A Race Week Extravaganza

What a week! The 26th annual Audi Hamilton Island Race Week was a windless event; frustrating for the racing crews but fabulous for photographers like myself, who had a great opportunity to capture the scene.

The festivities began on Friday August 21st with the official opening of the Hamilton Island Yacht Club. In actual fact, this new building (dubbed the "Opera House of the north", by Queensland Premier Anna Bligh), won't be properly open to the public until November 2009. Construction was rushed to a reasonable conclusion purely for the start of Race Week, after which it returned to its previous state.

The race for Day 1 was a 'round Lindeman Island' course, taking the fleet some 12 nautical miles south of Hamo beside a backdrop of spectacular island scenery. Light northerly winds marked the start of the week's events and had us anchored in the perfect spot to await the passing of the carbon fibre Armada. From our position in Plantation Bay, we had front row seats, albeit in our own dinghy. We somehow managed not to get in anyone's way, still scoring 3 seconds of fame on Race Week TV. Go to the media section of the official Race Week website and watch the video highlights from day 1. You'll see us (briefly) about 3/4 of the way through.

With the exception of a couple of lay days, we managed to follow most of the week's events including the final 'Molle Islands Race' on Saturday August 29th. To finish off the extravaganza we anchored two miles away from Hamilton Harbour at Beach 25 on Whitsunday Island and dinghied over to join the celebrations on the main street. We were lucky enough to meet the crew of 'Living Doll' who are walking away with this year's trophies for both Hamilton Island and Meridien Airlie Beach Race Weeks' in the Grand Prix Division 1 category. Some of my photos from the event are now on Flickr and here, for this blog, is a short video.

Shaz Hits Hamo!

Hamilton Island, affectionately known as 'Hamo', is the place to be right now if you're anywhere near the Whitsundays. The island is buzzing with preparations for the annual Audi Hamilton Island Race Week with all the pizzazz this high profile sailing event entails.

Brilliant II arrived on the scene shortly after my last blog post. We were windswept and desperate for shelter. The weather hadn't given us much of a break for our arrival in the Whitsundays. Strong southerlies coupled with a nasty cross-sea from the east made us roll everywhere we tried to stop. "Let's head to Hamo", we agreed.

Brilliant II had a berth in the marina for two nights with mega-yachts and giant powerboats for neighbours. The cost was a whopping $105 per night but it was worth every cent. We scrubbed ourselves, our clothes and our boat and hit the town. Right beside the marina are a selection of restaurants and a lively little pub.

In the morning it was down to the serious business of being tourists on a photographic mission. Here's a snapshot of our surroundings.

During our walk around the marina precinct I spotted what would have been my company car had I scored 'the best job in the world'. Its current driver Ben Southall is away taking care of some of the southernmost islands on the Great Barrier Reef on behalf of Tourism Queensland.

Not to be outdone, Julian and I hired our own golf buggy, which is the standard form of transport on Hamo. I can now confirm it is virtually impossible to break any speed limits in these things. I want one!

We took off over the hills to the main resort area for a peek at how the landlubbers live. Things obviously aren't too tough here, as you can see.

I first came to Hamilton Island 12 years ago as a young backpacker, hitching a ride on a passing yacht. On a particularly alcohol fueled night my fellow crew members and I, visited the resort to race up and down in its external glass elevators. I dragged Julian along to the scene of my previous crimes, only this time in daylight (and sober), I was able to properly appreciate the view.

One of the best viewpoints on Hamilton Island has to be 'One Tree Hill'. From here you can see down over the Fitzalan Passage and over to Whitsunday Island.

When our two days of shoreside luxury were up, we motored out of the marina for a sail around some of the other islands in the Whitsunday group and a trip over to Airlie Beach for reprovisioning. We'll be heading back to these spots in due course and since they are all deserving of posts in their own right I'll save them for later.

Meanwhile race week is about to start and it's all action, action, action. Yesterday some friends from the brokerage Yacht Domain came up to Hamo on a business trip. There were no berths available in the marina any more. The only way we could catch up with them was to anchor off Beach 25 on the south coast of Whitsunday Island and take the dinghy over. (This is a distance of about two nautical miles and takes roughly 15 minutes.) It was a fun trip over and even more fun to see our friends. Needless to say it was a late night!

We are now recovering from the bright lights and loud noise at a serene anchorage off Lindeman Island, some 12 miles to the south. Here tomorrow we hope to watch the first of the week's races, which is a 'round Lindeman Island' course.

To balance out the decadence of our visits to Hamo I've also managed to squeeze in some work over the past couple of weeks. I've written a couple of articles to appear in the Australian magazine 'Cruising Helmsman' and started a blog called 'Sailing with the Smallwoods' for the Yaffa publishing website 'My Sailing'. Just for fun I've also created a blog for one of our cats called 'The Adventures Of Captain Carlos'. Happy reading!!

The Journey So Far

We finally left Bundaberg on July 18th after almost two years of living at the Port Marina. It's so nice to be 'on the road' again, but there are some things that take a bit of getting used to, like the constant motion. The anchorages so far haven't always been flat and it's a lot different to being snug and staying still in a marina berth.

Conditions weren't right for Lady Musgrave and its coral lagoon so we headed inshore to Pancake Creek. Here we spent an unexpected four days, thanks to a bout of northerly winds. The extended stay gave us a chance to get to know the place better. Below are a couple of pics.

From Pancake Creek we headed north to Cape Capricorn. The anchorage here was shocking - we rolled from gunwale to gunwale all night. Now that we're officially in the tropics I was hoping the weather would be warmer, but as you can see from Julian's clothing the temperature has a long way to rise yet!

We carried on to the island of Great Keppel. Here we were able to rendezvous with some friends from Bundaberg, Hugh and Kryssie on 'Kasyma'. There were a lot of boats gathered off the north coast of the island waiting for the closure to finish in Shoalwater Bay. This is controlled by the Australian Army who use the area for live firing practice. For obvious reasons access is restricted at such times. We all took advantage of the mass meeting to get to know one another at a beach bbq one afternoon.

Great Keppel is a beautiful destination with white sand beaches, steep walking tracks, rugged coastline and a closed-down resort. The resort area is like a ghost town at the moment although there are still some private enterprises such as 'Island Pizza' and the 'Rainbow Hut' that are open for business as well as a few options for accommodation. If you really want to get away from it all, then come here now before the developers get stuck in.

From Great Keppel it was on to the Shoalwater Bay area, visiting Port Clinton and Pearl Bay. Pearl Bay is a gorgeous place, and one of those special locations you can only get to by boat (or by joining the Army Reserve!).

During the last week the winds have been strengthening giving us fairly boisterous daily runs. Our anchorage at Hexham Island was as lively as the weather we've been experiencing but quite stunning nonetheless.

To finish off the second week of our voyage we called in to West Bay on Middle Percy Island. This bay is famous amongst the cruising fraternity for its A-Frame shack filled with the memorabilia of several decades worth of passing boats. Known as the Percy Hilton, the A-Frame was originally established by an Englishman named Andrew Martin who lived in the homestead, supplying goat meat and honey to the crews of visiting yachts. The island is now leased by Andy's cousin Cathryn who has set about restoring the legendary tradition of hospitality. Hanging from one of the entry posts is our contribution to the cruising 'hall of fame' - a driftwood carving with 'Brilliant II' and our names engraved into it, made by Julian in 2007.

Ahead of us lie the islands of the Whitsundays, with all the excitement of the 'best job' campaign and Hamilton Island Race Week to come. Already we're seeing several racing yachts, making their way up the coast in preparation for the year's biggest sailing event. It's certainly a great time to be in the area and I'm really looking forward to the anchorages of the next couple of weeks.