Saturday 1 June 2013

Boydong Cays Lat. 11 degrees 29.1' S Long. 143 degrees 01.0' E

We copied our email to the Cairns Chart Agency to the blogsite (tiaretaporo3.blogspot.com) which contains details of the anchorage here. It certainly should be well capable of providing the respite we needed on the way to the top. It's a relief to find it is actually quite a reasonable anchorage as it's not in any of our cruising guides and we could not be absolutely sure. If it had proved otherwise, we would have had to carry on to Mt. Adolphous Is. (another 58 miles) which would have meant sailing tonight and arriving around 11 or midnight tonight. Not good arriving anywhere in the dark but Adolphous is a fairly easy approach so would be doable; the biggest problem would have been us and tiredness.
We had a good sail from Shelburne with the wind angle just tolerable for comfortable downwind sailing. The wind averaged 22-25 knots and the old girl fair hooned along achieving over 7 knots a lot of the time except for about an hour when we had to bring the wind dead astern (with a preventer on the main) to clear a reef which was inconveniently situated. Certainly the combination of double reefed main and the smaller genoa has proved to be a happy one in these conditions which might abate a little for tomorrow. But the wind is coming up again 24 hours later due to a low now in the Arafura Sea and then again as another huge high drifts slowly over the Great Australian Bight. This one is even more intense than the last one so sailing this coast will remain a challenge. At least by then hopefully we'll around the top and in Seisia.
Crossed fingers we hope that the watermaker keeps working - so far so good.
Boydong is a series of reefs within the Barrier Reef and 10 miles off the coast which is the usual flat featureless topography so typical of the Cape York Peninsula. And we are anchored just north of the largest of them. There is a lovely sand cay with azure blue water all around with patches of brown and light torquoise denoting reefs and shallow patches. We must be getting blase because it's all a bit ho-hum and we won't be going ashore because not enough time and it's more important to get some rest. The wind is still up around 20 knots and the wind generator is screaming around. Still it means we don't have to run the engine so much. None of these anchorages could be described as tranquil however. The wind still screams over the top of the cay.
That's it again for now; we're off at 6 am tomorrow. We're looking forward to Mt. Adolphous because it denotes the top of this pesky coast and it will be a good sheltered anchorage for once.
Lotsaluv from us
Jim and Jean xoxoxo

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