Island Head Creek to the Whitsundays

Tuesday, 4 August to Wednesday, 12 August 2026

We exited Island Head Creek at 0640 and set the spinnaker once clear of the island guarding the entrance. Our original plan was to head to Curlew Island, 70nm away. However this would require us to tack downwind and would mean a late arrival at the anchorage. As our current course was straight for Hunter Island, 35nm away, we decided to stop here for the night. 

Hunter Island

Hunter has a very pretty sand beach, spoiled only by the signs saying firearms are in frequent use on the cattle and deer property. Southern Exposure and Liberty were also here for the night.

Quartz veining in granite according to our resident geologist James (Sassafras)

Lots of noisy deer but no cattle

On Wednesday, we all headed off for Curlew Island, in about 10 knots of breeze. We set our spinnaker once clear of the shallows west of Hunter and had a pleasant if slow trip to Curlew, arriving in time for a late lunch. 

Early morning photo courtesy of Liberty

Thursday was a 52 nm sail to Scawfell Island, the start of the Whitsundays. We left early to make the most of the ebb tide together with Southern Exposure. We set our spinnaker and were enjoying the conditions until a whale on a collision course with us surfaced 5 m to port of Phase2. Warren called to brace as the whale dived under the boat, as he was sure it would hit us. We held our breaths and were relieved when it surfaced on our starboard side having missed both rudders and keels! It took a while for our heart rates to return to normal and we counted ourselves very lucky. Below is the distance we like our whales to be.

We made good time to Scawfell and decided to make Friday a rest day so we could have a sleepin. It was windy and rainy all day however, so no walk ashore but we did get to watch the Lions have a big win over the Hawks, thanks to Starlink.

Now that we are in the Whitsundays, the distances between anchorages are much smaller so we slowly cruised our way north stopping at Goldsmith (always a favourite), Shaw and Lindeman Islands before arriving at Whitehaven Beach in perfect conditions on Tuesday morning. A nice mackeral caught on our way to Shaw Island was delicious.

Goldsmith Island

Shaw Island

Whitehaven Beach

It was busy as usual but we caught up with Sassafras and Brett, Daron and Donna for sundowners. Brett regaled us with tales of charter boat mishaps when he was operations manager up here for one of the companies. On Wednesday morning we hiked up to Whitehaven lookout and took in the views. 

Whitehaven Beach

Looking south to some of the 74 islands in the Whitsundays

After lunch, as we prepared to leave we discovered the water pump was not working. The definition of cruising as boat maintenance in beautiful locations was never more true. Luckily it was only the pressure switch and Warren replaced it with a spare that we had on board. Our delayed departure, however, meant that we arrived at Macona Inlet just as it was getting dark so we anchored as far up the inlet as we dared as a strong SE was forecast to come through overnight. The BOM was spot on and at 0300, 30 - 40 knot gusts tore through the anchorage. Phase2 all secure however.

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