30th , 31st May, Escape River & Around Cape York
Sailing through to Escape River, we were surrounded by about 300 mutton birds all having their breakfast. Phil caught another Tuna and chucked him back. We spent a good night up the river, and Phil caught up with a Texan sailing the same way as us. We were up and on our way to Cape York. We have now started on the charts so kindly lent to us by Terry & Jan Fitzgerald. We called in to the ruins of Sumerset (once planed to be Australia’s Singapore) on our way through Albany Pass (interesting visit). We rounded Cape York and went ashore for a photo op. Now in Seisia sailing for Gove in the morning Tuesday 2nd June. Blog will be held up for about 4 days, will catch up again then.

29th May Shelburne Bay
Another fast run, making up time, with rooster tails out the stern, we had set the kite, but the wind got up too strong , starting to bend the pole so we reset the genoa, slowed her down to about 9Kn, much more manageable. We sailed on to Shelburne Bay for the night. Lots of volcanic action here with ancient lava flows along the beach, we spent a nice calm night here and caught up on some sleep.
28th May, Cape Melville
From Lizard we sailed on to Cape Melville on the outer edge of the Barrier Reef, running before a strong S/E breeze, this was our fastest passage so far, reaching speeds of 15 Kn, and averaging about 10 with the Genoa poled out. Nearly run foul with a large ship, as the shipping lane took a turn, and we already had our hands full, he missed us by about 200 meters, but that was too close for comfort.We are going to anticipate their moves earlier next time. We stopped off for the night at Cape Melville, and were surprised at the wind bullets coming over the hills, about 45Kn, all night, we have marked it down as a bad place to stay the night. We found out later it is apparently known to yachties as Australia’s Cape Horne.

27th May, Lizard Island
Had a nice sail to Lizard Island, ¾ running most of the way.We pulled 9 kn a few times. Lizard Island is a nice place with a very high hill that Cook climbed to find his way out through the reef. We started up the track to the top of the hill, got about ¾ of the way up sadly a bit of rain made the rocks too slippery so we had to return. It was a great view from the part of the hill that we had reached up the hill. When we joined the sailing group for a sundowner on the beach we talked to the person that Lloyd had bought his boat from, he is on his way to join the rally to Indonesia.