Thursday 16 May Hamilton island

Whitsunday sunset

Hamilton yacht club

A back track of our course today, back to Hamilton island with it's exclusive, and very expensive marina, holiday apartments and hotel and free public mooring balls opposite the entrance to the marina. You can guess where Jackster stayed – yes on the public mooring ball and we took a short dinghy ride into the marina where they were quite happy to let us tie up to the dock for a couple of hours and use the excellent laundry facilities (though I didn't specifically ask – the door was open and we paid our money so I didn't see it as a problem).

With the palm trees, blue water and Sunsail charter boats we were back in Road Town,Tortola, British Virgin Isles. Around the marina there are the usual marina shops – chandlery, sea view restaurants, souvenir shops and a small grocery and everywhere golf carts. I think one company owns the hotel and all the apartments. Everything looked so similar and each apartment comes with a golf cart for use. We wandered, had some fish and chips (not so good), walked up to the architecturally splendid Hamilton island yacht club, collected the laundry and left. Nice place to visit for an hour or if you have deep pockets.

More in line with our budget is Airlie Beach, 14 miles away on the mainland. We began the trip in light winds and sunshine but when we were three miles off the wind suddenly cloud cover appeared and the wind changed as fast as flicking a switch. One moment we were motoring with 5 knots a little ahead of the beam and then wham! 33 knots and torrential rain from behind. Visibility decreased to less than half a mile and we had our steaming and pulpit lights on in the afternoon. With many ferries and other yachts using this track we were keeping a keen look out. Unlike the yacht following us we didn't have any sails up. He had full sails and got knocked over in the strong gusts.

The wind and rain softened as we approached the anchorage at Airlie and we didn't get too wet when we anchored. It's amazing how quick you can drop the hook when you want to.