Dear Cracklin Rosie fans,


Greetings from Rosslyn Bay Marina, near Yeppoon, and apologies, despite assistance from Pat Kershaw, I still can't seem to uplift photos onto the Blog.  Bother. 


Anyway, on with the text ....  When we last reported in, we were in Pancake Creek.  On 2 June, we left there are sailed and motored about 53 miles to Cape Capricorn where we joined 5 other yachts in a delightful anchorage in the lee of the magnificent headland of Cape Capricorn.  As usual, one of us had a morning swim off the back of the boat as part of a wake-up and wash procedure.  On the following day, we entered Keppel Bay - again named by Cook like so many other features along this coast - which is full of rocky islands.  We passed by Hummocky Island (a potential anchorage) and pressed on to the magnificent Great Keppel Island, which is about 7 miles off the coast at Yeppoon.


Getting into Great Keppel was a bit tricky as we had to pass through a narrow passage and as the tide was low, we had only 0.3 m below the keel.  However, we held our breath, and made it to a lovely bay to the north of the island, with a magnificent white sandy beach.  Our German-American- Belgian friends Alex and Iris were also anchored there.  We invited ourselves to sundowner drinks on the beach with about 20 other boaties, which was most enjoyable.  People from all walks of life, doing all sorts of interesting sailing, with some I suspect escaping from the rat race.  After that, we adjoined to Alex and Iris' magnificent yacht via our faithful rubber ducky and were fed home-made empanadas (much nicer than the ones we had in Argentina), washed down with ample wine.  Alex produced some excellent rum - well after all we are at sea - which was most enjoyable, but at least one of us was a little sluggish in the morning. 


From there, it was only a short sail across to the marina, where we have been all day today, taking on water, fuel and provisions, doing the washing and vacuuming the cabin and cockpit. 


Tomorrow, we will be off to Pearl Bay, about 50 miles up the coast and we are promised good following winds, although the forecasts have not been all that accurate up to now.  From there we will be island hopping to Mackay, arriving there, God willing, in the afternoon of Thursday 11 June, where we will be preparing to welcome Bev and Ken Mullin on board on Saturday 13 June. In short all is going well, and DGB is now only bumping his head about 4-5 times a day on the entrance to the forward cabin! 


We will report in from Mackay next Friday (12 June) if not before.


regards


Don and Jim