Day 6 & 7 Rosslyn Bay to Whitsundays

We departed Rosslyn Bay early on the 6th day of our adventure on a two day sail to Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays Group of islands. As with the sail in, there were butterflies flying along with us far out to sea.

The engine purred along with the upgraded filter setup.

It was a windy ride with many sail changes and a swell rolling in from the South East. Although at night behind the islands it was a lot calmer.

During one of our passages behind an island I had a chance to grab a daylight nap. About 10 minutes later there was a bang and Paul shouted out for me, when I emerged the main boom was flapping from the foot of the main sail. I quickly grabbed a large screwdriver and used it as a pin and forced the boom back onto the mast. We soon discovered the main pin was still attached to the main sail, The pin is held in with a stainless steel roll pin, it was never designed to handle the load from the main sail. We grabbed some tools and reinstalled the pin and used cord to attach the sail and retain the pin until it could be replaced with a new roll pin and sail attachment.

We sailed through the night on our 2 on and 4 off watch keeping. During the night we sailed through the ship anchorage of Mackay were there is reported to be up to 70 coal ships waiting to be loaded. It was an eerie sail with lights all around us and ships towering above us. The AIS was valuable here being able to check what ships were anchored or moving many miles before we passed by.

Sailing into the night and through the next day we made it to Solway Passage between Whitsunday Island and Haslewood Island. We sailed through and around the corner to Whitehaven Beach. We sat for a while and admired the view, however the wind was howling so we moved across the bay to Chalkies Beach at Haslewood Island for the night.