The Whitsundays June 2022

We left rainy Perth on a Qantas flight to Brisbane, where we landed just before midnight to a chilly 6 degrees. We stayed at a hotel near the airport and next morning got onto another Qantas flight to Proserpine, in a small Dash 8-400 plane. Proserpine Airport is small but quite nice, with a big aquarium in the middle to lure passengers with its colourful fish as they come in.

The islands are called Whitsundays as Captain Cook got here on Whit Sunday, on the 3^rd of June in 1770.

We took the shuttle bus to Mantra Croc Cannonvale Club in Airlie Beach, where we spent the night before getting the boat on Sunday. In the afternoon we got some things from the local Coles before going for a stroll along Bicentennial walk (saw a kingfisher and also an egret), past the place where we would get the boat from next day (Cumberland Chartered Yachts), and continued along the path to the local pool where there were only some local grey butcher birds enjoying the sun since it was too cold for a dip. We saw some interesting nests made out of leaves which I later found out to be green ant nests (and we saw some more on Whitsunday Island as well).

We got our boat, Charisma, around 8:30 am. We got given thin suits and snorkelling gear (and they tried to convince us to get thicker suits as the water was cold – but it was actually warmer than Perth at about 25 degrees!), then had our briefing before we set off. The boat came with a very useful book, 100 Magic Miles, which had pretty much all the details we needed about navigation and what to see around the islands.

We cruised past Pioneer Rocks and Pioneer Point, through Molle Channel. We left Daydream Island on our port side (there is a resort there which apparently was only opened in 2019) to have lunch in Sandy Bay near South Molle Island. Then we went between South Molle Island and Long Island, crossed the Whitsunday passage to go into Hunt Channel, in between Cid Island and Whitsunday Island where we pulled into Sawmill Bay for the first night (anchored).

We took the dinghy out for its first trip to get to the beach. There is a walk to Dugong Beach and then another one to Whitsunday Peak but unfortunately we didn’t take our boots and it was also a bit late so we left it for next time we would come here.

We left Sawmill Bay around 8:00AM, went up the west coast of Whisunday Island, through Hook Passage to get to Whitehaven beach. It was a bit choppy coming south along the east coast. We anchored off Whitehaven Beach in line with Lagoon Rock. The sand was amazing, very similar to fresh snow – our feet would sink in to our ankles and the dry sand squeaked. We walked up to Hill Inlet then back to have lunch on the boat. Saw quite a few plovers, a couple of bush stone curlews and a stingray.

We then set off and pulled into Tongue Bay for the night. We moored and didn’t have the best night as our boat kept spinning with the tide and the mooring buoy hit the boat so it was quite noisy. We explored the shore a bit – walked the track to the lookout then down the other side and across Hill Inlet which was by now almost dry being low tide. We saw an interesting soldier crab migration – not quite sure if they were moving to follow the retreating water or for another reason. When we pulled the dinghy in we had to drag it over coral quite a bit and it was interesting to see live coral out of the water, breathing and “spitting” occasionally. By the time we came back the dinghy was in the water. There was a young family with two kids who had the other problem and their dinghy was in water slightly too deep… the navigation markers for the dinghies definitely came in handy.

Back on the boat a turtle came to check on us that evening but still no luck with fishing.

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On our third day we set off around 8:30AM planning to go up the east coast of Whitsunday and then Hook islands, to reach Butterfly Bay. However the ocean was pretty rough and we saw another catamaran turn around, so we turned left through Hook Passage, went past Macona and Nara inlets, past Stonehaven Anchorage and to the south east of Hayman Island with its posh resort, to reach Manta Ray Bay. Raz and Miha went snorkelling there and saw beautiful coral and fish. We then went to Butterfly Bay where we saw another turtle. From there, after a really rough and choppy journey, we reached Nara Inlet where we went in for the night. We anchored and had a really peaceful night  – full moon, corellas arguing in the trees, quite a few other boats. There is supposed to be a nursery of hammerhead and tiger sharks in Nara Inlet, but there was a group of young blokes jumping off a fancy trimaran and they didn’t get into any trouble.

Nara Inlet was a very good sleeping spot. In the morning we went onshore to see the Ngaro Cultural Site with some rock paintings, where we had to really be on the lookout for the unfriendly gympie-gympie stinging nettle.

Once we were back on the boat we took the Hook Passage again to reach Cairn Beach. From there we did the 6 km return walk to Whitsunday Cairn (437m), which was definitely worth it as the view from the top is quite amazing across the islands to Border Island, Solway Passage and Hook Passage. We had to dodge some more bushes of gympie-gympie, but despite our best try we still managed to get some skin irritation on our shins.

After lunch at Cairn Beach (which was a bit of a balancing feast with the boat moving and turning with the wind / current / mooring buoy) we set off for Sawmill Bay where we anchored again for the night. We went ashore hoping to walk to Dugong Beach but the walk was closed and unfortunately there were workers there who did’t let us go further than halfway. So we took the dinghy to Dugong Beach and saw a couple of turtles. This place is nice enough for some pretty big yachts to come in for the night (ie Hells Bells, La Bella Vita).

The weather came in by the morning and we woke up to really low lying grey cloud. We were pretty sheltered in Sawmill Bay and decided to go down to Hamilton Island, however we changed our mind as soon as we got into the Whitsunday Passage where it was pretty rough, with swell of 1.5 to 2m. So we changed course and went south then south west to Pine Island, then north along the eastern coast of Long Island, to anchor in Happy Bay. The resort on shore here looked deserted and the 100 Magic Mile book says it’d been deserted for a while. We had lunch here and tried fishing for a bit, catching quite a few hussars and a couple of birdwire rockcods.

After lunch we headed north on the west side of South and Middle Molle islands to see the Causeway between the two, then through the Unsafe Passage to see the western side of South Molle Island. There was a group of jet skiers going pretty fast and we admired the views that guests of Daydream Island Resort probably get. We also heard on the radio that another boat found a mobile phone at Tongue Point that was still working so they were able to find out the number and name of owner to call it on the radio!

We continued across the Molle Channel, past Pioneer Point and Pioneer Rocks to anchor in Funnel Bay for the night. This is one of the cyclone refuge places for yachts, and the book advises skippers to tie their boats to the mangroves on shore. Luckily we didn’t need to do that, just anchored in 4.5m of water expecting a high tide of over 4 m tonight.

It was an amazing night with beautiful views of the sunset. Raz fished and got a stripey snapper, something big that just ripped the hook of the fishing rod off, and another hussar. We had the most peaceful night on the boat, with only one other boat nearby (the couple with two kids that we had met at Tongue Bay as well.

We woke up to a beautiful warm and sunny morning in Funnel Bay. A big cruise ship was anchored not far from us (Pacific Explorer) and also an Australian Navy vessel (AU03). Last breakfast on the boat was a feast of pancakes and berries!

We left Funnel Bay around 9 am to dump the tanks first, then went into Airlie Beach harbour and got there around 9:45 am. We were met by a very grumpy guy called Dave, who checked and refuelled the boat then berthed it. The two young guys on 2easy came in just behind us allegedly having sailed the whole time.

Back in Airlie Beach, we stayed another night at Mantra Club Croc. In the evening we walked along the Bicentennial walk again, to discover the centre of Airlie Beach. We had dinner at a beautiful restaurant called La Tabella Trattoria. The food was delicious including the tiramisu and their homemade limoncello. We got to meet the owner as well, Leni Fries, who apparently makes her own limoncello and also has her secret (excellent) tiramisu recipe.

For our last day in Airlie Beach we had for another walk along Bicentennial walk to have breakfast at Bohemian Raw Cafe (they do some really nice poke bowls which worked well even for breakfast). Then we came back to the hotel to be picked up by the airport shuttle.