Well, here we are in Hamilton Island Marina. We stayed a couple of days at Long Island then made way to Airlie Beach for provisioning and to find that Gina And Rod were too bogged down with work commitments to come out with us. A real pity. They say they'll join us in the Carribean instead! We left Airlie's Abell Point Marina (a very busy, fun marina with good facilities) on Thursday 11 June after calling Rupert for his birthday. We had planned to stop at Hook Island's Nara Inlet, which with hindsight would have been a good idea, but continued on to Butterfly Bay at the northern tip of the island. it was sheltered but huge wind bullets came down the mountain behind us making for a very buffeted lumpy night. Anyway despite some rain and bluster we snorkelled at the Pinnacles and Maureen Bay. We then came south to Nara Inlet which was beautiful and protected. We kayaked all around and spent a couple of days there. We all went to look at the Aboringinal rock art in a cave. Next was Macona Inlet, again a beautiful spot with great vegetation, interesting rocks and noisy cockatoos. We moved to Sawmill Bay in Cid Harbour on Thursday for the night. Laura and Huw did the walk to Whitsunday Peak but it was too cloudy to see much. Pete and I walked the short track to Dugong Beach and back. A lovely well maintained track. We motored from there to Hamilton Island yesterday to pick up Richard and Katrina who fly in from Sydney in a few hours to have 5 days with us. So, no more till next Thursday when we get back in range. It's amazing how close to the coast of mainland Australia we are but cut off from all usual phone and internet - character forming probably, some would say......