Year 2 – 25 March 2025 - Lady Elliot Island-Lady Musgrave Island - Great Barrier Reef

If anyone reading this and is free from late June to mid July 2025 to come to Australia then do contact me as I am short of crew during this period at present.

It was a greyish morning but still pleasant and we set about having breakfast and preparing to leave for Lady Musgrave Island some 21 nm North. This is an Island with a reef around it but it also has on its East Side a good-sized lagoon surrounded by a coral reef and there is an entrance into the lagoon. We wanted to go into the lagoon and anchor but there are coral bommies to look out for as you navigate through the lagoon to where we decide to anchor.

Lady Musgrave Island is a 14 hectares (35 acres) coral cay on Australia's Great Barrier Reef, with a 1,192 hectares (2,950 acres) surrounding reef. The island is the second southernmost island in the Great Barrier Reef chain of islands, the first (southernmost) being Lady Elliot Island. The Island is named after Lady Lucinda Musgrave, the wife of Sir Anthony Musgrave, a colonial governor of Queensland.

Lady Musgrave Island, and the immediate surrounds, is a national park and can be reached by excursion boat from Bundaberg (located approximately 4 hours north of Brisbane) and from the Town of 1770, Queensland (located approximately 5 hours north of Brisbane). The island is part of the Capricornia Cays Important Bird Area.

We upped anchor about 8.30am and headed toward Lady Musgrave and the wind angle we could sail was about 130-135 which would bring us to the North of the lagoon. There was a reasonable swell from between 1.5m and 3.0m maximum. We sailed well and at a reasonable speed with the swell rolling us a bit but on the whole not backing the sails. It was a bit overcast but dry and we had a good few hours sailing nicely. Trevor fished but unfortunately at one point he caught a fish but the line broke so it must have been quite big.

We had some tea and chatted and sailed and admired the large ocean. There were no other boats around and it was as if we had the ocean to ourselves. Once we were about 8nm away we could see the Island on our left but could not make out the lagoon. When I say a lagoon I mean an internal area of water like a lake which is surrounded by a coral reef so it is very similar to the Tuamotus in French Polynesia.

We came to our waypoint North of the lagoon and took in the sails and motored toward the lagoon entrance which on the chart has a channel into the lagoon marked by one red and one green buoy and it is about 10m wide. It seemed odd as it seemed the normal swelly water between us and the Island yet we could see three motorboats stationary and therefore if they were in our swell they would not stay. We motored on and saw a small speedboat ahead of us going toward the pass and it helpfully showed us the way in. As we got closer we could see the red and green buoy marking the entrance. There was then another green buoy on the end of the reef inside and a black balled marker, a danger marker, which seemed to be on the top of a large coral bommie.

I had charged up my headphones on the way and Trevor went to the front with one and I had the other and so we could communicate. Trevor and Mark went on the front and David was in the middle so could communicate between us should the headphones fail. We eased up to the lagoon and could see the brown and yellow green of the coral reef either side. There were dark areas and black areas. We could see the channel and it was about 10 m wide but I had to be careful with the swell and wind not to be pushed right on to the starboard side of the channel. Trevor could see the bottom which was mostly sand between the coral sides and we eased ourselves through the channel. Luckily it was low water so the current was slack and the lowest depth we got was 5.9m. We went in and could see the second green buoy on our right marking the end of the coral reef on the starboard side. We went beyond the black buoy sitting on a large bommie of some sort and it had black and brown colours underneath. We turned to starboard and motored slowly forward and saw ahead on our right side a passenger catamaran on a buoy and beyond that a floating houseboat sort of base and another smaller one behind.  

We eased ourselves forward and could see bits of coral and bommies and found a good spot where we could anchor and swing without any coral to hit etc. We lowered the anchor in about 7.5 m of water at low tide with the increase to high tide being about a meter and dug the anchor well in and it held. We could see way ahead and around us about half a mile away the outer reef with the waves splashing on to it.

Once settled we had some lunch and rested. There were various people from the Catamaran snorkelling and had been taken to the island by a similar type landing craft as we had seen in Lady Elliot Island. By 4.00pm they had gone leaving a floating platform which apparently they use when people stay. We were the only boat anchored here and the wind was howling about 20 + kts and still is as I write this. It reminds me of the San Blas Islands or the Tuamotus where there was always a good breeze as we sat anchored behind a coral reef.

We enjoyed an evening drink and chatted and listened to music and then had a fish supper (with the rest of the Wahoo Trevor had caught) with potatoes and broccoli. It was lovely sitting out in the cockpit with a good breeze and being flat!! It was good to be here and the water is an amazing turquoise blue colour and I saw a lovely turtle swim by as we came down the lagoon.

We look forward to exploring tomorrow. The picture of the day is looking toward the Island from the lagoon where we are anchored.

Need/Opportunity Year Two

I am in need of more crew from late June to Mid-July so if of interest do email me at  hine.nick9@gmail.com  

In year two I will be going from New Zealand to Sydney and hen up the Eastern Australian Coast, Indonesia and then through Bali, Singapore and on to Thailand to end year two about the end of November 2025.

The blog will continue as we continue the journey. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog then do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com