It’s amazing that Lt James Cook travelled as far as he did up the east coast without running aground on uncharted waters. His luck ran out in far north Queensland where he struck a reef and sustained significant damage. He was able to free the Endeavour and make it to a safe inlet for repairs at a place which is now known as Cooktown. He landed on 17 June 1770; how fitting that we arrived today on 17 June.
We left Port Douglas at 6:00am this morning in flat water and calm conditions. We followed dramatic mountains along the coast, passing famous places like the Daintree Forest and Cape Tribulation.
The winds increased during the day to 25 knots. Fortunately, the wind continued to blow from the southeast and we had a quick downhill run to Cooktown. We arrived about 3:30pm and had time to look around town before happy hour and dinner at a pub.
We even had time for some fishing. A school of enormous gropers are regularly fed at the marina so we joined in the spectacle.
Tomorrow we depart for Lizard Island. We are very excited about reaching our final destination. I hope to continue updating this log but we might not have mobile coverage so there might not be any posts for about 10 days.
Debonnaire 