The Cruise that wasn’t

The cruise that wasn’t, Mike and Jane (Curlew) were the appointed cruise captains for the May cruise.

However, someone must have upset Poseidon as he was determined to thwart our endeavour to exercise our vessels. His first action was to strike down the cruise captains with the modern version of the plague. Poseidon obviously underestimated Mike and Jane as they handed the plan over to us, Erwin & Ilse (Moonglade), for execution.

The initial idea was to spend time on Moreton Island around Lucinda or Sandhills, but that was also crushed as Poseidon managed to introduce Southerly winds to make the Moreton anchorages as unpleasant as possible. Mike & Jane’s backup plan was rolled out and after a successful and well attended Sail Cruising Group AGM, the group agreed on Karragarra for our weekend destination. We had commitments from Affinity, Imoogi, Chantelle IV, Ruakh, Ocean Essence, Tequila Mockingbird, Brittany Rose and Moonglade. Once we had commitment and a plan, Poseidon brought out the big guns and contracted the job out to his mate Zeus who commenced action almost as soon as our meeting was over and covered a large area with slow and steady drizzle.

On Sunday morning we awoke grey skies, wet decks, and constant drizzle which quickly dampened our enthusiasm for the planned adventure. By the time everyone was awake we were ready to let Poseidon have his win. Whilst the precipitation stopped in the Manly area mid morning, the radar showed persistent rain over our planned anchorage at Karragarra, as if to demonstrate how much power the ancient gods still wield over us poor sailors. As weather continued to clear and nobody had departed the marina, we decided to call for sundowners on the loo with a view at the end of L/M arm where we were joined by new members Roger and Janette from Phantom, a Hanse 495.

Whilst some of our cruisers were still nursing headaches from celebrating after the AGM, many of those with vessels based at RQ made it to sundowners and had a fabulous time socialising. The last of the cruisers stayed and chatted until well after 7pm. Sunday’s weather was much kinder (Poseidon & Zeus don’t work on Sundays) but there was heavy rain just East of the Islands and large Cumulus clouds developing inland just to keep up the threat of rain. Curlew went out for a sail and got the best of the little breeze we had in the morning, but there was nothing left by the time Chantelle IV ventured outside. Affinity managed a little excursion, anchored near King island and returned back to their new berth on L arm just before the sun went down.

Whilst we didn’t do a lot of cruising this weekend, everyone still enjoyed socialising.

Erwin & Ilse SV Moonglade