiogram.

This was done and still nothing abnormal has shown up!