Day 68 Cruising Whitsundays

Breakfast by the pool this morning, lovely; temperature around 28deg and calm as a millpond out on the ocean and not too humid. Had an appointment to get my nails done so walked down to the town and left Bill to go buy a hat for sailing and to pack his bag. I didn't expect to find a nail technician in such a small place but a result as she was good and not as expensive as the ones I had se in Adelaide. That done we went to exchange our books, check out and drive to the marina to pick up our floating home for the next three nights. We thought there would be an office there but it was just a meeting point where we piled our bags onto a trolley, collected a stinger suit which is basically a 1mm wet suit which you have to wear to protect you against stingers (box jellyfish and the like), they certainly sting you to hire them which we weren't expecting but no alternative if you want to get in the ater at this time of year! We were almost tempted to buy one if we are going to need them in Port Douglas as well which we probably are but then decided against as we'd have to ditch them before going home as we are overweight on the luggage as it is. Anyway we finally boarded this square rigger with the other 6 people, Ian and Emma, John & Pat and Jonathan & Sheila, all Brits. Thankfully we are only 8 as the vessel can sleep 14 and that would have been crowded; as it is it's very cosy down below and rather oppressive. I'm not how I will cope with it. Apparently this boat has to have quite a lot of wind to put the sails up so we motored all the way to Hayman Islands and if it takes a lot of wind before the sails go up I'm not sure I want to be out here as it was quite choppy as it was. The plan was to stop here for a snorkel in the bay as it is supposedly one of the best; best that is when the prevailing SE winds blow and it is calm, not the NW one which was producing quite a swell. Consequently only six went in the water and I wasn't amongst them having decided to go in the dinghy with Colin one of the crew who is Canadian. The guys did see a lot of fish, parrot fish and a very large hump headed Maori Wrasse that the locals name Elvis who lives in the bay. It was too murky for any photos though. On leaving the bay we actually put the sails up well two of them anyway after Colin had climbed up the rigging and balanced on a couple of lines to unclip the covers. It was a huge relief to get the engine off; it's a really noisy rather smelly diesel and our cabin is right next to it. The speed kind of dropped somewhat then as we were only making around 3.5 knots compared with the super speeding 5 we were doing before. We finally made our anchorage for the night at Hook Island at around 7 although it was dark by then. Dinner was a jolly affair and Di our cook is good although we could have done with a little more, especially with some hungry males around the table. Bedtime was early, around 9:30 especially when Ian our captain said we would be underway by around 7:30. Discovered almost immediately that I couldn't cope with the top bunk as it is like being in a coffin for me so poor Bill had to make that sacrifice and we all have to leave our doors open for what little air there was circulating - very cosy…………….