Sand between our toes.

Lindeman Island

Old resort on Lindeman

Fish around jetty at Lindeman

 Sunday 26^th August 2012. Up to explore Lindeman Island, we tinnied around to the resort side and tided up on the old jetty.  There were a number of colourful fish swimming below the jetty.   There were signs with no entrance, danger all over the resort, so we walked up the road area to the back of the resort and had a look inside the reception area.  Looks pretty run down considering it has not even been closed a year.  There were doors and windows open, so the place was a mess with dust and dirt inside.  Sure does not look like a 5 star resort.  We then headed back towards Mingo across some great coral underneath us, its not the most colourful coral, but you can see it quite clearly when in the boat. 

Mingo anchored at Seaforth Island

 We had anchored Mingo across from the resort at a little inlet on Seaforth Island, which had a very nice beach.   This island is sometimes referred to as “Royal Seaforth” because of a royal visit in 1954 by Queen Elizabeth and the Duke of Edinburgh.  They only spent an hour on the island to feel the sand between their toes, but because of this visit it has a second namesake.

Pentecost Island

 We motor passed a number  of other little islands, and have a bit of a look on the way.

The two whale tails in the distance

Motoring out of Lindeman and we see in the far distance two whales slapping their tails in and out of the water, making a huge splash each time, great to see.  How close they came again and gave us a huge wave, a wave we were happy to see this time.

Fantastic Whale Tail

We notice now that there are a lot more motor and sail boats around all these islands.  The Hamilton Yacht race was on last week, so we are guessing a lot of the yachts are from that and are just hanging around for the weekend.  There is something about seeing a yacht with sail up in the distance with the backdrop of an island behind it.

Andrew at Phantom Cave.

We head towards the north of Shaw Island where there is a small gap between Shaw and Maher Island.  On Maher Island we notice a little cave in the island, so anchor up here and motor across to investigate.  Unfortunately it is low tide and with the coral below, we cant quite get the tinny to the beach to have a look in the cave so end up motoring around the other side and see its an open cave to the other end of the mountain.  Looks great with the clear sea below it with coral being seen, we find out later that it is called Phantom Cave.

Now time to head over to Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island.  Wow as we turn the corner and see the white sand.  It really is so white, like its just been bleached.  It goes for miles.  There are also a lot of other boats here, at least 50 (Is this peak hour in the Whitsundays?) others 

including a few touristy day tripper boats, which are so crowded and people being carted from boat to beach, then another group.  We notice these tourist boats only stay for a couple of hours.  Not the way we want to be visiting these islands.

Beach view out to ocean at Whitehaven

Calm waters around "Whitehaven"

Whitehaven

Soft sand on our feet

Andrew swimming at Whitehaven

We are very excited to be here, hop in the tinny and although it’s a cloudy day, it’s very warm and the sun is shining between the clouds.  We go for a walk right along the beach and feel that heat beating down on our backs, so head into the water for a bit of a paddle, ooh chilly but nice.  We have a good walk around the island and the love the feeling of the sand so soft like flour between our toes. Whilst walking along we see a number of small tents camping just off the beach all with kayaks nearby.    Back to the boat and Andrew goes for a quick swim with the dolphin pulling him along, we get a few looks from other boats – Jealous maybe? 

Beer O'clock drive around Whitsunday Island

Paddling on Whitehaven

We watch during the afternoon as a lot of the boats head out again and are left with only about 15 in the bay, so it’s quite good not to be so crowded now.    We go for a tinny ride around the island and over to Teague island and Chalkies beach, the water so clear and the coral, some of which is now so colourful beneath us.  We see fish and a turtle swimming below, its great.  We see so many different things each day; it’s like a constant surprise to what will be next.  Chalkies beach is beautiful and only two yachts anchored here.  Its like a mini Whitehaven beach with the sand so white and the water so crystal clear.  We then head back to the Whitehaven beach bay and motor around to be nosey in some other boats, along the way you get a few waves and one particular catamaran we stopped at and had a chat to a couple on their.  Funny the people we have met all seem to be from around Brisbane and this particular couple Shorncliffe – why all so close to home.  Nice to have a chat and we head off on our merry way, back home for dinner.

Feeding the 2 foot fish.

As we are washing the dishes off the duck board out the back (we use salt water as we don’t want to waste our fresh water on dishes).  We notice three large fish that look like huge Angelfish swimming bye.  They are about 2 foot long and are popping their faces up out of the water to get the gravy we are washing from the plates.  Out comes a loaf of bread and for the next 45 minutes we sit on the duck board watching and feeding these three fish.  They are great and very comical when they are sucking on the rope tied to the tinny which they obviously also think is bread.  They were coming up to grab bread pretty much from our hands, they obviously were not scared.  Whitehaven is a green zone area meaning it’s a Marine National park zone so no fishing is allowed.  They do look like a good feed, but we resist since it is illegal.

Monday 27^th August and we wake pretty tired after being up half the night.  Neither of us could sleep, don’t know why but we were up until at least 3am.  Good thing no work tomorrow.  There was a little swell around and the boat was rocking but hardly noticeable although for some reason we have a squeak in the wood work – Who knows!!.

We head out to the duck board and shine the torch down are get a bit of a fright when we see a number of bommmies around us just inches from the bottom of the boat.  We are very very lucky that we have not actually anchored on one.  We must have come into a deep spot amongst the coral.  It was low tied when we first came out in the middle of the night so the bommies were just about in reach.    We stood outside for a while just shining the torch into the ocean and watching a turtle swimming around the boat.

Us at Whitehaven Beach

A motor over for a last walk in the flour soft sand this morning before heading to have a look at a few more islands.  We motored into the southern part of Whitsunday Island to a couple of nice little inlets called Chance Bay.  They were very pretty, and supposedly good snorkeling, but as it is overcast the visibility in the water did not seem good, so we motored in for a quick look then headed out to our next stop.

The weather forecast is saying that winds will be blowing up to 20 knots from tomorrow, so we want somewhere calm to anchor for the next few days.  Andrew has a read through the 100 Magic Miles of Whitsundays book and finds a spot called Gulnare Inlet, which is supposedly good anchorage for when a cyclone hits.  Think we will be more than comfortable in here.

The calm waters between the islands

We motor passed Crayfish Bay, Torres Herald Bay, Turtle Bay, and around Perseverance island.  Hamilton Island is now on our left as we come through The Fitzalan passage.  This passage restricts the flow of the tidal stream, and there can be 4+ knots of current at spring tides, and up to 3 knots in neap tides.  There is also a lot of reef around this area so navigating it has to be done quite precisely, the passage did become quite turbulent and lumpy in areas, but nothing Mingo couldn’t handle.  We motor in to Gulnare Inlet and having to be careful as it is was very shallow at 1.5 meters in parts.  We need .8 meters of water before we hit bottom.  So we are watching our route very carefully.  We can see bommies all around us and the water gets clearer as we motor into the inlet, then all of a sudden gets deeper to a depth of 3.5 meters, so this is where we anchor for the night, as this keeps 2 meters under us at low tide.  There are a few other boats in here also, but they do not look as though anyone is living on them, maybe just anchored here full time instead of paying marina fees.

Gulnare Inlet opposite Hamilton Island