Airlie Beach 2

Derwent Hunter Cruise

Today we went out at the crack of dawn on the 22m gaff rigged schooner, Derwent Hunter. Our luck was in, the wind, which had stayed away for the Hamilton Island race week, was up and blowing strongly. Up went the Fore, up went the Main, the Head and the Stay sails. For an old girl, this old tub cuts a pretty fine swath through the briny main!

We anchored at Black Island and went snorkling; sadly the water at 20C was too cold for my liking even with a 2mm wet suit on. Talking of wetsuits, and snorkling in general, these people need to do themselves and their clients a favour and dump the whole rotten, worn out, perished lot and get some new gear.

Anyhow the snorkling was good, not great, well not up to the outer reef, and in my opinion, not as good as the Low Isles. A second site, Caves Cay, was better, with more colourful coral on its small bommies and some good looking friendly fish.

The crew were great, the boat is a good old timber craft, the food and refreshments were good, and apart from the rubbish gear, we had a really good day out on the water.

Back at the docks, we came across the old girl, Maxi Ragamuffin, on which Judy, I , Amy and Lauren had an equally fabulous day way back in about 1996. It’s for sale, only $395k, complete with licences to tour onto the reefs and three sheds of spares. It seems that a few years ago, they managed to leave a snorkler out on the reef and subsequent legal actions sent the company to the bottom of the harbour. Been tied up and hanging around ever since.