Cairns

  We were sorry to leave Magnetic Island, a super spot.   But we must keep going and we motored out of the bay into a windless ocean.  We need to be in Darwin by July 7 as we have joined the Indonesia Rally that leaves on July 23 for Kapang Indonesia, and we need  at least 2 weeks to get ready and get our Visa's. So we can't dilly dally too much.
   The forecast was for very light wind today and we ended up motoring almost all the 37 miles to Orpheus island in the Palm island group.  We heard a warning on the VHF radio that the navy was conducting live firing on a nearby island and to keep clear of island by 5 miles and we were just 5 miles from it.  When we arrived at Orpheus we took a mooring ball that was available and went ashore for a walk on the small beach. There was a total of 3 buoys here and 1 on other side of bay.  The mooring balls are placed so boats don't damage the coral with their anchors.
   A SW wind came up about 4:30 am and made anchorage a quite bouncy so we took of at first light.  The next stop was to be Hitchenbrook Island about 30 miles away.  We had a great sail all the way to our next anchorage.  The weather has been great, sunny and not too hot and quite cool in evenings, perfect.  The last couple of stops we have been seeing some hurricane damage to the trees from the Cat 5 cyclone that hit here a few months ago.  The trees all look beat up and lots of debris on beach's.
It was another early start to do the 37 miles to Mourilyan harbor on the Moresby river.  More great sailing, the wind dead behind at 20 knots.  We arrived earlier than we thought we would since the sailing was so good and had time to go ashore by the sugar mill and walk up the road for a bit.  There is nothing much in this bay except the big sugar mill and dock to load ships.  There is a small store of sorts that also sells fuel a few minutes walk up road.
  The dinghy landing at boat ramp has a sign warning to watch for crocodiles and we realize we will have to start being careful near the waters edges between here and Darwin.
Another crack of dawn start saw us heading out of the harbour and into a great SE wind  that made the miles fly by.  Next stop Fitzroy Island, just 12 miles from Cairns, our next major stop.  The 48 miles flew by and we dropped anchor in a nice bay off a little resort village on Fitzroys West side about 2:30pm. Another super day of sailing and perfect weather.  We hiked up a trail to the highest bump on the island 250 meters high.

The next morning  we made a leisurely start to do the 12 miles to Cairns.  It was great morning sail and we arrived just before noon.  The anchorage off Marlin Marina had some room and for the first time we just could not get our anchor to set.  It would start to drag every time we backed down on it.  The bottom, judging by the evidence on our anchor was hard clay.  After the fourth attempt we let the boat drift back but did not try to set it.  Times like this it would be nice to have other than a manual windlass. The boat stayed put and I dinghed Dorothy over to town for groceries and I went back to the boat in case we dragged.  I noticed we were very slowly moving  according to the GPS.  Dorothy called on the handheld radio 2 hours later  to be picked up and then we moved further out of the harbor and got a secure anchor in for the night.  We are going to go into the marina tomorrow for a treat as this may be the last chance for a marina for many months.
  We have done 730 of the 2000 miles to Darwin so not even half way yet.  The last week has been really enjoyable with all the great anchorages and super weather and sailing conditions. We will being doing more overnight sails after we leave Cairns, to get the miles in.  There is not many places to stop along the North Coast of Australia, it is mostly wildnerness and alot of it is Aboriginal peoples land and we can' land without a special permit. Parts of the ocean are not even properly charted yet. 
Cairns is the last big town to get good provisions before Darwin.  Also after leaving Cairns we may not have any email or internet access for several weeks at a time.