Paradise – Portland Roads, Cape Weymouth FNQ
26-31 August 2019
It was a lovely day sailing up to Portland Roads (Cape Weymouth/Iron Range), I baked a cake for Nathalie's birthday and we sang happy birthday while we were underway. But when furling up the G-Zero, it wrapped and rather than dropping the sail we tried to unfurl it and before you knew it there was a gust of wind and things went pear-shaped and the sail shredded, and part of it landed in the water. It was a massive effort to get it back on board and secure.
The next step was to get the sail onto shore to measure up and organise a replacement sail. It was a good time to meet some of the locals and John had a good time cuddling the local dog while we waited for the tide to come back in.
Portland Roads is another little gem in Australia there are only ten houses there and one place to eat called Out of the Blue Café. The food there is fantastic and their specialty is seafood, so we ordered the seafood platter. This was the farewell dinner for Jonathan and Nathalie who have sailed with us from Sydney.
Our pace slowed down while we wait for the sail to be made and shipped to Weipa. Sean and Andrina from SV Samantha generously gave us a crayfish, and I whipped up some lobster mornay. The crayfish was so big that it fed us for 3 meals. Lobster mornay pies are the best!!
Nighttime was entertaining as the giant grouper loved hanging around our boat. There was an abundance of sharks too and the odd croc swimming around during the day. Definitely no swimming off the back of the boat here.
HISTORY OF PORTLAND ROADS: In the 1930s a wharf was built to ship cattle out of the Cape. During WWII the Americans upgraded the wharf and sealed the road from Portland Roads to Lockhart River where three airstrips were built. Bombers from this airstrip flew to PNG to harass the Japanese. After the war, the wharf fell into disrepair and was eventually pulled down.