Airlie Beach and Whitsunday Island 7th - 24th June 2026

 Airlie Beach and Whitsunday Island 7th - 24th June 2026

Cid Harbour from Whitsunday Peak

It has been a while since I have written a blog because not a lot of interesting things have happened. The weather has been fairly average, with us finding ourselves hiding from strong SE winds and gusty showers. So much for "Paradise"! We started out anchored at Airlie outside the Coral Coast Marina where there is adequate protection from the winds, but it can get a good old roll up on Olivia as the winds turn more east. At least we had a good opportunity to purchase fresh stores, do the laundry, research marinas at Airlie and Hamilton Island ready for Karin and Paul and kids visit and catch up with friends. We discovered Greg and Alana anchored further in the bay. They are a Townsville couple that we befriended in the Breakwater Marina and we all adjourned to the Fat Frog cafe nearby for coffee and cake. Very nice too!

After a week at Airlie we found that the weather was going to become even windier so we decided to leave Airlie and go to Cid Harbour, a natural harbour on the west side of Whitsunday Island. On the way Peter talked me into trying Bauer Bay on South Molle Island for a night or two. Very nice island, beautiful walks, scenic - but dreadful in strong winds. The southerly howls around Spion Kop and The Horn, two steep hills to our south east, that have the ability to send strong bullets of wind hurtling through the anchorage. The trouble with that is these two hills seem to be able to save up the wind so everything stands calm and quiet until all of a sudden the wind spills over and comes hurtling down the slopes. It whacks into the anchorage sending boats to the end of anchor warps pulling, stretching, creaking and juddering, then when you think that you will find yourself in the next bay it all stops and you have still, silence!! The trouble is it is all about to repeat the performance..... again and again.... all night long! Oh, and throw in a bit of rolling as by now the sea has built and a rolly slop is coming around the point. I had a 'hissy fit' and we headed for Cid Harbour early the next morning.

View south from South Molle Island

Cid  was a good choice for the weather. It is calm and quiet even though the wind is still strong at times. We enjoy watching the other boats and there was about 25-30 anchored there most nights. Many are bare boat charters that are rented by people with varying degrees of yachting ability and it is interesting to watch the anchoring antics of novices. Try anchoring with a sail up in the strong winds. Hmmm! Or you can watch a beautiful yacht begin to disappear out of the bay as those aboard don't realise you need much more warp out than just enough to let the anchor hit the bottom, especially in strong winds.

There are two  lovely walks from Cid Harbour. A short 1km walk to Dugong Bay camp site and a longer much more challenging walk up to the summit of Whitsunday Peak, 437m of steep track and many steps. We walked to Dugong each day in order to get in touch with the outside world via internet connection. It is sporadic at best in Cid Harbour without Starlink. Peter trecked up Whitsunday Peak twice, but not me this time. My dodgy knees could not manage that now. 

Dugong Bay

We met up with Greg and Alana and a couple they had on board again in Cid. We invited them to Olivia for drinks and nibbles one evening and had a very funny evening being entertained by Greg and his stories about his cholo-rectal surgery. Could there be anything more funny than this?? We didn't think so then. By the way if you want to hear a very funny song look up the 'Cholo- Rectal Surgeons Song' on line. If laughing does you good, we did lots of it that night.

One day at Dugong Beach we met a group of people who had kayaked from Mackay and were on their way to Bowen. We had a good chat with a couple of them and they had had some big seas up to 3m on their way. They thought they would not make Bowen as time was running out and the weather was causing problems. Another day a barge turned up and unloaded a bunch of young teenage school kids and teachers who were on a canoeing camp. They all seemed to be having a lot of fun. 

Check out the little sails

After five days in Cid, the wind eased and we made our way back to South Molle Island for one calm night and walked two of the loveliest walks in the Whitsundays. The cyclone ravaged resort has still not been cleaned up and lies in ruins along the northern shore. Such a pity. It was a really nice resort.

From the top of Spion Kop

We are now back at Airlie Beach and we have booked ourselves into the Coral Coast Marina for two nights when Karin and Paul and kids get here and also two nights at Hamilton Island Marina. They are here for nine nights and the first one will be in a resort. We have organised to be four nights in marinas and four nights anchored out. It should be fun even though Elliot has a moon boot on his foot having just recently broken two bones there horsing about in the lounge at home!!

We have decided to stay anchored outside the Coral Coast Marina at Airlie for the next few days as the wind is forecast to be strong again. We found a spot closer in this time, so it is not so far to dinghy ashore in the choppy conditions. We can walk, visit the cafe, and laze about. Just what we are here for.

Saw this at the shopping centre car park.

Magnetic Island to Airlie Beach Monday 1st June to Sunday 7th June 2026

The first week of June has seen us make the break from Townsville, south to Airlie Beach. Remarkably we had the best run south possible with winds in the northerly sector for the duration of our journey. Our tenure in the Breakwater Marina expired on Sunday 31st May do we decided to sail over to Horseshoe Bay for the night and leave from there. The budget had already maxed out on marina fees for the month. Peter set the alarm for 4am as our first stop would be Cape Upstart some 67nm away. We like to arrive in daylight so an early start was necessary. As usual when anticipating an early start the body clock runs on overdrive and we were wide awake at 2.30am, so decided to have a coffee and left Horseshoe Bay in bright moonlight, with no wind, at 3am. What a magnificent night. It was like daylight, the moon was so bright.

After passing Cape Cleveland we encountered a 10-12kt westerly breeze that took us past Cape Bowling Green, with both sails up, at a boat speed of 6-7kts. Just delightful! I have only seen Cape Bowling Green in daylight once, as we have often sailed overnight from Gloucester Passage when travelling north. The day was beautiful, so we had a good view of the longest sand spit in Australia. How long can a sandspit be? As long as Cape Bowling Green! According to Google it is a narrow, 14km long, low sand spit that forms the eastern boundary of Bowling Green Bay. There is no vehicle access and boating is difficult because of the constantly shifting sand bars and shallow water. However I can  say that it is not that interesting, except for the fact that it is long... and it was a beautiful day.

The wind dropped to 0kts after Cape Bowling Green and we completed the rest of the journey by engine.  We anchored in Shark Bay on the northern side of Cape Upstart at 4pm having sailed about half of the way and motored the rest. Two other yachts joined us and just as it was getting very dark the moon rose over the vast bulk of the mountain in front of us and bathed us in bright moonlight. Cape Upstart is the exact opposite of Bowling Green. Very rugged and mountainous. 

The second of June saw us motoring through the Port Authority control area for the Abbot Point coal loading facility. Two ships were on the jetty loading and four were anchored off waiting for their turn. After motoring on south we decided to stop in at Queens Bay off Grey's Beach, Bowen, for a lunch break. It is a very pretty bay, but affected by swell. As we ate our lunch a light northerly breeze sprang up and it was obvious that this was not a good place for an overnight stop. Up came the anchor and we set off for Gloucester Passage. As the wind was still a light northerly we decided to rent a mooring off the Cape Gloucester Resort for the night. It was comfortable there, but I'm glad the northerly remained light as it did get quite bumpy during the night. $40 per night entitled us to showers at the resort, rubbish disposal, use of swimming pool and access to the bar/restaurant.

Nara Inlet 3rd and 4th June

We were going to stay at Gloucester Passage for two nights, but the northerly breeze persisted so we decided to motor through the Passage to Nara Inlet. We had a good sail to Hook Island in the Whitsunday's where we anchored in outer Nara Bay for two nights. The wind stayed in the north for  both nights we had there.  Then it was forecast to turn SW/SE so after exploring the whole inlet we sailed over to Airlie Beach and anchored outside the mooring area off Abel Point, along with most of the other anchored boats.

Nara Inlet is beautiful. It is narrow with the steepest mountains of the Whitsundays surrounding it.  The hillsides around the bay are covered with dense forest with patches of magestic pine trees covering the them.  Luckily there was only about 30 boats in there while we were there and still plenty of room for more. It is not high tourist season here yet. That apparently that is July/August. We took the dinghy and explored the whole bay. There are some amazing weathered rocks here that take on all sorts of unusual shapes, some are like caves, some like mouths and even a couple of toadstools. Where the rock has weathered away the shapes left are pure white and look quite startling amongst the grey of the original rock and the green of the dense vegetation.

We climbed up to the Aboriginal Rock Shelter and looked at the rock paintings, mainly fish traps and some jellyfish looking things. There were plaques which explained the history of the last 9 000 years which was interesting. We saw a dugong near us and a large school of fish near the entrance of the bay. People watching is always interesting and as we were close to the entrance of the bay nearly everyone motored past us as we sat with our late afternoon drinks and watched the procession with interest.

Airlie Beach 5th June

We are now at Airlie Beach and will stay here for a few days as the forecast is for some rain and stronger winds from the S/SE. This is a reasonably good anchorage for the expected winds, some of which are forecast to be strong. Early on Saturday morning we had a gust of 30.8kts. Just a bit too strong for my liking. However not long after that the wind eased and we decided to go ashore  for some R&R.

PHOTOS WILL BE ADDED AT A LATER DATE - NEED HELP WITH DOWNLOADING FROM MY MOBILE PHONE. THERE ARE SOME NICE ONES OF NARA INLET.

Magnetic Island Week Two and Back to Townsville, 21st to 31st May 2026

 Magnetic Island Week Two and Back to Townsville, 21st to 31st May 2026

We spent another week anchored in Horseshoe Bay planning walks and exploring the whole island,  catching up with old friends, trying out the cafes and celebrating my birthday.  We took full advantage of the $1 all day bus pass. Our favourite eateries were the Arcadia Bakehouse with the best pastries, pies filled baguettes, bread and cakes. Unfortunately we only discovered this little gem on our second last day - or maybe that was a good thing as we would probably been a kilo or two heavier as a result. There is a lovely cafe (Restaurant Elsie??) in Picnic Bay on the opposite end of the Esplanade to the hotel. It is at the front of the arcade that the Brewery is in. Adele's Cafe in Horseshoe Bay has the best icecreams, I could probably say anywhere, and they serve very nice coffee. Adele's is right next to the bus stop so we indulged frequently when waiting for the bus.

Liz's birthday parmy at the Horseshoe Bay Pub. Yum, but didn't eat for 24 hours!!

After a fortnight here we did most of the walks and Peter did all of them. My knees drew a blank at the hill top walk from Horseshoe to Nelly Bay over the range. Ten km of mountain goat track pulled me up. Also the track from Horseshoe to Balding and Radical Bays is too steep and rocky for me and my tattered cartilages.  They are beautiful bays, but can be visited easily by boat in good weather.

The Billabong Walk in Horseshoe Bay beckoned again and this time we walked around the wetland by road, through the suburb and came back from the other direction. We met a local who told us about the Noni trees on the southern side of the lake. They are beautiful leafy trees with unusual fruit on them. Apparently they are an acquired taste something like a cross between smelly cheese and vomit (Google) so I'm thinking that is one best left for starvation mode. Apparently it is considered a medicine tree by the Aboriginals. 

Noni Trees   Morinda Citrifolia

I saw an Osprey catch a fish right in front of me. We had just come ashore early one morning and while Peter was 'having a chat' the bird flew down and snatched a fish out of the water. I have seen them carrying a fish in their talons, but never the act of catching one before. He had to work to gain height and fly off.

We finally saw koalas on the Forts Walk. Our necks ached from constant scoping the trees, so when we reached the last steep steps to the top and the remnants of the Forts, I elected to sit on a convenient seat and wait for Peter to come back. After a while some French tourists rocked up and began pointing and whispering about 10m from where I was sitting. There were the koalas! Two of them! sleeping in the gum tree! How did we miss them? Must have been too busy deciding not to attempt the steps.

My goal for walking has been at least 5km per day, which I have achieved easily. Some days I've managed 8km. Peter is the hero. He does much more than that and isn't happy unless he does 10km. We have solved the problem of the disparity by me using the island buses for part of the journey.

We have just spent four days in the Breakwater Marina in Townsville fueling up, topping up the water, cleaning, washing and shopping. I have had a very nice haircut. Peter should have had one! We also had lunch with Peter's sister Amanda, who took me to the hairdresser afterwards and yesterday had lunch  with his brother Clive, at the yacht Club. Both were very enjoyable occasions, except that Clive's wife Virginia had a very bad coughing bug so couldn't join us.

We are now back in Horseshoe Bay. The weather is gorgeous. Warm days, cool nights and lots of blue sky. There has been many days now of little wind and as this situation is continuing, along with some light northerlies and westerlies thrown in, we are leaving tomorrow morning, 4am, to go south to Cape Upstart and then on to Gloucester Passage and the Whitsundays. 

PS There will be some nice photos coming when we can get them from my phone onto this computer!!!! (Bad Words!!!)

Olivia III Sailing Season 2026

 Townsville to Magnetic Island

Townsville from Castle Hill

Welcome to Peter and Liz's 2026 sailing season. I have been here in Townsville for nearly two weeks and the weather has been beautiful. Sometimes it is a little windy, but that means refreshing breeze to keep me cool. After a problem free flight on the midnight horror from Perth to Townsville, settling into life on Olivia III continued where I left off in October 2025. Peter and friends, Robyn and Dave, sailed Olivia from Cairns to Townsville as I ran out of time and had to return to Albany. Now I am back on board and loving it.

Whilst in Townsville Peter has been working hard for the last month taking care of maintenance. He has replaced the packing gland on the rudder stock, replaced filters and oil on main motor and outboard, had the bottom of the boat rubbed down to remove growth and greased the prop, lubricated all the metal motor and rudder mounting areas, checked the inverter and refrigeration system to ensure they were working, fitted the mainsail (removed due to cyclone season), inflated the dinghy and many other necessary jobs. Olivia is now ship shape and ready to go. There seemed to be quite a bit of socialising involved as well.  Amanda and Peter picked me up at the airport and she dropped us at the marina where I conked out for the afternoon. 

We spent a week stocking up on food, washing clothes, sheets, towels etc and catching up with friends and family and generally having a lovely time. During this first week the wind blew freshly from the SE and it was perfect for a pleasant life in the marina. We, along with other boaties from the marina, gathered at the new Marina Cafe most days for coffee and on Friday evenings for dinner. It is such a great spot for good food and catching up. Keeping an eye on the weather forecast informed us that there was a quiet few days with little wind at the end of my first week so we took the chance and motor sailed to Horseshoe Bay on Magnetic Island.

Our land transport. We have one each.

We love this island. There are scenic walks with varying degrees of difficulty, many coffee shops and restaurants, old friends to catch up with and places of interest to explore. A new experience for us was the discovery of gigantic clams in White Lady Bay, which is on the eastern side of Horseshoe Bay. Spring tides meant that the reef was more exposed than usual and as we slowly and carefully made our way over the rocks and decomposing coral to the waters edge' we discovered these massive creatures clustered together in a rock pool at the edge of the low tide mark. I was reminded of a story we had in Primary School about a pearl diver who got his foot stuck in one while he was diving for pearls. Peter informs me that that was just a myth and didn't happen. There goes another of my childhood beliefs.

 

Massive clam shells in White Lady Bay

They are alive and well

Adrian and his wife are still proprietors of Adele's Cafe on the Horseshoe Bay waterfront and they still do the best coffee on the island and I can't go past their amazing display of locally made ice-cream. I make myself do at least a 5km walk before I earn the right to indulge myself. The rum 'n raisin, strawberry icecream and passionfruit sorbet are delicious. 

We have met friends on the beach in the evening for a BBQ. John and Lizette and their teenage daughter are anchored behind us in the bay along with another young lady who is now a companion for their daughter who was complaining about missing her friends. She seems much happier now and is looking forward to exploring far north Queensland and adventuring into Indonesia in the near future. 

Today we walked into the bush behind the low sandhill along the shore of Horseshoe bay to observe the bird life in the billabong there. Unfortunately some time ago a decision was made to open the bar on the small creek in Horseshoe Bay and let the salt water into the billabong. Locals tell us that this action has caused many of the paperbark trees that are living in the wetland to die. In places it looks devastated, however there is signs of regeneration so hopefully no-one does that again. The main lake has recovered and is now full of reeds and new growth. If left to its own devices nature knows best.

Horseshoe Bay Wetlands

We are now looking forward to another week of idleness here and then a last trip into the Breakwater Marina in Townsville to restock, launder and a last catch up with relatives and friends before venturing south to the Whitsunday Islands for more exploring.

Recovering wetlands