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SOUTH MOLLE ISLAND...continued |
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In the Whitsundays, stories abound about incompetent people on charter yachts, and how you should stay as far away as possible. Our experience has been somewhat different – we have found the large commercially-skippered charter boats to be by far the worst, in terms of creating hassle for cruising yachties. Some of the skippers are blasé, arrogant, aggressive and otherwise obnoxious. Most of the problems stem from anchoring too close to other boats, and not paying enough attention to setting the anchor in the first place.
We witnessed a classic example at Bauer Bay when, just on dusk when everyone was nicely settled, the large charter yacht Solway Lass came into the bay and dropped anchor on top of a fancy power cruiser. The cruiser owners were not happy, but that made no difference to Solway Lass. To compensate for the limited swinging room, Solway Lass let out minimal anchor chain. Another mistake. Although we were not endangered, such behaviour makes us really angry as it is completely unnecessary – it pushes our buttons as we have been on the receiving end of really ugly behaviour from another Whitsundays-based charter yacht (Madison).
The night was comfortable but by morning we had 20 knots of wind with much stronger bullets coming off the mountains and ripping through the anchorage. Solway Lass disgorged her guests onto the beach for a walk. Then, sure enough, she started dragging backwards out of the bay.
Even though there were still a few crew left on board, no-one seemed to notice or even care that they were dragging. Fortunately there were no boats anchored directly behind her, or they would have been crushed. We sat mesmerized as she proceeded past us backwards, picking up speed as the anchor was pulled into deeper water. |
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Above: Solway Lass anchored in Bauer Bay, below Spion Kop, on the morning of the Great Drag |
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It wasn’t until the vessel was well out to sea and rapidly shrinking in size that suddenly we could see ant-like figures rushing around on deck. Solway Lass motored back into the bay, this time even closer to the shore, and |