Cooktown harbour is a pleasant place. A well protected river surrounded by low hills, with a nice clean waterfront park, and a short walk to town. The grocery store is well stocked, and the gas station has slushy machines, so we were pretty well taken care of here.

Power on sailboats is always an issue. Our solar power increases with every boat we get, but our power consumption seems to go up twice as much. Toss in a gaming laptop that sounds like it is run on multiple jet engines, and you have a new worst enemy.

Anchored in the Endeavour River, Cooktown, Australia.

The Cooktown Museum is housed in the restored convent schoolhouse. It’s a beautiful building and the displays were really well done. They gave the kids a worksheet and they spent a couple hours exploring everything in the museum, ticking off their boxes along the way.

In order to get off the reef they had struck, Cook had to release all of their anchors, as well as anything else expendable that would get them floating. Pretty cool to see one of the anchors here, and almost impossible to understand how a ship of just 97 feet could have carried a few of these onboard. Really, looking at the scale model of the Endeavour at the museum it is absolutely crazy to think that there were nearly 100 men and years worth of stores onboard a ship this size.

The local lawn bowling club had a non-members welcome day and we took advantage. We all had a good time. I think I still prefer a good ol’ bocce court, though.

Yet another BBQ night along the waterfront.

It’s one of those places that can feel deserted during the day, but when it cools down at sunset everyone comes out of hiding.

Cook’s Lookout was a long hike from the anchorage in the midday heat.

It rewarded us with the same view that Cook would have seen back in 1770 as he climbed up to search for a way out of the reefs. I can imagine the stress on the poor guy who stood there next to him taking bearings and making drawings.

Things can change in a hurry these days. One of the reasons I always tell people to go cruising as soon as they possibly can, is because if you wait, either your health, or the health of a family member is going to derail your plans.

While not exactly derailed, we had a family issue back in the States that needed our attention. Being halfway around the world is hard enough, but being that Cooktown is the last place in Australia to “reasonably” fly out of for the next 1,000 miles, we had to make the snap decision to send Ali back to take care of things.

One morning we woke up and everything was fine. The next morning Ali was scrambling to catch the one tiny plane flying out of Cooktown each day. It’d be about 36 hours before she’d land in the States.

(Just to let you all know, everyone is doing okay. But we know this won’t be the last time this happens.)

While Ali was flying out, me and the kids were sailing out.