And, besides, we were due to pick up the first of our Guest Crew, in the form of the Rip Curl Tide Watch King, Peter Hodgart, who'd just flown into Mackay.
Peter's a mad keen fisherman, so we were looking forward to him quickly setting up the lines and hauling in loads of fish.
After docking in the marina, it took a few easy days and we'd replenished the larder and the fuel tanks, we were out to sea again.
The sail started out a little rough and calmed down later on, but our next problem emerged when we doused the mainsail and one side of our lazyjack line broke. (The lazy jacks are the arrangement of light rope that hold the sail bag on the boom, and control the sail as it drops to guide it into the bag neatly.)
A minor problem, just inconvenient in that it made using the mainsail a pain in the bum. I decided that I didn't want to fix it myself, (which would've involved a trip up the mast) and that I'd wait until I found a rigger in Airlie Beach.
Anyway, Hodgy had the trolling lines out the back and we were all just waiting for the first big Spanish Mackerel to flop onto the deck....

In one respect, I was pleased....if the mighty Hodg couldn't catch a fish, I didn't feel so bad about not having caught one myself since leaving the Gold Coast.
But fortune smiled on us when somehow a remora (or
sucker fish) managed to tangle itself and Hodg's fishing line up in our anchor chain. So the drought was broken at last.
Onwards again to another famous Whitsundays spot,
the spectacular Nara Inlet. Our little hidey-hole there was previously named "Shark Bay" but the tourism people thought that was a bit off-putting and renamed it something innocuous so as not to scare the horses.
Persevering with the dinghy trolling, Hodg scored a couple of tiddlers.
I'd made a few phone calls back to the not-far-away Airlie Beach and we had an appointment set for the rigger to visit the boat and repair my lazy jacks. The rigger won't go up the mast if the boat's on the anchor or even on the solid ground....has to be in a marina. So, in we went, to Airlie Beach's "other" marina. It's up-market and situated in what used to be called Muddy Bay. (Another name the Tourist Bureau would like to bury.)
The old rigger wasn't silly though, and happily sat on deck issuing orders, sending his lithe young mountain climber assistant up the mast, and she fixed our lazy jacks in no time.

The boat is so roomy that it's easy to have visitors on board, and every cabin has its own ensuite bathroom and shower. Once Peter had made his way to the airport, we readied the boat for our next visitors, old Torquay friends Rod and Andrea Brooks, who were driving up from their home on the Gold Coast.
Once they'd parked their car safely we started loading on the mountains of food, alcohol and "stuff" they'd brought (ain't life easy when you're not travelling on Jetstar).
I then set about having the dinghy valued and ordering a new one to be kitted up to our specs, and delivered after our next trip out to the islands.