Year One
Date: 25/6/2008 18:00
Weather: Clear and warm, windy
Location: Goldsmith Island 20'40 23S, 149'08 94E
Author: Peter

The three of us now find ourselves island hopping about every 3rd day. The sailing between islands is ridiculously short so we seem to go everywhere just under a headsail. Nothing is more than two hours away. Down in Tassie, cats were rare, so rare we were wondering for a long time if they even existed down there. In Queensland however it is a very different story. We are the odd ones out. We are always out numbered in anchorages and the last two nights we were the only mono hull. This helps give me more confidence when considering that if I build another boat it will be a cat.

We ended up spending two nights at Scawfell Island but it is so nice I know we will be stopping there on the way back down. After leaving Scawfell we sailed a leisurely 20nm across the waves (a little rolly) to Brampton Island (20'48 00S, 149'15 78E). Brampton Island is mainly national park except for the small area taken up by the resort (not sailor friendly) and the air strip. The anchorage itself, although protected did not have the spectacular beach and views that we had left behind, so that afternoon we decided to go for a walk up to the top of Mount Brampton and were rewarded with scenic views of Turtle Bay and the surrounding islands.
The veiw from the lookout

Eugene and Peter

Along the path we were greeted by large groups of butterflies. Four different kinds could be found at any time along with one that was the same as the one Kylie and I released on our wedding day.



I think we paused a little to long to play with the butterflies as dad was now long gone and well on his way up the hill. On the way back down we got a little lost and ended up in the resort, which looks really nice if you are interested.

The following morning while I went for a snorkel, dad took off to walk the island loop. An 8.7km walk. Two and half hours later he was relating to us how much better it was than the previous days walk so that one will go on our list of things to do on the way back down. The snorkeling near the jetty was ok for fish life but once again the coral was a little silted over.

After a quick two hour headsail run between Linne and Goldsmith Islands we find ourselves now anchored at Goldsmith island. Once again National park but not quite as nice as Scawfell. Kylie has banned me from swimming today in an attempt to help some of my scrapes to heal so today after some shell collecting (not very productive) we played Boules on the beach. A game dad seems to be very good at. The coral seems to be clean from the duck so I'll have a closer look tomorrow.

Sorry to hear the weather back down south is grey and cool. Its a lovely sunny mid twenties up here except there is a little wind (20 Knots) but when out of it, say on the beach, it is glorious and we still have turtles swimming by all the time.

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