Great Barrier Reef

Testing out the Snorkel Gear

After a year of hiking.....not diving, we decided it was time to get back in the water.

Lion Friend Sue Takes Us on a Rainforest Hike

We've been wanting to do some diving out at the Great Barrier Reef, but didn't want to hassle taking Worrall Wind out of her slip. Anchoring in this area can be tricky because of the bombes (coral heads).  Russ and I signed up for a three day dive trip on the Anaconda III, a large sloop.  As it turned out, even the Anaconda had some difficulty and lost its main anchor.

We boarded the Anaconda on a Friday night and sailed out to Blue Pearl Bay on the backside of Hayman Island. We were probably the oldest guests on board, but it didn't matter.  We met some wonderful people from around the world on this ship.  The captain and crew were delightful and made our trip fun and relaxed.  Photos below are of the Skipper and his crew.

In the morning, we had our first dive.  Saw some great fish, including a giant wrassse that was very curious about us.  Russ and I were side by side, and the wrasse was right under Russ.  If he dropped his legs down he would have been riding the guy.  Since it was our first dive, I didn't have the new camera out yet.  I wanted to spend my time re-familiarizing myself with my dive gear first.

After our dive, we headed out to the Great Barrier Reef.

We snorkeled at Hardy Reef.  The reef extends for miles.  Dropped off at the top of the reef, the current carried us back to the mother ship.  Snorkeling turned out to be a better option than diving.  The water clarity on top was better than the diving clarity below.  Here are some photos.

We opted out of the next two dives, the night dive and the dawn dive, but did do a mid morning dive at Bait Reef.  We swam through some lovely coral head canyons and saw some fish, but nothing as lovely as the day before.

This is where the anchor got stuck, and we had to leave it behind.  The skipper and crew were quite disappointed.  That's a big investment of chain and anchor sitting on the ocean floor.

On  Sunday we sailed back to the Whitsunday Islands where we dove again later in the afternoon at Luncheon Bay and then found a mooring at Stonehaven Bay.

Due to our lack of anchor ability, our plans to spend the night at Whitehaven beach had changed.  The following morning we motor sailed to Tongue Bay where we could pick up another mooring.  Cruisers hiked over the rise to get the spectacular view of Hill Inlet and then enjoyed a day walking in the beautiful white silica sand.  We sadly then headed back to the mainland, enjoying a great sail.

Russ enjoying someone else raising the sails.

We returned to Airlie Beach on Monday afternoon, had a fabulous curry dinner prepared by Lion friends, Harry and Faye, and their friends Suzette and Adrian.

On Tuesday, we prepared Worrall Wind for departure, rinsing and stowing the dive gear, provisioning, bar-b-quing meats for passage salads, laundry, stowing, folding up the port note, putting on Hydie's wind vane rudder, putting up the jack lines, finding our life vests, gloves, harnesses, checking the weather, and working on the this blog to get it posted before we no longer had cell reception.  We had dinner on Tuesday evening with Russ's sailing buddies.  I will post these photos at a later date.


Wednesday, September 19.  We are going to the fuel dock within the next hour to top off our tanks then starting our voyage south to Brisbane.  There will be spotty cell reception along the coastal islands.  You can follow our progress by watching SPOT.  We hope to make it back south in a couple of weeks.  The winds are not favorable in this direction, so we we may be motoring if there are no winds or hanging out in sheltered bays if the wind and waves are too much on our bow.  It's all about the journey.  Good Bye Airlie Beach and Whitsundays.  Cheers!

All is Well with the 2 Sail R's on SV Worrall Wind