SERENITY NOW

The buoy we took on North Keppel island, provided us with a particularly rolly night - a reoccurring nocturnal feature at the moment. This has us both quite happy to drop the mooring lines first thing and head round the corner for a (hopefully) calmer and flatter anchoring spot. We make our way round to a gap in the reef off the beach at Pumpkin Island. Initial thoughts after dropping and setting the anchor are good. I spent the afternoon exploring the local beach and rocks, finding a scale of turtle shell, some sand dollars and lots of bleached reef in the shallows. Sadly the initial impression of the anchorage did not equate to a flat calm night - more howling and rolling kept the ongoing overtired and aching vibe on the boat going for another day. Upped anchor again the next morning (Good Friday I think), to once again search for the elusive perfect anchoring spot to get some decent rest. This time, off North Keppel Island, a picturesque spot, but yet another place where the constan...

A mere 10 hours after leaving Bundaberg, we arrive into the turquoise waters of the anchorage at Lady Musgrave Island. It’s all but empty - just us and one other monohull. We take a mooring buoy at the first attempt, a cause for celebration - well, a good excuse for me to have one of those Wayfarer tropical pale ales I’ve previously mentioned. The wind is sufficiently strong to keep the tripper boat away from the island. This gives us the place to ourselves for for our first explore. Very reminiscent of the Tuomotos. Lots of birds - and an underlying whiff of guano hangs around the interior. We wander through the undergrowth to the beach on the other side where a large group of black tipped reef sharks are gliding around in the shallows - a great sight… at least from the beach it is! Spent another day there, joined by the tripper boats. We ventured ashore again after they left mid afternoon and walked around the whole island - seeing lots of turtles sculling along the shoreline. The wi...