Fitzroy Island

The anchorage at Kent was somewhat active overnight during tide changes, but still comfortable enough to sleep okay. Friday dawned a beautiful day and we decided it would be a good idea to take advantage of the perfect weather and get on up north to Fitzroy Island. Forecast was for wind to be 10-15 knots from the SE and that should have provided perfect conditions for calm sail on this sunny day. As has happened so often since arriving in Australia, the actual weather conditions were not in sync with predicted conditions. Actual wind experienced was only 5-7 knots from SW, clocking to due south at 3-5 knots during the afternoon. So, instead of a beautiful sail we motored the entire 46.4 miles to Fitzroy Island.

Fitzroy Island was a very nice anchorage for our first night there. Very calm and a pretty setting. According to the guide book you can walk across the island to the light on the other side. That sounded like a good hike but it was too late in the day to do it when we arrived. Saturday dawned a bit rougher and putting the outboard on the dinghy didn't seem appealing in the waves, so we stayed aboard and watched tourists doing the tourist activities. The ferries really rocked our boat when they zoomed in and out of the anchorage. It rained off and on all day long. Maybe Sunday would be better weather and provide an opportunity for exploring the island.

Sunday the weather was worse than it had been on Saturday. All other boats left the anchorage first thing Sunday morning. It wasn't that uncomfortable aboard S/V BeBe in this anchorage. Our reservation at the marina in Cairns was for Tuesday and we had planned to stay at Fitzroy until Tuesday morning. But around noon we picked up a weather forecast that indicated the winds would continue to build from the current 20 knots up to 30 knots. That was the deciding factor. Time to move on. We don't like dealing with the anchor in 30 knot winds. We decided to take a chance and hope that the marina would have a slip available for us today. We could not call the marina because there was no cell phone signal at Fitzroy Island.

We weighed anchor and set sail for Cairns. We didn't take any photos at Fitzroy Island because the weather was so crappy the entire weekend. But here is a very short video of Zachary casting his rod and reel when we were in Mackay Marina.