10 AM it is getting quite rough at the jetty, I tell the island the last ferry will leave at 11.00AM, confirm the power house has enough fuel, & send the barge off for Shute harbour. It’s square bow is not good for pushing into the growing seas.

11.00 AM I get on the ferry, with the departing island guests, & head for Shute harbor. The weather bureau corrects its forecast, the cyclone will be over us at 7.00 PM. I arrange our courtesy bus to pick up the big boats crews families & get them to the safe house, before meeting the ferry at Shute.

We hear a call from Whitsunday Rent a Yacht. 2 of their 35 footers are to the west of North Molle Island & in trouble. They cannot make headway in the rising seas. Can anyone help?

I don’t like this. Amateur sailors, with ropes, near propellers in rough conditions is asking for disaster, but what can you do. We are the only boat near, & just a couple of miles away. The 2 amateur skippers are very competent luckily, & we have them both in tow in just 45 minutes.
That’s when we get a call from the barge, it is losing power on the starboard engine, & can’t make headway towards Shute in the now moderate seaway. I can’t help him with these yachts out back, so tell the skipper to head to Airlie Beach, it’s mostly down wind, & out of the rough stuff. He is to shove the thing up into the mangroves, drop all the anchor gear, & get home. His family were not taken to the safe house, as he should have been home.

1.00 PM we finally get into Shute Harbour after a fair battle with increasing seas. As we do, the whole bay starts smoking. Spray is rising up from the water, first at the far end of the harbour, coming to meet us as we get near the jetty. This indicates about 70 knots of wind usually, but it only lasts for a couple of minutes

Continued.

We get the yachts as close to their facility as possible, & get them to drop their tow. The company has their staff there to help now.

We get our thing tied up about 2.30 PM, & head for Airlie Beach, to look after our own families. Strangely it is not that bad at Airlie. In fact by 4.00 PM it is a quite nice afternoon. That smoking water was the switch to north west wind as the eye passed not too far south of us.

It is fortunate the folk of the weather bureau were many miles away from the Whitsundays. If I could have got to them just then, I might have done something very nasty to them, with the sharp end of a pineapple.

How they expect to be takes seriously with their predictions I really don’t know. Talking about 100 years, when they can’t even get a few hours right is really too much.

Hasbeen, do you know the difference between weather and climate?

If you can't predict the weather a few hours out, even with satellites, you should go back to school for a few decades before you claim to have any idea of future climate.

Some of you people will believe anything, provided it is from a fellow traveller.

Was 2014 the hottest year on record? Most likely not, even NASA isn't sure although NASA recently made the claim.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/mattvespa/2015/01/20/nasa-were-about-38-percent-sure-that-2014-was-the-warmest-year-on-record-n1945399?utm_source=thdailypm&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=nl_pm&newsletterad=thpm1

"The Nasa press release failed to mention that the alleged ‘record’ amounted to an increase over 2010, the previous ‘warmest year’, of
just two-hundredths of a degree – or 0.02C. The margin of error is said by scientists to be approximately 0.1C – several times as much.
As a result, GISS’s director Gavin Schmidt has now admitted Nasa
thinks the likelihood that 2014 was the warmest year since 1880 is just 38 per cent."

Who are the alarmists blaming for the hottest year 1880 and how could have that possibly happened? Is it remotely possible Mother Earth was just having one of those years?

Climate change pales in comparison to population growth and Muslim expansionism in regards to what is the most serious problem our grandchildren face. Regrettably, the Nathan J's don't regard the latter as a potential problems.

From the Australian newspaper 2013:

"Mr Hunt has said the government would rely on the bureau, the CSIRO and his department for advice and to provide public information on climate change."

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/climate/bureau-to-step-into-climate-gap/story-e6frg6xf-1226726496560

Also I advocated against my local council introducing a rubbish collection service in rural areas, when being considered seeing it as unfair as it targeted people who threw out little or no rubbish.

2006/07 data show Australians created around 44 million tonnes of solid waste, or 2,080 kilograms of waste per person (ABS statistics).

I don't throw out a lot of waste myself and argued the Federal Government should introduce a "rubbish tax" to directly target people who are causing this problem, which will only get worse. So why did we get rid of the carbon tax?