We stayed an extra day at Orpheus Island because we wanted a day of rest after 2 days sailing (or motoring). Today we dropped our mooring and headed South along the coast of Orpheus and beyond. We passed Fantome Island and then Great Palm. Conditions are very fine with few clouds (about 15% cloud cover) and winds of 10-12k from the East. Our goal is Magnetic Island just outside Townsville, a major town on this part of the coast (some might call it a city).

Right now we are sailing at about 5k with the wind about 50 degrees off the bow, close to the wind. The sea is flat calm with the islands directly to our East providing excellent protection. We will round Havannah Island in an hour and after that we’ll have to change course to the East more and most likely will end up rolling in the jib and motor sailing.

After we turned onto our final leg at about 11:30am we were heading almost dead upwind. The wind angle off the bow was about 9 degrees. We rolled up the jib and are motor sailing at about 6k in calm seas with a slight 2-3ft swell and chop.

At 12:30pm the wind has backed a bit to the North and is now dead Easterly. The improved angle allowed us to deploy the jib which has increased our speed to 7-7.5k over ground. Our wind angle is still only about 25-35 degrees so we can’t really sail. The wind is about 12k and if we did shut down the engine we could sail at about 4k.

It is now 1:15pm and we have about 7 miles to go to reach Horseshoe Bay at Magnetic Island. We expect to arrive in about an hour.

We anchored in Horseshoe Bay at about 2:30pm and immediately put the dinghy in the water. Kate and Jonah rowed to shore to check out the store and see if they can get any veggies. We still have green peppers, one cucumber, some scallions (and of course garlic, ginger and onions which we never run out of because they last so long without rotting). Hopefully she can get some broccoli and some more string beans (we love string beans).

When we arrived we first anchored in 10ft of water – very shallow for us – close to the sand spit at the NW end of Cape Bowling Green.