When you get invited to a 70th birthday on Hamilton Island the only sensible thing to do is extend the event and go sailing the Whitsundays.
This is what I did in November last year, along with my wife, daughter and her boyfriend. We have spent many sailing holidays in the Whitsundays in the past, the first was a week just before we married over 27 years ago. Since then we have probably enjoyed the delights of the coast line of the islands of the Whitsunday on over 15 occasions, along with a few Race Weeks.
Our vessel was a 2018 Leopard 40 catamaran – 4 cabin configuration called “It’s all about me”. I’m not sure about the name of the boat – the owners must have had a reason – but when you have to call in on the skeds twice a day it does become a bit tiresome.
We hired our boat through Sunsail, as we have done on almost all our previous visits. Unfortunately, Sunsail is now based in Shute Harbour rather than on Hamilton Island.
I think the marina fees were the issue. In any event, it means that rather than flying in to Hamilton and having Sunsail staff to greet you, the boat is sailed across from Shute Harbour and handed to you after the briefing – all for a fee of course.
There is no problem with this in reality, and Sonia, who delivers the craft, is exceedingly friendly, helpful and thorough. The briefing goes through boat making sure all safety equipment is present and working and that the customer is able to operate both the craft and all the apparatus on board.
Anyhow, the vessel was in immaculate condition and the fridge and freezer were excellent and worked perfectly. Very important for the chilled beer and wine and ice for the gin and tonics, and, of course the food as well!
The boat has everything you could possibly need and is very well designed. My only beef, and it is only minor, is that there is not a lot of room between the table edges and the seating making getting in and out somewhat difficult – perhaps I’m just too tall!?!
When we hired the cat, we weren’t sure how many other family/friends were going to be able to join us so we went for the larger option. The boat is huge and could easily accommodate 4 couples.
As we had to provision the boat, we decided it was not worth trying to rush the process and we bought all the food and other necessities from the relatively new IGA on the island and stowed it all away during the afternoon.
Our berth fee covered the night and we were treated to a free concert over the water as John Butler performed on the island.
This was my first time skippering a cat, so I was more than a little nervous about manoeuvring something almost the size of half a tennis court out of the berth and the marina but with the instructions from Sonia I was able to accomplish this without any issues.
We were only having the boat for 5 nights and the first had been in the marina, so going too far was not an option. The prevailing winds were from the north, north-east and we sailed across Whitsunday passage to Long Island, anchored in Happy Bay and had lunch looking at the deserted resort on the beach.
My daughter and her boyfriend went for a long kayak around the bay and then we headed back across Whitsunday Passage to spend the evening tucked up in Dugong Inlet in Cid Harbour. No swimming off the back of the boat anymore with all the shark attacks but still a very pleasant spot.
The following day was spent out on the water trying to fix the GPS which had decided to reset itself to a software that was out of date. This was accomplished after a number of calls to Sunsail and the very helpful staff talked me through taking out the sim card and entering the correct program.
We decided to spend the night in Nara Inlet so we entered the inlet just before lunch and to our surprise there were only 2 other craft in there!
After lunch the tender was lowered from the davits on the stern and used to ferry those who wanted to explore the island and the Aboriginal Cave site. By the time the sun was setting the inlet had filled up as usual but we had a prime position by arriving early.
The following day we sailed through Hook Island Passage and down the east side of Whitsunday Island to Whitehaven Beach. Anchored there for lunch and long walks along the magnificent beach were in order. After lunch it was around the bottom of the island through Solway Passage to Turtle Bay for the evening.
The next morning was spent at anchor in Turtle Bay with my daughter donning the stinger suit and having a snorkel over the reef on the western side of the bay. An anxious father was following close by in the tender keeping an eye out for hungry sea creatures.
We then decided to head back to Hamilton for the last night to ensure there were no dramas getting flights home the following day.
Again, some anxiety manoeuvring the “barge” into the marina but an easy side on berth was allocated and all was good!
A short visit but fantastic as always.
Ashley K.
A very embarrassing mistake has been pointed out to me by an eagle-eyed reader and obvious Leopard Fan.
The interior shot is in fact not that of the actual boat discribed as it clearly shows a 3 cabin version.
I have contacted the author since and he told me he mixed up the picture with one from a previous trip but assures me that the cabins condition of boat reviewed is equal to the cabin shown here. Exterior picture are of “It’s all about me”.
I apologize as I really should have picked this up during publication. I think I need more time on Leopards 😆😆