So here we are, half way round the world, almost ten years since we set off from France.

For me the joy of sailing and living on Escapade is as strong as ever.

For my patient wife Dawn, not so much.  

Dawn has spent the last couple of years wondering when I will finally tire of this lifestyle and be ready to sell the boat and move on to the next chapter of our lives.  

But I really cannot bear to think of life without the boat, without becoming very emotional.

This was always my dream, it miraculously came true.  

To buy a beautiful boat and sail over the horizon with no plan and no time pressure, what a wonderful idea!  The problem is that I still haven’t had a better one.

After 25,000 nautical miles or so Dawn started to feel that she had perhaps done enough ocean passage making.  Fair enough.  Our old routine of long two-handed trips was getting a bit tiring.  Sleep deprivation gets harder as you age and for the first time ever, Dawn started to get seasick. 

So we adjusted our approach, I started to sail passages with a crew, so Dawn could come and join us for as much of the voyage as she chose, or just enjoy the island-hopping parts and take a plane over the next patch of ocean to be crossed.  This works well, Dawn is becoming what salty old yachties call a ‘FIFO’ wife (Fly-In-Fly-Out).  It’s not uncommon.

May 1st 2024

Since January Escapade has been safely tied up in a marina berth in Hope Island, up a river on the Gold Coast.  Many thanks to Ros and Roddie and David who organised that for us, it was a safe place for her to wait for the end of cyclone season. 

Which is now! May 1st. 

So here’s the plan. Dawn and I will spend two months sailing from Brisbane to Cairns, about 900 miles of amazing coastline, islands and reef. 

The pilot charts promise mellow autumn weather, nothing but steady SE trades and easy downwind sailing.  I start to think that this could be the trip that makes Dawn really fall back in love with the Escapade life.

No long passages, it can all be done as easy day-sails between calm and picturesque anchorages.  No gnarly weather, no sailing to windward, no night watches.  Once we’re past Gladstone we will be protected by the Great Barrier Reef from the wild Pacific.  A holiday in the Whitsunday Islands, snorkelling the reefs, she’s going to love it!  

May 4th

So looking back on the last few days, it’s disappointing to have to report that we had to sail non-stop for a tiring 30 hour trip which ended with us abandoning a very tough beat to windward and running for cover in 30kt winds to the muddy brown river at Bundaberg, where we have since been stuck in a rainstorm for 2 days. 

Given the aforementioned good intentions, one can only gasp at the level of poor management and bungled decision making by the skipper responsible.

We could see there was some bad weather coming but we really wanted to get started, otherwise we could be stuck in Moreton Bay for a week or more.  Now there’s nothing wrong with Moreton Bay, but we did spend a couple of weeks exploring there over New Year, eating the local oysters and Moreton Bay Bugs, then got hit by a historic thunderstorm which caused lots of damage on the Gold Coast, they are still talking about it.  In our case it meant 58 kts of wind across a crowded anchorage one scary night. 

So anyway, we planned to get out of Moreton Bay before more rain arrived.  We were headed for Fraser Island, which apparently has lovely anchorages on its western shore.  But to get there you have to cross the Wide Bay Bar, which needs careful tide timing.

I had planned to sail to the beautiful lagoon anchorage at Double Island Point to wait for the right tide to cross.  It looks amazing, a flat shallow lagoon inside a sandbar with lovely surf rolling down the outside.

But on the way there I found out (from Facebook) that the sandbar has now completely enclosed the lagoon and you can’t get in.  So with a rising swell we would now be anchoring on a surf beach!  Ok, no Double Island Point, and so no Wide Bay Bar crossing.  Anyway it would have been too rough to cross.  So now we are going to sail around the outside of Fraser Island, clear all the shoals to the North and sail back down to the sheltered leeward side.  That’s a 250 mile trip, to be sailed overnight.  The next morning the wind started to blow from the south.  So we never did get to Fraser Island.  We dodged some nasty rain systems which gave us 30+ knots and a sleigh-ride final approach to the industrial river port of Bundaberg.  Where we have been sitting in a giant white rain squall ever since.

This weather better change soon or there’s a strong risk that my FIFO will FO.

May 5th

Well the forecast looked a bit better so we braved the surf of the Burnet River entrance and bore off for a very fast 70 mile broad reach to Bustard Head.  Only one major rain squall on that trip. 

Our final approach was exciting as I was hand steering down swells aiming for a gap between a rock and a sandbar that marks the entrance to Pancake Creek.

The boat was flying, double reefed main and jib, long sustained surfs at 15 to 20 kts!  We rolled up the jib to slow down a bit, shot through the gap and rounded up behind the headland to drop the main.  The SOG had topped out at 23kts.

Pancake Creek was a sanctuary of flat (as a pancake) water protected by sandbanks.  The next morning we took the dinghy ashore to hike to the lighthouse.  First time ashore for a week!

It started raining as we dragged the boat up the beach, hike cancelled, back to boat.  Rain didn’t stop for 24hrs.

May 6th

Another hop north to Cape Capricorn.  So named as it sits almost on the Tropic of Capricorn.  We counted down the seconds of latitude as we crossed the line into the tropics.

May 7th

Today we sailed in the sunshine, what a treat.  A mere 28 miles to Great Keppel Island.  A lovely spot. 

May 10th

So we enjoyed Great Keppel, went ashore and hiked the bush trails, with seats provided at every lookout. 

Then it got wet and windy again.  For 3 days.

May 12th

Arrived in the Percy Islands via Island Head Creek and Hunter Island.  

We’re now anchored in the beautiful West Bay on Middle Percy.  Home to the ‘Middle Percy Yacht Club’ which is a timber A-frame on the beach where yachts have been leaving their mark for decades. 

A sociable BYO sundowner spot for the anchored boats. 

May 14th

Curlew Island, another lovely speck off the Queensland coast, uninhabited except for a few goats.  

Then a brisk 50ish miles to the harbour at Mackay.  Slalom through the 50 Bulk Carriers anchored off the coal port.

Quick pitstop here to re-provision.  I was tempted to take my wing foil gear to the beach by the marina, but this was a bit off-putting:

May 17th

We’re in the Whitsundays!

It’s not raining.

In fact it’s starting to feel like the dreamy tropical boat life at last.  We’re alone in a huge bay at Gaibirra (AKA Shaw Island).  Flat calm water while the breeze whistles over the hill.

We are in a wonderful wilderness, the whole island is a national park, the water is the clearest we have seen yet.  There are large turtles surfacing all around us to have a good look as they take a breath.

Stingrays sunbathing in the shallows.

A deserted paradise.

By the way, we have been snacking on this extraordinary thing.  The fruit of the Monstera Deliciosa plant.

As it ripens, the hard hexagonal plates fall off, revealing the sweet custardy fruit cells.  Jungle pudding.

I have been winging for the first time since we left the Gold Coast.  

Last night the wind died and I was enjoying the quiet of the bay after dinner.  First a splash and a gasp, then several more.  We are surrounded by dugongs in the moonlight.  

In the last three weeks we have sailed 660 miles from the Gold Coast, not all in ideal conditions, and at times exasperated by the weather, but yes, we are actually having fun now.