Gypsy Cruising

30 September

Pancake Creek to Bundaberg

We lifted the anchor at 6am to make the 65 mile run down to Bundaberg.  This is the southern most stop for us in the Great Barrier Reef, and it feels to me to mark the end of the cruise, in the same way as it marked the beginning of the cruising part of my adventure on the way north. 

We’ve been making use of a favourable weather window for the past few days, providing us with 10-15 knot northerly winds for a fast and very pleasant sail down the coast.  We’ve known for a while that southerlies are forecast to return tomorrow, as do the dozen other cruising boats all making their way to Bundaberg today. 

I used this one last opportunity to put the spinnaker up, which we held until the wind built up to the high teens.  Dolphins returned in large numbers, and stayed for over half an hour (which wasn't quite long enough for me to figure out and fix the problem my Go Pro camera was having with its memory card).  

I finally managed this one shot of a dolphin with my SLR camera

The boat broached under auto helm just as I went forward to drop the spinnaker, providing another lesson – never trust the autohelm with the spinnaker up in 20 knots.  All in all, today was a lovely day’s sail. 

Speed was up on expectations again and we found ourselves entering the marina early, right on a low tide of 0.1 meters.  That appeared to be inadequate even for the Gypsy’s shallow draft, with the result that multiple depth alarms started going off as I entered the marina fairway.  That’s a perfect way to break one’s concentration.  To kill an hour and let the tide rise a bit we went for a mini cruise up the Burnett River before finally putting the boat into its pen.  The alarms still went off but this time I was ready for them and I knew we’d be ok.

Winds will be strong from the south until Friday or Saturday.  Bundaberg Port Marina will be our home until then.