From Orpheus to Dunk Island

We spent two days in Orpheus with nice weather, a bit windy for the long dinghy ride to the James Cook University research centre where the giant clams are located. The tide times didn’t help to motivate us either, the low tide that exposes the giant clams out of the water was quite early in the morning and it wasn’t as low as the Spring tides. We had this amazing experience last year (check this blog entry ) and now we thought we better leave it for next time around, surely on our way back conditions should be better.

As we were happily thinking how good a time and place this was to relax after our hectic last days in Maggie, an alarm going off on the port engine that was running for a little while to charge batteries, ended with our ‘time to enjoy’ mood. It was time to work again. Quick assessment revealed that the new sea water pump installed in Maggie was leaking oil. So, there it was again, we hardly finished fixing the starboard engine for the port engine to get jealous and require Oscar’s full attention. 

Initially the thinking was it would be an easy fix, just a matter of adjusting the bolts and maybe changing the ring. Of course, nothing comes easy when you are in a mooring, in a remote island with no access to shop for parts, obviously one of the bolts was damaged and required replacement, of course we didn’t have a spare of this particular bolt. At that point Oscar was concerned to remove the pump to check the ring, in case another bolt (there are four of them) could get damaged as well. Instead of risking a complete not working pump he designed a temporary ingenuous ‘oil re-cycling’ method to get us to a more suitable place where to have work done. We have several liters of spare oil on board but Oscar thought it would be better to collect the oil and put it back if we needed to use the engine. (He had just changed the oil not so long ago).

Next day, with a forecast of 10-15 SE wind we decided to leave Orpheus and get going north to Dunk Island. Perfect, you would think but it wasn't. What we got was early morning katabatic winds (west), which was good for sailing while lasted but at around 10.00 the wind died with the forecast wind never showing up so we had to resort to motoring the rest of the way.

Oscar’s oil recycling method worked well and we did good time arriving at Dunk Island early afternoon.  Being a Saturday, we found it a bit crowded but with a great atmosphere. As we approached the anchorage we saw another Lagoon, Seabreeze. Later on we went to chat with them, David and Nerida were so nice and helpful. Their home base is Innisfail, not far from here, they assured us we would surely find anything we needed in Innisfail and kindly offer to help. We will definitely contact them on Monday.   In the meantime we are enjoying this beautiful island.

G.