June 17, 2012 – Portland Roads to Margaret Bay (46 NM)

Well, it can't all be sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, now can it? If so then life would be incredibly boring.

We are no longer enjoying peaceful nights of slumber in still anchorages. The night in Portland Roads was pitchy and tolerable but not pleasant. Today's trip isn't very far – just 46 miles, so we waited until 7:45 to depart.  Right away we threw up the sails and away she went. Destiny enjoyed a very nice day of skimming over the water. In fact a few times throughout the day we had to reef in. Things were going along smoothly until Frank noticed that water was seeping into the bilge when he turned on the watermaker. It appeared to be just a trickle but leaking water is not generally a welcome sight on a boat. He began methodically tracking the trail of the trickling water to find a breach in the pressure hose. He said it looked as though it had been worn through by rubbing against the bulkhead. He enlarged the opening and then set to trying to stave the leak until we can get a replacement hose in Darwin. Thankfully we have ½ of a tank of water and should make it OK.  Frank, however, cannot stand to leave this challenge untackled and immediately placed the thinking cap firmly onto his head.

Back to sailing, we flew past several of the boats that had left earlier than us making us very proud of our big girl. She was on her favorite point of sail and was showing off just a bit.  Once set, we didn't have to touch the sails again until we neared our destination. This gave Frank plenty of opportunity to experiment with fixing our hose.  I cannot bear to watch him in this mode because he becomes a driven man and very unsociable so I have learned to leave him to it and to stay well out of the way. I finished re-reading and thoroughly enjoying "The Power of One" while keeping an eye out for traffic and watching the stunning coastline pass by. It just gets prettier and prettier and more remote.

We had no drama approaching Margaret Bay, but as we rounded the point we were stunned at the beauty of this large, magnificent bay. My gosh, the sand is so white I desperately wanted to go ashore. All around us were miles and miles of stark white sand beach.  I commented to Frank that Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays has got nothing on Margaret Bay. This place is far more stunning, but of course we could not walk the beaches because the damnable crocs have taken over and made it theirs.  The whole bay is very shallow and so we anchored well offshore of the beach so far in fact that I couldn't take a decent photo. We'll have to remember this one in our mind's eye.