Monday 3 June Orpheus Island

Before we could fit the headsail this morning there was one more job to do. When the electric motor furled yesterday it's so powerful that in catching the halyards t bent two 7' steel extensions on the swivel that the sail is attached to. It holds the foil straight on the mast whilst furling and unfurling, without it the whole sail can swivel around. Despite David's best efforts to straighten them using the seating device of the generator as a fixing point and a blow torch they are beyond repair. Plan B was to mentally sweep the boat from fore to aft to find something amongst our 'treasures' and 'could come in handy' supplies that with a bit of ingenuity could be fashioned to make something with the same functionality. A 10mm bolt and aluminium tubing with bolts to hold it together was the solution. Screwed into the swivel, sail laid on deck ready to raise, me feeding the bolt rope into the groove and David hoisting we were ready to go. We were lucky with the weather as the wind stayed light. It's still a lot of work. On a ketch the headsail is the biggest sail (67sq m) and when the wind catches it whips. To cut a long story short before your eyes completely glaze over with tedium, we were finished. Almost. There was one last fix; putting plastic tubing on the aluminium rods to stop them clanking on the mast. One last trip up in the bosuns chair for someone small while the other, stronger person did the hauling up. For the first time ever I went up in the bosuns chair. I took the plastic piping and my camera for action shots. After I got over the sensation of being rocked and settled in I felt very comfortable and it much easier than being on the winch.

David looking up to me - naturally!

manta feeding on algae bloom

a couple of new students

giant clams

Repair completed in a mere six hours of labour. All because of 10 seconds of lack of concentration.

I suppose we could have justified lying around for the rest of the day but I'd seen a manta ray from the top of the mast and across the bay is the James Cook University Marine station. Going across in the dinghy we found the black manta feeding on algae bloom so unconcerned with our presence it came close to the boat. At the university research station we were given a warm welcome and a tour of the buildings by Terry the maintenance man – the professors were on a trip to the main land to collect a visiting school trip. he showed us the labs and lecture rooms, accommodation and diving centre and a freezer just for cane toads. Volunteers collect the poisonous cane toads from the island which are then humanely dispatched by being put in the freezer.  I thought they were for dissection classes.

label says it all

Terry gave us directions to find a small group of giant clams in the bay, a left over from a previous breeding programme, and we found the group of eight in 2m of water close to the shore.