Egret Reef overnight stop

Egret Reef

9/10/2019   After 13 days at Lizard Island we pulled up our anchor and departed at 5.00am on Wednesday morning.  The winds had finally eased enough to sail south.  We hoisted the mainsail and unfurled the headsail and with a steady 16 knots of breeze on a small swell Rhapsody was sailing along at 7 knots.  We had several destinations in mind depending on the conditions.  For the first 18 nautical miles to Cape Flattery we had a really good sail and as we passed the cape the winds dropped to 12 knots and our speed decreased to between 5-6 knots.  We were still sailing well but as we drew closer to Cape Bedford the wind dropped out to 6 knots and the seas flattened off so the Captain had to resort to putting on one of the engines otherwise it was going to be dropping anchor at Cape Bedford.  We motor sailed for the rest of our journey and decided to drop anchor at Egret Reef which is 9 nautical miles south of Cooktown so we had travelled 45 nautical miles.  As we were dropping anchor the reef was in full view but when we were ready to pull up anchor this morning we were on a high tide and it looked like Rhapsody was sitting in the middle of the ocean only a lighthouse was visible to distinguish a reef.