Cooktown

The winds howl through the rigging as we prepare for our final push up to Cape York. The unique landscape here in Cooktown have bullets of wind whipping down Grassy Hill, into Endeavor River and across the decks of Sea Child. We have had incredible sailing with these strong SE trades, and have used most of our sail inventory in the process. Our top speed of this leg is 21.7 knots, under full main and screecher. And the journey north from Whitsunday has had so many special highlights, the tops has to be (outside of diving the Great Barrier Reef) the inside passage of Hitchinbrook Island between Orpheus Island and Dunk Island. The rain squalls had the surrounding hills filled with waterfalls, visible halfway up the mountains! The +3 hr journey through the 26 NM passage was the most visually beautiful and scenic ride, and one we enjoyed with Eric's parents who visited us for a few weeks in May. The spinnaker has seen its share of work, too, and even though we lost one of our battens while sailing out of Airlie Beach, the main alone has given us great speeds as well.

We expect to sail from Cooktown to Lizard Island in the next few days, and plan our journey north. The shipping lanes inside the Great Barrier Reef are getting busier the closer we get to the top of the Cape, so our attention will be sharp as we sail on as well. To date, Sea Child has sailed +21,000 NM since the beginning of the adventure at Trinidad. We are very near our 1/2 way mark on the journey.

You can read more about our adventures between Cairns and Cooktown, and see where we are as well via Google Earth, at this link:

www.sailblogs.com/member/seachild