CRUISING LOG
YOUR CRUISING STORIES
New Zealanders Anna Willison and husband Angus embark on what her workmates call an OPOE (Old Person’s Overseas Adventure), a circumnavigation
ANNA AND ANGUS WILLISON are sailing around the world on their 42ft New Zealand Kauri yacht Innocenti. They have reached Indonesia.
The quarantine officer wished us a hearty, ‘Welcome to ‘Straya!’ Clearance into Mackay on Australia’s Queensland Coast was straightforward except for the fiscal shock we received when he informed us that we owed the Aussie government $550 for the privilege of a biosecurity clearance.
Let’s just say that it was a bit more expensive than what we had been expecting!
We departed Aotearoa in May 2023, setting off on a circumnavigation. The first stop was Noumea, then a very pleasant and uneventful six-day passage to Mackay.
Mackay is the gateway to the Whitsunday Islands, the sparkling gems set inside the Great Barrier Reef. It’s a spectacular cruising ground, with strong, constant southeasterly trade winds and smooth seas in the lee of the Great Barrier Reef. We ate up the miles, sailing under just a headsail all the way to Cape York.
Brampton Island was our first stop, just 18 miles from Mackay to the white sand and shelter of Mary Port Bay, looking over at the abandoned Brampton Island Resort. It’s a very eerie, slightly apocalyptic feeling being at a resort that has been closed since 2006. The golden days of a family resort holiday in the Whitsundays are long gone now that it’s cheaper to go to Fiji or Bali. A couple of cyclones and of course that small issue of a pandemic that you might remember from a couple of years ago, have also contributed to the demise of resorts in this part of the world. Every island that we visited in the
Whitsundays had the skeletons and rubble of once very busy and well-loved resorts. I was saddened to see decaying buildings left to be looted and destroyed by visitors – a pile of garbage and a blot on an otherwise pristine beach. Brampton, Hayman, South Molle, Long Island, Lindeman and Dunk Island are just a few of the defunct resorts that we saw as we made our way north to Townsville and then on to Cairns.
Magnetic Island (fondly known as Maggie to the locals) gives a hint of what resort life used to be like, with holiday apartments and a shopping strip with a fabulous gelato shop, but even here there are cafes and shops for lease and a distinct lack of yachtie visitors.
