Tag: marina

Exploring Cairns Off the Reef

We spent a couple of weeks in Cairns, a friendly city in Far North Queensland. Best known for its proximity to The Great Barrier Reef, we enjoyed exploring Cairns off the reef. There’s a lot to do!

About Cairns

Cairns is a small city with a lot of visitors, who come for its two World Heritage sites: the aforementioned reef and The Daintree rainforest. Although Cairns’ population is only about 150K, compared to Sydney’s 5.5 million, its bustling waterfront and nightlife make it feel bigger.

Cairns has an easy to navigate downtown, which is well designed for the climate. Even in a beating sun or heavy rain, you can walk through the city protected by all the awnings and covered pedestrian pathways.

Cairns Highlights

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Making Fast Tracks North

We liked Port Macquarie, don’t get me wrong. But after months in that winter wonderland of rain and floods, once Go was ready, so were we. With our visas on the verge of expiring and the cold weather continuing, we started making fast tracks north. Townsville, just under 1000 knots north, was our goal, and we made it in good time.

Making Fast Tracks North: Our Route

We planned our route beforehand, and made some slight modifications due to – what else? – wind and weather. Our route was straight to Coffs Harbour, then an overnight to Gold Coast, our first stop in Queensland! From there, it was going to be an easy sail inside the islands to K’Gari and up to meet our friends in Scarborough Marina, outside Brisbane.

After celebrating Brian’s birthday over two nights in Scarborough, we moved north to Mooloolaba for one memorable night. Then we jumped to Double Island Point, Hervey Bay, and spent two nights in the marina near Bundaberg.

making tracks north from Port to Townsville, map
All the stops on our 800nm sail from Port to Townsville

After Bundy, we sailed to Great Keppell to Island Head Creek to Curlew Island, then two nights in Mackay with a quick reprovisioning and off again to the Whitsundays.

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Getting Go Back on the Water

After our “Worst Wave” incident, Go was stuck in Port Macquarie for almost five months. Go was a mess. Everything got soaked from our windows being smashed in. Our electronics, engines, books, appliances, and more. We knew early on that getting Go back on the water would be a massive effort. Here’s what it was like.

Getting Insurance Approvals

The good news was that we got Go to safety in the marina in Port Macquarie. In between trying to get the insurance company to help us, we cleaned and dried what we could and moved off the boat for a few weeks.

We tried to dry things out the best we could but we were hampered by the seasonally terrible weather. Over the period we were there, Port Macquarie had floods at least twice, and a lot of rainstorms. With our smashed front windows it was hard getting and keeping things dry.

Go's cabin after being smashed by the worst wave
Go’s cabin after being smashed by the worst wave

Once our insurance company realized the size of the job, they sent an assessor to look at the boat and report on the damages. He took a few weeks to submit a report and then we waited. We went on several trips while for insurance.

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