When I had to give up my computer sales and repair business, along with all the Web Design and other stuff that I had been doing since 1989 I dropped Web work altogether until I was tricked into helping build a Tourist Resort overseas.
I should explain 'tricked' because it was nothing sinister. I had been asked to look at a block of land on an island in another tropical country, then when I arrived and was invited to stay the night, we got talking and I was asked for my thoughts on whether the owners should sell the land or if I thought there was anything interesting that could be done with it.
It was walking distance from one of the most beautiful coral reefs in the world! Seriously, I could walk to the water's edge, then straight into the sea and be surrounded by the most amazing corals and fish. I think some of our Whitsunday islands are beautiful with their fringing reefs. The difference was that here, the water was crystal clear. To get that in Queensland you have to visit the 'outer reef', or specifit islands like Heron, Lady Elliot and the like.
I laid out some ideas I'd dreamed of that I would love to have done somewhere like Cid Harbour on Whitsunday Island. A low key accommodation resort that blended into the surroundings, a bit like the old Palm Bay resort on Long Island.
A couple of resorts had been built on the island I was visiting, but they had been built to cater to foreigners with deep pockets. The foreigners didn't come for long and the resorts went broke.
I had always admired the little resorts in The Whitsundays like Palm Bay and Hook Island Observatory which were very no-frills and affordable. I thought the go for this little island would be to build cheap but nice, and price everything for young locals like those working in call centres in the city. Just the type of people who couldn't afford the posh resorts built for foreigners, but would enjoy the chance to break the monotony of crowded city life with a weekend on an island only 45 minutes or so from home.
I came back to Australia and promptly forgot about the whole thing until, some months later in passing conversation someone said "We'll be starting to build your resort as soon as we get enough good weather.
That was the start of the last big adventure in a lifetime of smaller ones. . There are a heap of posts, including the early building of the resort in some of my Blogspot Posts about Isla Verde Resort.
I had got a taste for The Whitsundays when I first came here during an around Australia trip in the 1970s. I returned again briefly after I moved to Queensland in 1977, but it wasn’t until 1981 that I bought a small catamaran in Bundaberg and about a year later moved to Mackay with the intention of some day living on a small yacht and making the islands my home.
Storm Season was a Windrush 16 surfcat, designed in Western Australia and different in many ways from my earlier boats. Unlike the popular Hobie 16, the Windrush was designed to handle real surf and carry a load.
I separated the front quarter or so of the trampoline, and set it up to carry one or two 20 litres water containers, an anchor and chain, paddles and enough food and other gear to keep me happy for 2 to 3 weeks away from civilisation. She also carried all mandatory (at the time) Emergency gear.
The Windrush 16 was a very heavy boat even for a crew of two to manhandle. A single bloke even without any gear aboard had a hard time moving it and and a load of camping gear, including a 2-person wall type tent made dragging her up or down any sort of beach impossible, so I usually anchored off if I planned to move early. Otherwise I simply set the tent up on the tramp wherever the tide dropped me.
In the early 1990’s I had a web space called Whitsunday Wandering in what was then a GEOCITIES community called, appropriately The Tropics. There I wrote about coastal sailing in Australia’s Whitsunday Islands area aboard Storm Season, and in Leisurely, my Hartley 18 Trailer Sailer.
After some time dedicated to work and other pursuits a spinal injury that happened in about 1986 started causing me a lot of grief and in about 1991 I was a victim of the Queensland health department's stupidity. I spent a couple of years partly paralyzed and even gave up flying, sailing and other physically demanding recreations for a while.
In an effort at gradual rehabilitation I decided to try to do a bit of to sailing again, purchasing an Embassy 18 trailer sailer in 2001.
It took two years from my spinal injury until I considered trying to sail again, and somewhere in there I began feeling my way back into flying lessons. I renamed the little Embassy 18 'Enya' and for the next 6 years she was a familiar sight around Airlie Beach, in popular anchorages and in anchorages around some rather out of the way islands. Enya even managed a number of trips up and down the coast between Airkie beach and Mackay and two trips up to Bowen.
The first three years of living with Enya involved a lot of practice and discipline to become safe aboard again so I could once again move about confidently despite constant pain.
Just as I was beginning to feel comfortable balancing pain against mobility, the 2004 'hit and run' incident occurred.
On 29th January that year I had just landed at Mackay Airport after doing some circuits and riding back home on my son's little Yamaha Virago I had some clown in a Toyota HiAce decide to try to turn across the flow of traffic and fit through the space between me and the car in front. Except by the time he got there, there was no longer a space.
I ended up in hospital, something that was about to become a defining lifestyle, although I didn;t know it at the time.
Another medical farce ensued, with doctors and surgeons making so many mistakes it would make a good basis for a novel. This time there were between twelve and fourteen fractures depending which medical guessperts we believe, and a couple of joint separations, cartilage damage, ligament and tendon injuries, abdominal injuries and serious mental problems.
I had advertised Enya for sale in early 2007 after I found a Seaway 25 trailer sailer for sale cheap in 2005.
Volcano was on a mooring near Shhingley Beach outside Abel Point Marina and I decided the huge side decks of this Doug Peterson designed IOR quarter ton racing class yacht would allow me to move about with relative safety. I was proven wrong several times, but we all learn. If we survive . .
When I lost Volcano in cyclone Ului in March 2010, I was lucky enough to find a fairly decrepit Cavalier 26 keel boat. Once again found the boat locally, this time up that well known creek at Eimeo/Bucasia in Mackay and once more, a quarter tonner dessigned by Doug Peterson with [I'll remember his name eventually]. Shepherd Moons has been my project ever since, however I had further complications with my health in 2011 and it is continuing to deteriorate. Shepherd Moons will probably be the last yacht I own.
N O T E: That didn't turn out to be the case. After some time an RL24, 'Pacemaker' was delivered to my back yard in Mackay as a project boat 'just in case' I lost another boat to a cyclone. Sadly when that happened I was once more physically unable to sail again - this time, permanently!
I got a lot of support, and made some fun friends in those years before business life and later, a series of injuries, changed my life. I also wrote some guides to cruising in this island paradise of ours.
If I get to finish the, these blogs will be an attempt to share some of the adventure of what is now more than thirty years of sailing among these islands. It will be a rambling thing. Parts will be reminiscences, some will be hints and tips and much of it will be devoted to sections of the book I wrote in the 80’s called ‘A Trailer Sailor’s Guide to The Whitsundays’. Parts of this book are still floating around the Internet in various stages of update.
So where to start this time?
