Lindeman and Hamilton Islands

We had a pleasant enough sail to Lindeman Island, and then some amusement trying to find an anchorage that would protect us from the SE wind and the persistent SW swell. Lucas' cruising guide was a bit vague, with some clear inaccuracies on his chart, but we decided to try his recommended anchorage of Boat Point anyway.

Once there, we took the dinghy to shore and found a delightful little beach, very muddy but full of life - hermit crabs and snails underfoot, cockatoos and lorikeets above, scattered with attractive mangroves.


THE MUD FLATS AT BOAT POINT, LINDEMAN ISLAND


SOME OF THE WILDLIFE IS A LITTLE STRANGE

A National Parks trail clearly led around the island, and although we didn't have time right then - the tide was coming in and the dinghy was quite far out on the mud flats - we thought that it would be great to come back here later in the week.


FETCH THE DINGHY, WOMAN, AND BE QUICK ABOUT IT


PINDIMARA SUNSET

The anchor set well and the land gave us protection from the wind, but the SW swell continued to roll in and throw us around. It wasn't very pleasant. We took to sleeping crosswise across the cabin, which was much more comfortable but not ideal as there is only just enough width.

Early next morning we motored round to the other side of the island to try to get out of the swell. We found a suitable bay to eat breakfast - toasted bagels and cream cheese, fresh avocados - but the sea was still disturbed even though not overtly swelly. Some of this was likely attributable to the 20+ knot winds.

Now a fast run to Hamilton Island Airport to pick up Mikayla, with whom we will spend a week circumnavigating the Whitsundays. Conditions were a bit gnarly, with washing-machine swells and 30 knot gusts, but it meant that we got there pretty quickly and picked up the biggest mooring rope from the biggest mooring buoy I have ever seen. The rope was so big that it wouldn't fit around our deck cleat, so I had to quickly make an extension for it.

It was a bit of a wild ride across to the airport because the moorings are on the opposite side of the channel, up against neighbouring Dent Island, and the wind was still blowing nicely.

Wandering around waiting for the plane, I was bemused by all the holidaymakers decanting from nose-to-tail flights and piling into golf carts. There were golf carts everywhere! When Mikayla had arrived and we were walking back to the marina where I had tied up the dinghy, we were passed by streams of them on their way to their hotels. We got some strange looks; it's the Club Med set, and they obviously don't get many pedestrians in Hamilton.

The water in the channel to Dent Island was still running pretty fast on the way back and we got a bit of spray into the dinghy, but the scariest thing was watching Pindimara bucking around and flinging from side to side in some huge surf. Now we could see why they'd over-engineered the mooring buoy. Poor Bronwyn was inside trying to cook lunch.

On the way over, we'd noticed that one of the smaller free public buoys had become available, and that the water was much calmer mid-channel, so we let go our marina buoy and motored over to the other one, not only making everything so much calmer, but also saving ourselves an overnight fee.