Escape from scAwful Island (into a cyclone!)

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Escape from scAwful Island. (Into a cyclone!)

Scawfell's a lovely place, don't get me wrong. National park. Green and leafy and unspoiled. Karl took a surfboard paddle ashore (I don't have my surf paddling L plates yet) and tells me it was delightful. 


 Grainne is in this photo if you peer really really closely.



And in all fairness it did provide reasonable shelter from sustained wind of 35-40 knots. As Karl (repeatedly) said “I don't think anchoring equipment is meant to withstand this for such a long time!”. But it was a bit of an enforced stay and once we had done all our reorganising and tidying and planning we were ready to go. But had to wait another couple of days for the winds to ease. We even had “Sewing Day” where we repaired all the bits and pieces Karl kept bringing to me saying “it ripped” (note his use of the saorbhriathar). And we completed a new project to allow us to roll up and secure some of our cockpit enclosure (sounds very boring but is actually embarrassingly exciting for us). 



And then one delightful Sunday morning I was enjoying my freshly hand ground flat white with my favourite ABC Classic FM presenter when the news came on: “man arrested after nightclub brawl...blah blah....apartment fire blah blah..... cyclone in the Coral Sea.... and now in sport....”. Hang on a minute! Cyclone where?! That seems important. So I waited for the news an hour later and listened intently. Nothing. Not a mention. I wondered if I had imagined it. When we checked our weather it turned out to be real. Cyclone Ann, heading for north Queensland (where we were heading!). But isn't it a little late in the season for a cyclone? Well, according to a lovely meteorologist from BOM interviewed on the ABC news it is unusual, but not unheard of, to have a May cyclone. The last May cyclone that crossed the Queensland coast was in 1989, so nice of the universe to have provided us this rare event. 

What you really don't ever want to see on your weather forecast - top right hand corner.


Once we got over that fright and established we weren't in danger it was all go again. On the morning of departure we got ready, got up early, just a quick instant coffee and muesli bar for breakfast and then off. And then the engine didn't start. You can check out but you can never leave. Long story, batteries wrecked a couple of weeks before we left Mooloolaba (turns out homemade transformers in leaky Eskys have issues in heavy rain) and then drained the engine battery. So another few hours sitting, waiting for the solar to charge the engine battery. And finally away! 

The anchor decided to bring some of Scawfell with us as a souvenir.


And then a great sail north in boisterous conditions that meant strictly one-pot dinners and a ban on anything that required risking a pot of boiling water. 

A little bird came to visit for awhile, he just hung around on deck.


It was the first time we had ever sailed with a moon overnight. We're used to the clear, starry nights where the sky is bright but the sea is completely black and invisible. But we had a couple of nights where, even though it was overcast, the moon brightened everything into a white night of cloud and sea like a permanent dawn. Every night and day and sun/moon rise/set and cloud formation and sea state is mesmerising in it's own way. Like staring at a fire for hours. Or maybe I just don't have enough for doing.

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