More Whitsundays and Airlie Beach 25th June to 9th July 2026

Another monster. This time in Macona Inlet

We have spent more than a month in the Whitsunday Islands and Airlie Beach area. I feel we now know this part of the Queensland Coast really well and we have explored a few places we have not been to before such as Macona Inlet and Maureen's Cove on Hook Island. The main reason we have spent such a long time here is that Karin, Paul and kids are holidaying with us for ten days and we thought this was a good area to explore with them.

Unfortunately the weather has been drizzly and windy for much of the time and even the locals are complaining. However, we are keeping our fingers crossed as the forecast for the first half of the Mitchell's visit looks promising for fine, mild weather. Later this morning we are going into the Coral Coast Marina at Airlie Beach to prepare for the their visit.

Over the last two weeks we have been sheltering in Pioneer Bay from annoyingly inclement weather and exploring Airlie Beach and Cannonvale. The SACAS (Self Appointed Coffee Appreciation Society) has been resurrected, while sheltering from drizzly weather in one of the local cafes. We have found three very pleasant cafes which have each received high scores out of 10. Firstly the Sister's Corner Cafe in central Airlie on the main street. It has good coffee, an elevated outdoor dining area that is interesting for crowd watching, great service and is the only place we have been that still gives you the complimentary biscuit. The staff are lovely and it is good value for money. That has been awarded 9.5 due to people watching is not as interesting and peaceful as a beautiful view of the landscape.

The other two cafes are in Cannonvale, which is closer to our anchorage if we use the VMR dinghy dock. The first one is The Fat Frog which is located on a beach in the south of the bay. The view is lovely and the food and coffee excellent, however it can be crowded. A sign of a good cafe. It also received a 9.5 as some of the seating is a little uncomfortable. Number three is the Lumos Cafe in the Whitsunday Shopping Centre. Their coffee is good, the savory muffin is the best, the service is friendly and efficient and they clean up and wipe down the tables promptly between guests. The only let down here is the location at the end of the shopping centre overlooks the carpark. They get a score of 9.6.  

When we had a break in the weather of a few days we decided to explore Hook Island and it's anchorages. It is a wild and rugged island which has the highest peaks in the Whitsundays, the deepest bays and some of the best coral snorkeling spots. Firstly we decided to explore Macona Inlet, a place we have not been to before. It is next to Nara Inlet and is a similar narrow bay running deep into the island. Therefore it has protection from all winds except the south and south west. There are some beautiful little beaches there, so we took a long dinghy ride to explore Curlew Beach near the entrance. It is a delightful little beach with a National Park Camp site. 

On the second day we drove through Hook Passage, with the tide, to the eastern side of the island and arrived at Maureen's Bay in time to score a mooring and have lunch. The moorings are supplied by the National Parks and are necessary to stop anchor damage to the reef. Also most of the sea around Hook Island is very deep, over 15m and difficult to anchor in. Many of the bays on the north/eastern side have at least six moorings. They are available for 2 hours before you must relinquish it to another boat for a turn. After 3pm you can stay on the mooring overnight. There are lots of boats out there so moorings are at a premium at this time of the year in good weather. Lots of people don't adhere to the 2 hour rule.

The creek in Butterfly Bay

After 3pm we scored a mooring in Butterfly Bay where we spent a disturbed night constantly banging into the hard plastic mooring buoy. It's like winning the lotto when you score a buoy for the night in a lovely area. Noooooo!!! Inside Olivia's hard fibreglass hull the sound of an unforgiving, plastic mooring buoy klonking the hull all night is like sleeping, OR NOT, inside a drum. Not restful at all!!! However there are beautiful spots for diving or snorkeling amongst the coral along the north/eastern shore of Hook Island. Butterfly Bay gets it's name from the lovely blue butterflies that rest in the trees along the creek. Clouds of them fly around you as explore a little creek in the corner of the bay.

The wind was picking up again so we decided to motor/sail around to Nara Inlet for a quiet night at anchor.  The next day we had a great sail back to Airlie Beach anchorage in time for the next lot of inclement weather. As I write this it is still raining, five days later,..... and the Mitchells arrive at lunch time. Hope it gets better!!!! 

Admiring the scenery in Nara Inlet

Friends drop in for a visit in Nara Inlet