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Firefly - Snow reported in Queensland



On the World ARC SSB Radio net yesterday one of the yachts reported a message that it had been snowing in Queensland for the first time in 30 years. Its therefore not surprising that our weather is not quite tropical. Firefly is currently thundering along in up to 40 knots of winds as we approach Mackay with our passage through the Great Barrier Reef expected in the early hours on Wednesday 22nd July and our arrival at the marina sometime late in the evening of the same day.

The GRIB based weather forecasting we use via Sailmail has been very accurate. The Trade Winds kicked in on schedule and at present we are traversing a section of trades where 2 small troughs have developed. They are the reason for the heavy cloud, rain squalls and the strong winds - its also very rough out here but with a following sea so not too uncomfortable.

Firefly is hunkered down with 2 reefs in the main and a small amount of jib goosewinged using the jib boom. The autopilot response is turned up higher than usual and on average its about every 10 minutes when it gets caught by a difficult wave and is thrown off course - something that it corrects very quickly.

The crew are all well and 'newby' Mike is loving it, in fact he can be heard snoring away contentedly while this blog is prepared. We will however all be happy to arrive in Australia where we will spend about 6 weeks.

Paul, Susie and Mike

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