Departed Lizard Island at 7.30 reluctant to climb Cooks Look as it rained all night and the track would be treacherous.  Passed through the narrow Howick Channel but only saw 2 ships all day. Jim’s project today was to rewire the AIS which now gives us more range. Winds were 25 kts SE which allowed us to average above 7.5 kts most of the day. Nigel autopilot was struggling at times so we did a lot of hand steering.

Made it to Cape Melville at 4.30pm and it took us another hour to get around into Bathurst Bay. It was a 77 mile run today, one of our longest. It was blowing quite hard as we arrived with bullets registering 50 kts. The coastline here reminds me of Flinders Island ( the one in Bass Strait,  not the one 15 nm from here.)  The boulders and geomorphology are amazing.