Welcome to Horn Island, Torres Straits, Australia

10′ 35S by 142′ 14E – Yes, we know. We said we were going to Thursday Island. Thursday Island is a small island in the middle of a group of islands. Horn Island is the next island over and has a better anchorage than Thursday Island, so we are anchoring at Horn. Kind of like when we went to Luganville but were anchored across the channel at Aore Island.

Yesterday, almost as soon as we finished writing the blog post saying the ride was good, it got worse. We are getting close to Continue reading

Passage from Lizard Island to Thursday Island

We went over to visit with Maria and Gary on Merlin. They were a wealth of information, telling us all the best places to go in Indonesia, Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand. While in Port Douglas we had picked up a cruising magazine with an article about Indonesia, and it turned out they are the authors. They have written a couple other articles for the magazine on Indonesia, as well. Guess we bumped into the right people!

The plan was to Continue reading

Cook’s Look Hike and More Snorkeling

Pete and Fern picked us up at 07:30 to go on the Cook’s Look hike up the mountain to the left of us. In 1770, Captain Cook mapped the Queensland coastline. He was trying to make his way to the open ocean and couldn’t find a pass through the reefs. He sailed to Lizard Island, anchoring in Watson’s Bay, and scaled the mountain. At the top of the Continue reading

Diving Cod Hole & No Name Reef

Everyone was coming at 07:30, so we were up very early to get ready. Kosmos was a mess inside, since we have been more focused on the exterior than the interior since getting out of the yard. We ate a quick breakfast, did some tidying, and got our own tanks filled and our diving gear ready.

Everyone was on board and ready to go by 0800. There were 11 of us total — 4 snorkelers, the instructor and his two students, and another couple that would be diving with us.

Cod hole is 10 miles southeast of Lizard Island. We were happy to see there was a mooring available. The reason the spot is called Cod Hole is because gigantic Continue reading

Snorkeling in Watson’s Bay

We headed over to the beach a little before 13:00 (1:00 pm). Everyone was gathered around a small picnic table under a tree on the beach. There were about 16 people there, all Australian retirees. We listened to the horse race on the radio, then hung out and chatted with everyone for a couple more hours. Everyone was really nice. Politics was at the forefront of everyone’s mind since Continue reading