After a busy 8 days of maintenance and cleaning on the boat I explained to my new crew that I was looking forward to leaving Cairns so I could finally get a break from work!

With 2 new crew onboard and 5 what we like to call ‘repeat offenders’, I was looking forward to sitting back and relaxing while my crew from Leg 1 showed my new Leg 2 crew what to do.

The Aussies weren’t going to let me away with it that easy though. Our newbie Angie insisted that before we left the dock I had to learn the moves to Tina Turners ‘Nutbush City Limits’. If you’re not Australian, don’t worry I don’t understand it either. As we danced on the deck I was thankful for getting through the tune unscathed having successfully avoiding tripping over any winches with my 2 left feet. What followed that was a quick workout routine before we left the marina, in which Sandie yet again succeeded in making me feel extremely unfit.

As we stooged out into the channel we had a bit of time to kill while Silver Fern were tying up a few loose ends(so to speak) in the marina. We did a few circles to calibrate our compass and practised our MOB drill. Our next destination; Lizard Island!

Taking the opposite approach to Silver Fern’s, we went with a sail choice of Yankee, Main with 1 reef and full Mizzen. As the breeze increased in the middle of the night things got a little ‘sporty’ as we surfed down waves, speeding along around 10kts. We decided to furl the Yankee away, deploy the Staysail and drop the Mizzen to reduce power. The boat was still moving along nicely and we pulled into Lizard Island at 8.30am.

There we spent the day ashore walking up to the summit which provided a beautiful view of the crystal clear waters. During my walk back down the hill I discovered why the Island might be given it’s name having spotted a huuuuuge Goanna running across the path into the bushes. In this moment I remembered David telling me that if they get scared they’ll sometimes run up your body thinking you’re a tree(great…….). At this point I had been charging on ahead of the group but decided to wait for Ken in the hopes that the Goanna might think he looks more tree like than myself.

We made it back down the hill and went for a snorkel where we spotted some amazingly docile turtles grazing in the shallow waters, giant clams and beautiful blue coral. Everyone was feeling revitalised after a great day on the beach and we were ready to tackle the next 315 mile passage up to the Adolphus Islands.

With my Australian induction slowly coming along, I felt determined to get myself one of those obnoxiously loud fishing shirts that everyone seems to wear. Stay tuned to see if I can find the MOST obnoxious coloured shirt Aussie has to offer.

Till next time :)

Jess