Where Buoy Meets Gull - Whitsunday Adventure - Day 6

Sunday’s adventures

Sailing along we saw a boat named “Apollo” and Chris joked, “Why would they want to name their boat after a chicken?  We should give  them a call on the radio, and say, “Hey, a-poiyo, where’s your eggs?”

We sailed around the top of the islands today - in the largest, most unprotected part of the ocean thereabouts, and I forgot to take my seasick pill, and yet I was NOT sick!  Yay!  We were heading towards Butterfly Bay and planning to stay there until it was time to sail back to harbour.  It's a good thing that was our plan, because as we were trying to pick up the mooring, we actually BROKE the boat hook - the hook part went off!  (It was mostly my fault).  So we now have a pole, with no hook!  Chris clambored quickly into the dinghy, and I steered the boat around so he swooped by the mooring buoy, grabbed it, and handed me up the rope.  Hey!  Whatever works, right!  We make a good team!  Anyway, we weren't going to be moving anywhere because we had no means to pick up any more moorings. 


We went snorkeling soon after.  I saw a darling deep chocolate colored fish with bright turquoise and vivid orange highlights, but it's not the Fish of the Day because I can't find it in any fish book!  Perhaps I just imagined it....mmmm...CHOCOLATE!  tee hee.  So there IS no fish of the day, unless you want me to just choose one out of the book.  But the coral of the day I call "lace" coral.  Some of it was in lovely flat sheets, like a crocheted tablecloth, and some of it was sticking up like a lacy fan carved from ivory.  In fact, I found when I googled these photos, it's called "fan" coral!   It appears that it comes in many colors, but I saw it mostly in white.  


 

That night I couldn't sleep for the life of me, as there was NO AIR moving in the aft cabin.  So I finally got up and went to sleep on the settee in the salon.   There wasn't any more air MOVING in there, but it did seem like there was a little MORE air.  If was pretty funny (in a terrible way) because the noise of the buoy banging against the boat was even worse than the night before - maybe because I was actually CLOSER to it in the main cabin.  In addition, there was a terrible moaning noise from the boom overhead, and the wheel in the cockpit at the rear was screeching horribly whenever it rolled around and turned.  So I tell you what, with Death knocking on the the bow, depravity moaning overhead, and some hideous banshee screaming at me from the cockpit - needless to say - I didn't get much sleep!  We had gone to bed about 9:00, and I moved about 10:30.  I think I got to sleep around midnight.


Then, suddenly, at around 1:00 a.m. the lights come on, and Chris is banging around frantically because it is POURING rain and all the hatches are open!  So I jump up and help him close the hatches because it's raining on to all our clothes, the main cabin table, and three other places as well!  We mop up as best we can, and try again to sleep.  Chris obviously isn't having as much trouble as I am, as he is snoring away peacefully, AND sleeping diagonally on the bed, so I can't even get back in it if I WANT to!  At one point during this time, I think I was roused from sleep by the TOILET smell!  Let's not even get in to that, shall we?  The rain continued, along with the other noises, so now we had a real symphonic cacophony AND all the hatches were closed!  It was stifling!  I think I slept quite well from 4:30 to 7:00 by playing a very repetitive Enya song from my ipod into my earphones.