We headed a bit north from Airlie beach / Hamilton Island area yesterday. It's been blowing like stink all week and lots of rain down there. There is not much between Whitsundays and Townsville and we expected to day hop and tuck behind peninsulas at night. We ran into a Nordie 47 who said they were going into Bowen. It's a small harbor and the book shows 1.4m in the entrance channel, but the harbor master said it should be no problem with the neap lows, so here we are. We had at least 2 ft under the keel all the way in.
Bowen is mostly for the fishing fleet and a couple hundred beat up cruisers all hanging between pilings. I called on the radio and they said they had one 25m piling mooring we could use. Piling moorings are used in many places in Australia. They have rows of big steel posts pounded into the harbor and you tie your bow and stern so you are strung between. You can almost step onto the boats on all four sides of you. Luckily our spot is on the outside of the line up and we got hooked up. Holy crap we are tucked in tight. I wandered down to the office to pay for a couple nights and she quoted me $10.95. I asked was that per meter or what? No, it's $10.95 per night for the 25m mooring. Looks like an interesting little town, we may stay a while!
We met some old sailing friends that we originally met in the Marquesas and saw many times that season. It's a French boat named "RIGA" and they had their grandson on board when we had all the kids in Anaho Bay. Saturday night, (two nights ago) they got creamed by a freighter 25 nm from here, lost the entire rig, solar panels, and much deck gear, and ended up getting towed into here. They said some journalists have already been here and the Aussie Government investigator comes tomorrow. They are all OK, but still in shock. It's one hell of a tough aluminum boat. Lots of dents and ripples along the starboard rail, but floating. WOW! Their grandson is back aboard so Bear will have someone to play with while we are here. Our plan is to stay here a couple days and move north to Townsville, where we will stay about a week. Forecast is for the winds to build again to 25k - 30k+ so we may hang out on our $10.95 mooring a few extra days.
Eric
