Lady Musgrave Island

We've been at Lady Musgrave for about 10 days now. To start with the winds were light and we made 4 dives - outside the reef. Then the wind kicked up and for the past 3 days it's been blowing 25-30 knots. (Our wind meter logged 45 knots over one night!) The anchor has held fine - although we've had the anchor alarm on - but the lagoon gets very choppy in 30 knots, particularly at high tide. Conditions are improving now and we should get back to diving in a couple of days.

Lady Elliot Island

We spent about a week anchored in Platypus Bay, Fraser Island. It's a wide open bay; basically just the west coast of Fraser Island. It was just us and an endless sandy beach stretching both ways. Some birds and an occasional dingo.

As we were in no hurry, we waited for good conditions to head north. These came on Thursday (10-15 E/SE) and we sailed overnight to Lady Elliot Island 60 miles north. Lady Elliott is a round island/reef combination with a poor anchorage on its west side - OK only in light prevailing (ESE) winds. It does however have good diving and there's a dive resort on the island.

We stopped there once before for a day before a weather change drove us away. The same happened this time.

We arrived Friday morning and did a dive in the afternoon. Saturday morning, the winds had switched to the north (still only 10-15 but from the wrong direction). As conditions were OK we went diving. When we got back, the seas had kicked up to where we were unable to safely unload the dinghy! So we tied the dinghy behind, hauled up the anchor, and motored around to the lee of the island to unload the dinghy and hoist it aboard. Then we left for Lady Musgrave Island 20 miles away.

Thailand photos posted

I have posted my snaps from our trip to Thailand and Angkor Wat here.

We’re anchored in Platypus Bay off Fraser Island, BTW. Just chillin’.

Back aboard

We're finally back aboard in Hervey Bay. It's blowing pretty hard right now so we'll wait a few days before we leave.