Saturday 6th November
On Thursday we decided we had had enough, so we made a run for Lady Musgrave Island. We knew it was going to be a hard slog into the easterly wind and it would be at least a 24 hour run.
We had a side on swell making it a bit uncomfortable run but we started making good time. We were well over the halfway point when we had to decide whether continue tacking and get to Lady Musgrave for the 2pm low tide or motor the rest of the way and make it in time for the 8am high tide. We can only get in or out at the turn of the tide because the current at mid tide is too strong to control Imagine safely through the narrow entrance.
We were all exhausted so we turned on the motor and headed directly into the waves and wind. Through the dark of night we were playing dodgems with fishing trawlers. The trawlers had no AIS, so we couldn’t see them on the chartplotter. We couldn’t see their navigation lights for their bright deck lights, so it was difficult to see which way they were travelling or when they changed direction.
We made it to Lady Musgrave and through the gap by 8am Friday, dropped anchor and straight to bed. In the afternoon Lydia managed a quick swim around the boat and returned two hours later. That was enough energy exerted for all of us and we just chilled the rest of the day.
This morning Lydia was up at sparrows fart (not to be confused with her own morning farts) and she was in the water. Oh how she missed jumping off the boat (six days without swimming). Noticing there were jellyfish in the water, it was time to wear stinger suits when swimming.
After breakfast we hauled anchor and moved Imagine closer to the edge of the reef so we didn’t have to swim so far when snorkeling the coral. As usual as soon as the anchor was down Lydia was in the water checking out the bommies around us, just to make sure they were deep enough that Imagine wouldn’t catch them if we swung around or dragged a little.
We all spent a couple of hours snorkeling a part of the reef. There were hundreds of fish of all types cruising the reef. We had just about had enough for a while when it was confirmed it was time to head back when Lydia spotted a white tip reef shark checking out what we were doing.
