Day 1 Sailing Trip- Hamilton Island to Mackay Part 2

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jethro's picture

It took all day but it finally happened. It seemed as if every time I took the camera down below decks whales and dolphins came by and whenever I brought it up they didn’t. And then just before sunset as I was at the helm the biggest whale of the day breached around 350 metres off the port forward quarter. I handed the helm to the skipper and raced down stairs in time to come up and snap a couple of flurry shots as it broached again. I then got onto the side of the boat as it broached off the beam – maybe only 200 metres away and snapped a beaut series of it rising and broaching. The best six sots of the sequence are below.

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After the slow start to the day literally 5 minutes after I finished writing the last blog post about how light the wind was the wind went from around 7 knots to around 17. It touched 20 a few times but stayed pretty constant around 13-17 knots. We then cruised along nicely under sail making as much as 10 knots at one point and sitting on around 7.5 most of the time.

The run into Mackay was completed just on sunset and with enough light to bag sails ready for tomorrow.

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We headed up to the Marina for a nice Thai meal and then I came back to the yacht while the others went for a drink. A great day out on the water. It was only about 2 hours in that I felt the stress knots in my stomach start to unwind. At various times through the day I physically felt the relaxation of the first real holiday I have had since I was 13. I think I have worked in every other holiday I have had since. I have only had a few weekends or overnight stays where I haven’t. This is going to be a good week!