Posted July 3, 2024
about September 24, 2022
On our final morning in Chance Bay, we woke up to low clouds sitting over the mountains. It was a beautiful sight!
At this point, we were in the process of making a decision. One option was to take our boat around the southeast corner of Whitsunday Island via a channel called the Solway Passage. Navigating this strait needs to be timed carefully, as the current can be very strong, up to 5 knots. If the wind blows opposite of the current, conditions can get really dramatic.
We could probably have managed going through the passage, but there was another issue. Once on the east side of Whitsunday Island, logic would dictate we stop at places of interest as we made our way counterclockwise around the island. This would entail another week of cruising before we’d be able to get to a marina.
Our other option was to head west to Hamilton Island for some marina time, then head out fully stocked and refreshed to the west side of Whitsunday Island and the south side of Hook Island. Below is a map showing places of interest that we’d need to sort through while making our plans in the coming days.
The day’s decision became easy when Rich let it be known that he needed some marina time. So, we set off for Hamilton Island, about a 7-mile trip. This island boasts a bustling resort city with a spiffy marina. Below, the view of Hamilton Island that lay ahead.
This marina wouldn’t be cheap; in fact this would be a big splurge for us, but we only planned to stay 2 or 3 days. I just hoped they’d have room for us. We called the marina as we neared the island.
Well, they did have room, but there was a problem. Before coming to Australia, we’d heard rumors that their marinas now require $10 million in liability insurance–a ridiculously excessive amount. We had talked to a few people who insisted this was true, while others said there was no way marinas would get boat owners to carry that amount of insurance.
So far this year, we’d been to three marinas with no problem (well, one did ask for $10 million but accepted our insurance policy as it was). We were now feeling complacent, thinking this might not be an issue. Thus, we were taken aback to hear that the marina at Hamilton required the $10 million coverage. Like, for real—there was no way around it.
What now? Well, our other planned marina in the Whitsundays was on the mainland at Airlie Beach, now about 18 miles away. Going there would throw off my itinerary but at least salvage our plan to have some marina time. We called, however, and learned that they, too, absolutely required $10 million dollars in liability insurance.
Now what do we do? We could skip these marinas, but I knew that one marina north of us, in Cairns, also required the $10m insurance. We could probably assume this would also be true of Townsville, our next marina stop north of the Whitsundays. It seems that after a certain point in north Queensland, boats simply need to carry more insurance.
What we needed to do now was up our insurance coverage. Luckily, we have a wonderful agent in New Zealand, Bill at the Marina Shop in Opua. We put in a call and yes, we could increase our insurance for the remainder of our current policy period, about 6 months. (As it turned out, this was a good thing since we ended up in Australia for another 6 months, but at this point we planned to leave in about 2 or 3 months).
We agreed to the terms and gave the go-ahead make the change in our policy, but it would take a couple of days for the process to be completed.
So now we had some time to kill and more decisions to make. We weren’t far from one of the “big gun” anchorages in Whitsunday Island, Cid Harbour. We decided to head up that way as from there, it would be easy to head over to Airlie Beach when our policy was ready. After a stay in Arlie, we could head back out to visit Hook Island and the north end of Whitehaven Beach.
It was a good solution, but this dashed my hopes for visiting Hamilton Island since that would entail backtracking. Part of keeping my promise to Rich to get through the Whitsundays as quickly as possible was to maintain a forward momentum, with minimal zig-zagging. Part of cruising, for those of us who do it as a way to travel, is accepting that it’s not possible to see everything and for this Capricorn to “digest the broken glass of disappointment” when plans go astray.
We did get pretty good look at the east and north side of Hamilton Island as we passed. It’s an attractive island, with what looked like very nice homes on the hillsides. We couldn’t see the main town or the marina, but we got a good look at the neighboring island, Dent. Below are a few photos of Hamilton Island.
Our next destination was now decided: Cid Harbour, famous in both good ways and bad. Items in the good category include the fact that it’s beautiful, protected from all wind directions, roomy, and conveniently located. (I think the one anchorage that all chartered yachts visit is Cid Harbour.) The item in the bad category: shark attacks—there have been several here. Cid Harbour’s deep, dark water attracts the fish that sharks like to eat. With no plans to swim in Cid Harbour, we had no qualms about going there. And so we set off with a new plan. –Cyndi
