Oops

I flew south for a workshop last week, a week Miles spent in Cairns catching up on laundry and old friends, blithely watching the marina rapidly empty as boats sailed south with the north winds.  When I got back we popped out to one of the closer outer reefs, where we moored for a few days (in more delightful north winds), contemplating our next move.

While we were thus occupied playing with Christmas tree worms, our next move dwindled to 3 not very attractive options. Strong south easterlies are predicted up here for at least ten days, which is as far into the future as the weather chart predicts, so Option 1 is to stay put in Cairns and wait them out, forking out Cairns marina prices and the wads of cash we always seem to chuck around ashore. Option 2 is to Go Boldly Where The Wind Takes Us, ie. north, and visit Lizard Island, and wait for the winds to change back to northerlies. Option 3 is to poke our nose out tomorrow morning when a bit more east is expected, and bunny hop south to Maggie and wait out the worst of the bluster down there. The problem with options 1 & 2 is that more and more locals have been telling us that, some years, the southerlies never ease off. At this time of year they hog 80% of the wind rose, so if we wait around for a northerly to come we could feasibly wait until Cyclone Buttwhumper chews us up and spits us out sometime in January. 

So we're going south.

Fortune favours the slightly ignorant but ever optimistic.

And hey, we might even get a surf on Maggie.