Forecast, what forecast?

Shortly after dropping the pick in Horseshoe Bay we had a couple of visitors from another yacht, enquiring about the conditions, which had been lovely for sailing in, and bemoaning the fact that they had been waiting several days and could see no break within the next week.

The Bureau of Meteorology in Oz does an amazing job, and now that I am so much closer to the elements,only a couple of feet above the seasurface , and having spent time in SE Asia with forecasts that are laughable in comparison, I appreciate the Bureau  even more. The radar weather pictures  that are available,  the updated marine forecast,all excellent stuff, and a large percentage of it is absolutely accurate, however it is just that, a forecast.

Needless to say having just read all that, we awoke the next morning and there was no howling SE'ly, so we decided to poke around the corner and see what lay beyond the protection of the bay.
Plan A was to have look, plan B- turn tail and retreat if necessary, plan C , carry on.

We set off  after doing the washing, as the indication was for the wind to swing from the SE to the E or NE in the afternoon.

Nine hours later , having motored for only 3 of those, when the wind died completely before coming in from the East, we dropped the pick in the lee of Cape Bowling Green. Not a huge run (only 41 miles covered , but definitely not in a straight line) as we had gone east on the SE'ly wind and then used the change of wind to the East to make our southerly leg component.

We saw nobody else venturing out and yet  the conditions were in fact, quite pleasant. Sailing along and listening to the  first of the Ashes Test, series. Alas no fish!

Similarly the next morning the forecast was still pretty much the same . SE'ly in the morning swinging  E-NE before becoming  SE'ly again in the early hours of the following morning- by which time, we would ,of course, with my executive planning ability, be tucked up in a nice anchorage inside Upstart Bay!

So we headed East waiting for the wind change.This took us pretty well smack over the site of the SS Yongala -at 109m long, Australia's biggest and still the most intact, historical shipwreck. She was a passenger ship which sank during a cyclone in 1911.
Jo has dived on her, however it's still on my list of things to do, 'one day', when I have time, and that is despite living in FNQ for 11 years and it then being, "just down the road".

After the Easterly arrived, we were having a great sail, so good in fact, that when we intercepted by QWPS (Qld Water Police Service) just NE of Cape Upstart, it was too lumpy for them to board, so they tagged along off the aft quarter , whilst asking their questions, asking to see our flares,EPIRB and lifejackets.
As it was only 1400 it was too early to stop and only a few more hours (at the current speed) to Cape Edgecumbe , so I decided to carry on, we would be there just after 1900hrs at the latest after all, and there we could tuck up and wait for the SEly due in the early hours of the morning to blow through.

Wrong ,wrong ,wrong, oh how wrong that decision was!

Having gone past Cape Upstart , the wind started to die a little by little and by 1800 instead of being almost at Cape Edgecumbe, we were still north of Abbot Point and now being battered by 20-23 knots on the nose (of course) in sea conditions that although not uncomfortable , were certainly not pleasant.Wind versus current made for a very quick build up of a sea sate of a couple of meters. We were reefed right down and just continued to beat our way slowly southwards. Finally arriving in the bay in the lee of Cape Edgecumbe at 0115, after a record making, as opposed to breaking, 7 hours to get past Abbot Point.

Those last four tacks took 7 hours. What a breeze-literally!