Whitehaven Beach

Whitehaven Beach

From Tongue Bay, Whitehaven beach is just a short trip, so after a lazy morning, we pulled up anchor and motored over. "Motor, not sail?" you wonder. Alas, all the modern conveniences on the boat like the refrigeration, gps/chart plotter, windlass and pressurized hot and cold water require power, which means running the engine about 2 hours a day, but with entering and exiting harbors, it actually doesn't seem like that much.

At Whitehaven, we anchored and had a leisurely day of sand castle building, swimming, and kayaking while watching the tourists come and go by ferry, seaplane and helicopter. I met some German tourists who were on an old maxi-boat "Matador" and they said there were 30 on board and most of them camped on shore, so it is quite a busy place. Luckily, the beach is miles long which gives everyone enough room to spread out.

Since we were anchored at the far edge of the fleet, we actually had a fair amount of privacy, and in fact at one point I wish I had been closer to the other boats. After spending some time ashore with Mark and Erik, I wanted to head back to the boat but leave them the dinghy, so I swam out to the boat. The water was so clear I could see the bottom and fish swimming around the whole way out. Although I've swam much farther distances in open water for triathlons etc, it was somewhat unnerving being out alone in the sea, and I was quite glad to reach the Ruby Red.

In the afternoon, Mark got a bit restless and we went across the bay to Chalkie's beach on Hasslewood Island, which was similar but less crowded. Unfortunately it was rather unprotected, so after a quick snorkel we headed back to Whitehaven.

Chalkie's Beach