Great Sandy Island

Sunset over Great Sandy Is.

Since it was a short distance to our next stop over, Great Sandy Island at 12 miles, we started a little later from Port Weld, at 9am. Using the time to cook up a good breakfast (bacon & eggs) and do a spot of fishing. A juicy looking fish fell off the line just as I was hauling him in…

As usual the sail was brisk in the beginning then the wind started to fade with 5 miles to go. Then the 1-1/2 knot current really slowed us down. 2-1/2 hours to complete the final 5 miles. We anchored in as close as feasible, 100m from the shoal, but as the tide lowered, rocks started to appear, everywhere, only 60m from Ashiki, and we had 30m of anchor chain out and hadn’t swung that way yet, as we surely would in the morning with an Easterly. 30m of anchor rode means a 60m diameter swinging circle, might put us on one of those rocks! I asked Susie to drop the dinner preparations and come help re-anchor the boat. She winched up the anchor and we motored a further 200m out, dropped it in 7m, the SARCA dug in and we were good for the night.

We didn’t do our onshore exploration, it was a long row to get to it, and it didn’t look that interesting, no idea why it was given that name either. It was mostly bush and weed. But the next day we had 50 miles to make Montebello, and if the winds do their normal doldrums at lunch time we wouldn’t make it before sunset, unless we set of at 1am in the morning. If the wind swings to the east at that time and is strong enough, we would be pounded awake anyway. Thus we set the alarm and hit the sack at 6:30pm