Morning coffee – idyllic

The night was just as pleasant as anticipated. Woke to a totally calm anchorage and enjoyed breakfast and coffee in the cockpit.
The forecast over the next few days is getting gradually worse (sad smiley). Today the winds will be pretty good until after lunch when they’ll start getting stronger and come from the north. Tomorrow and Wednesday they’ll be much stronger northerlies and Wednesday night they turn to strong to gale force from the south east. We’re now wanting to head north to finish our trip – so don’t want northerlies!

Anyway tomorrow is another day and today we motored around Karragarra and Macleay Islands before sailing back to Horseshoe Bay on Peel Island. The channels around these southern bay islands are very narrow and relatively shallow. You couldn’t sail them unless you had a gentle wind from directly behind and the motor running. Macleay Island, like Russell is fairly extensively inhabited – lots of large expensive homes overlooking the Bay – just above the midgie, oh I mean mangrove line! Nup, not for me.
Once we cleared the narrow channels and headed north along the western coast of Macleay we put the sails up and had a truly delightful sail all the way to Peel. Times like those are what keep you wanting to sail.

Another interesting factoid about Peel Is. Apparently in the ’60s the Island was sold to Keith Williams. He is the developer who put the resort on Hamilton Is. He wanted to build the resort here on Peel, but the council turned down his application to have exclusive use of Horseshoe Bay for his resort – so it never happened. Interesting ‘sliding doors’ situation wondering what the other Moreton Bay islands and Cleveland would be like now had it been approved.

(PS: Happy birthday Deb.)

Horseshoe Bay on Peel Island