Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Tropic of Capricorn

30th Jun 2010


Weighing anchor at 06:10, we motored through almost calm water in virtually no wind all day towards our destination of Hummocky Island. This is small island north of Cape Capricorn, (a cape so named as it lies almost exactly in the tropic of the same name) and south of Great Keppel Island.

As pleasant as it was, the day was without much to speak of but for a brief dolphin visit. Indeed, so uneventful was the trip that Paul got quite excited when he saw a lump of seaweed drift by. Even so, it did tick off a number of firsts; Crossing the 23deg 30’ line of latitude placed us in the tropics for the first time and our destination, albeit of low rank in the scheme of such things, is our first Island stay and it turned out to be a beautiful spot. Beautiful but for a rolly anchorage - even in these quite conditions. In fact ‘Lucas’ (our cruising guide) state that in any sort of wind, this spot is completely unacceptable for an over night and given our experience on this night, I have to agree.

Like all the islands around here, there is the oblogatory rock hazard or two to be avoided on appraoch as the photos of the aptly named "shipwreck" rock left shows. Once anchored we took the dingy ashore and explored the beach and found a true ‘tropical paradise’ of isolated white sand and aqua blue clear water. A swim, wet a fishing line and back to the boat for dinner. A good start to the tropics!

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