Three words to describe our past week: Pain, Claim, Swain. What is this about, you ask? Pain refers to Wade’s shingles affliction, Claim is about the insurance assessor’s review, and Swain is where we have returned to on our way south!

Pain

Wade is suffering with his bout of shingles. The blistering rash front and back on the right side of his torso is extremely uncomfortable, particularly at night. During the day he deals with that by avoiding wearing a shirt as it aggravates the worsening pustules. While the wind was blowing too much, we stayed put at Airlie Beach and he had a few days’ rest. But pain or not, it was rather boring as he felt stuck, too uncomfortable to get ashore! Chris managed the chores on land by herself and had a few wonders to break the monotony.

Claim

The insurance claim side of things is now sorted. For those who don’t know, a boat dragged into Anui at Bundaberg six months ago, their chainplates and rub strakes putting gouges along two thirds of our port hull. The people were insured and a claim was lodged with their insurers. Because the repair requires Anui to be lifted out of the water, we agreed to have it done at the end of the year, as part of our next haulout. A selection of photos were submitted, quotes obtained for the fix and for either repainting the port hull, a frightfully expensive option, or having the entire boat wrapped, which was significantly cheaper. We made an appointment to meet the assessor in Airlie Beach while we were stranded. The wrap is what he approved which suits us fine. We have lined up the trades at the Boat Works. It is a relief to have this organized, knowing it won’t hold us back. Anui’s new look will be revealed after the haulout.

Swain

While in Airlie we watched the weather forecasts like hawks. We now have three weeks to get south so as soon as the wind eased and we had reprovisioned, we headed off. Which brings us to the Swain part of the post title.

Rather than follow the cruising convoy through the typical coastal route, we were keen to fit in a dash to the northwestern part of the Swain Reefs, even if it might mean only a short escapade and having to do several overnighters to get back to the Gold Coast from there. We wanted to enjoy one last adventure on our way south. Navigating through unknown territory, discovering new and seldom frequented anchorages are strong motivators for us. And of course, there is the diving, although Wade will not be able to get into a wetsuit for several weeks. But since the activity occupies only an hour or two a day we are going anyway, and Chris is snorkelling alone to capture some images for the next posts, cruising story and photo-book.

Here is our track to get to the Swain Reefs: three dawn departures and big days of motor-sailing in very light easterly conditions. That’s the trouble with reef weather, you must accept it is not sailing weather and have no choice but to burn fuel!

From Airlie Beach we headed 65nm southeast to Scawfell Island, the last isle of the Southern Whitsunday group, getting there late Monday afternoon. Scawfell is a pretty spot. We picked up a public mooring on the western side of Refuge Bay. Five other yachts were anchored in the main bay.

The next day was another 65nm hop to Whites Bay, Middle Percy Island, where we had never anchored before, so we were pleased. There were another three boats there too, on their migration south.

We left super early: 4.15am – some call it a stupid o’clock time! We took off east on our lonesome, raised the sails and switched the engines off for the first in a long time! We were very excited! We reached the western side of the Swain Reefs Wednesday afternoon, anchoring at Storm Reef after a 60nm passage. Now the fun can begin!

Chris had a snorkel along the channel running to the bottom left. Doing this on her own, she was not inclined to go to the exposed side of the reef where the coral is often far better but the current runs faster too. The coral was reasonable with interesting soft and hard species, and plenty of marine life. Worth the effort!

The next day it was time to sneak under the T bar as we like to call this section of the Hardline Reefs. This is one of the most remote, unexplored and extremely hard to access areas of the Great Barrier Reef due to the big tides (7m) and fast unpredictable currents rushing through narrow gaps in a near solid line of huge reefs. This is a satellite photo of the Hardline Reefs with the T Bar at the end. Don’t you think it looks like a spine?

We are now meandering in the calmer NW and central part of the Swain network… a story for the next post!