10 June

Kingfisher Bay to Platypus Bay

I think Gene and I were both in a bit of a celebratory mood last night, after having had such a great day.  So, it seemed appropriate that we retrieve the two pieces of fillet steak that had been in the freezer since Southport.  They were grilled on the BBQ with copious amount of Worcestershire sauce, then served with Bearnaise sauce and salad, washed down with some 2012 Pieter van Gent Cab Sav that I happened to have on board (along with several dozen other bottles carefully stashed).  It was a grand meal.

This morning dawned as lovely as the last few.  Tourist activity started to pick up at the resort with the arrival of the first of the transport ferries.  There were a small number of other boats anchored nearby, since this is one of the key anchorages on the inside route up the Great Sandy Strait.  This morning we would leave the strait and travel up into Harvey Bay.

Calm in Kingfisher Bay - a boat anchored nearby in the early morning sun

 A few visitors on board

We still have one more day before we're due at the Bundaberg Marina for the end of this leg of the cruise.  Some time ago I'd heard of Platypus Bay, a very large, gracefully curving bay on the north western side of Fraser Island.  It's mouth is roughly 22 miles wide, stretching from one horizon right around to the the other, with a single white sand beach that runs for over 27 miles.  As we discovered when we logged on to Marine Rescue radio, you don't simply advise your intention of going to Platypus Bay - you have to specify which part you're headed for along its huge length.

The passage was simple.  We motored up the remaining part of the Strait, then crossed the last of the shallows and sailed 13 miles to our anchorage. 

Approaching the end of the Great Sandy Strait - motoring along the coast of Fraser Island with Harvey Bay ahead

A stretch of beach along Platypus Bay

Another Club boat, Kailani, was coincidentally heading for the same spot and coming up behind us.  We ended up heading over for drinks once we'd anchored, the first of the cruise so far.  This will be the final night for the delivery leg of the cruise.  Tomorrow we'll sail the final 45 mile straight line course across Harvey Bay to Bundaberg.

My arty picture of the dinghy, finally allowed off the Gypsy's foredeck, sitting on Fraser Island at Platypus Bay with the flat waters of the Barrier Reef in the background.  This will be our playground for the next few months.

9 June

[As I write this it's 9.30 on Tuesday 11th June.  We're 2-sail reaching across Harvey Bay from last night's anchorage at Platypus Bay, on Fraser Island.  Our destination, some time early to mid afternoon, is Bundaberg for the first Rendevous and change of crew.  Conditions are stunning and have been for a couple of days.  We're finally in cruising mode - wearing t-shirt and shorts, the boat happily steering herself, Billy Joel singing Piano Man from the cockpit speakers and I'm sitting in the cockpit, tapping away on the computer and watching the spectacle of the horizon on a perfectly smooth sea.  Just thought I'd say.]

Today dawned perfectly.  Garry's anchorage provided it's usual calm night's sleep and the bad weather of yesterday has disappeared.  There are around 10 boats here, I assume most are on their own trips either north or southwards.  We've seen our first turtles here.  They seem quite relaxed, often sticking their heads out of the water for multiple breaths of air before disappearing again.

Garry's anchorage, looking back to the southwest

We intend to keep heading north today.  This will involve crossing the Sheridan Flats at Boonlye Point, an area of shifting sands that should be crossed at high tide.  Since we draw only 1.6 meters we should have no problem.  However, high tide isn't until 2.30 and it's a bit over an hour's motoring away, so we have a spare morning.

My new mobile phone signal booster hasn't been working, and a conversation with the distributor's technical team last week suggested the external aerial was maybe installed in the wrong location.  We have very low signal strength at Garry's, so it was a perfect opportunity to do a re-install and see if that fixed the problem.  Two hours of work had the aerial installed in a new position, we fired up the booster and both our phones got an extra 2 bars of signal strength.  Very happy!  The booster is going to come in very handy in many of the places we're going, primarily for weather forecasts but also for updating this log.

Motoring up the Great Sandy Strait was just delightful.  We have Fraser Island to our right and the mainland to our left.  The Strait itself is extremely broad, two to three miles across for much of its length.  However it's very shallow with shoals and small islands throughout.  The navigable channel is narrow and we follow the pink line on the chart plotter with particular care.  I've realised that this entire coast, from Southport as far up as here is one massive range of sand dunes.  Of course, Fraser is also the largest sand island in the world, with a length of about 70 miles (that's nautical miles, or 125 km).  After the last week and a half of delivery up the coast and over the Bar, I've finally made the transition to full blown cruising.

Finding the movable port channel mark S24 at Sheridan Flats was easy on the flat water and in full sun, and from there our destination at Kingfisher Bay was about three hours of very pleasant motor sailing.

Tomorrow we break out into Harvey Bay and the waters of the Barrier Reef.

Lots of people worry about crossing the shallows at "S24" - it was a doddle for us

A very happy grotty yachty

Travelling up the Great Sandy Strait - clear sky and flat water

Another cruiser anchored under the lee of White Cliffs on Fraser Island

Every sunset special - anchored at Kingfisher Bay

8 June

This is going to be a short post.

The day started early.  Phone alarms went off at 2:45 and by 3:10 we were out of the marina.  We settled into a quiet routine almost immediately outside of the river entrance - running deep with only the mainsail up and doing over six knots, the boat steered itself for Double Island Point on route to the Wide Bay Bar.  Before very long the clouds came in and the rest of the day was grey and wet.

The weather forecast predicted the seas would moderate during the day to under 1 meter, pretty good for crossing the Bar.  Looking back, I think they did actually began to moderate but then started to build again.  By the time we got to the Bar about four boats had crossed safely enough.  We were the last to go, exactly on time for slack water at high tide.  Half way across I looked back and saw an enormous, rolling rogue wave coming up behind us, breaking at its top and dwarfing the boat.  Right to the very moment before it hit I thought it was going to swamp us.  However, at the last instant the Gypsy lifted her stern over its top and I don't think we took a drop of water on board.  Not that that was it.  We broached badly, spinning around to the right with the massive force of the water that hit us and rolling heavily down the back side of the wave.  We got ourselves back onto the proper track, shaken but otherwise ok.

The remainder of the crossing was lumpy but uneventful.  A further couple of hours motoring up to Garry's Anchorage was completed in possibly a greater grey gloom than we'd seen before, pretty much mirroring my feelings at the time.

I really don't know how serious the incident was at the Bar, but I'm hugely thankful to the folks at Catalina that they designed and built such a sound boat as the Gypsy.  I think she earned her pay today.

7 June

Tangalooma to Mooloolaba

Had a very broken sleep last night.  To begin with, since the beach was so close to leeward of us, I set three different anchor alarms - two phone apps and one on the boat's chart plotter.  All these systems essentially just track our GPS position and, should we move outside a specified radius, they light up a noise like it's World War 3.  I'm pretty confident with my anchor's ability to hold us in most conditions, but I was also conscious that waves were breaking on a beach only 50 meters downwind of us.  If we dragged, we'd be on the beach within minutes.  Of course, the tide turned during the night and took us outside my set radius (which, given it's me, was set pretty conservatively), and it was World War 3.  In addition, as the tide was then ebbing, it pointed the boat's stern into the oncoming waves, which proceeded to slap mercilessly against the hull only a few inches from where I was sleeping.  I woke about 11pm, and counted the minutes until the tide turned again so the bow was pointed back into the waves.

In any case, we woke about 7am and decided it was an excellent time to leave.  Tangalooma is a handy place to spend the night but I think it's not a great anchorage in the SSE conditions we experienced.

There's a bit of fiddly navigation involved to avoid the shipping lanes coming out of Brisbane's port but we were out into clear water soon enough for the 35 mile passage to Mooloolaba.  As we'd experienced for almost the entire trip, we had both the wind and current behind us for a pretty easy sail.  What stuck me most strongly was the contrast between the flat water, clear sunshine and easy conditions of today, on the inside passage, with the hard slog that I'd experienced on both my previous passages north of Brisbane out to seaward of Moreton Island.  The approach we'd adopted for this trip lent it such a different complexion to those other trips and is one I'd very happily try again.

Rain had been forecast for today, and it finally hit just as we were approaching Mooloolaba.  It continued on and off during our final approach but we made our way through the harbour walls and to the marina without issue.  It had been a nice day's sailing.

Tomorrow was going to be a 55 mile stretch, with a hard deadline of 12:15 to cross the Wide Bay Bar at high tide.  We'd be leaving at 3am, so we had a pleasant meal at the Moom asian cuisine restaurant, about a 20 minute walk away, and got to bed early.

6 June

The Broadwater to Tangalooma

We've had a perfect evening anchored here at Russell Island in the Broadwater.  Russell Island is inhabited, but it's almost impossible to see signs of civilisation from our anchorage.

Early morning at Russell Island

I was so happy with this place I used the opportunity of a quiet morning to debut my drone.  I still haven't found the courage to launch it while we're underway, but this was a good start.  I found it extraordinary to see just how beatutiful and isolated this landscape is, since we get a very limited view of it from the water.  It may not be the Barrier Reef, but see if you're not amazed by this location (and please, zoom it out to full screen mode).

It had been suggested we head for Tangalooma Resort for the night, on the western side of Moreton Island.  The reasoning was that it was an acceptebly short distance from there to Mooloolaba for the following day.  So, after a fairly quick breakfast, we completed the remaining 20 miles of channels through the Broadwater followed by a further 20 miles through open water in Moreton Bay.  There was considerable commuter activity around the northern islands of the Broadwater, all based around car and passenger ferries.  The sail through Moreton Bay was, again, lots of fun.  With 20 knots behind us and flat water the boat (literally) sailed itself.

We reached Tangalooma around mid afternoon, and found the anchorage wedged into a narrow stretch of water, maybe 100 meters wide, between the beach and a row of scuttled wrecks.  The wrecks didn't seem to do anything to alleviate the prevailing SSE waves, which caused some pretty pronounced pitching.  That did stop later in the night when the boat reversed direction with the change of tidal flow, to be replaced by water slapping at our stern.  Still, the anchor didn't budge throughout all that and we had a safe, if uncomfortable, night.

Some of the wrecks sunk to create a protective barrier for the anchorage

5 June

The Broadwater

With Greig's departure we're a crew of two from now until we reach Bundaberg.

Dinner last night was ribs and a beer at the Hog's Breath Cafe at the marina.  Another reason I wanted to put the boat in here!  People eat early here.  By 9pm we were the last ones left in the restaurant.

We woke today to a remarkably pleasant morning, with a brilliant, clear sky, a reasonably mild temperature and wind that wasn't too heavy.  What we were hearing from Sydney was a whole different story - extremely cold and stormy.

I'd already decided I wasn't putting to sea today in light of the heavy conditions expected out there.  That view was reinforced when I spoke with the skipper of a commercial whale watching boat who was refusing to go out for the same reasons.  Instead, Gene and I headed up the inland waterway, the Broadwater, that connects Southport with Moreton Bay.  This was something I'd always wanted to do anyway, so the opportunity was a welcome one. 

Some of the modest residences at the southern end of The Broadwater

The Broadwater is a maze of twisting and shallow mangrove lined channels.  I prepared for the day by plotting almost 200 waypoints and a preplanned route into the navigation equipment.  This proved to be invaluable, since I don't think we could have easily found our way through without it.  Even then, we went very close to touching bottom a couple of times - once when I put more faith (incorrectly) in the navigation charts than I did in the physical channel markers and once when we were chatting and I veered ever so slightly off my planned track.

Halfway up the Broadwater - a lovely sunny day

The trip proved to be absolutely delightful.  It still amazes me that while we had a peaceful meander up the Broadwater there were boats offshore, just a few miles from us, bashing themselves up in the big seas.

This warning was posted after we'd almost run aground, for the benefit of southward headed boats!

Towards the end of the day's leg we came upon a small fishing boat who couldn't get their engine started.  Luckily for them our shallow draft let us get in to them and we gave them a tow back to their boat ramp.  I think they owe us a couple of beers.

We've anchored for the night towards the northern end of the Broadwater but still very much in protected water.  In reality, the entire waterway is one big anchorage.  You pretty much just stop and drop the anchor wherever and whenever you choose.  Looking forward to a perfectly still night, out in the middle of nowhere but just a few kilometres from one of Australia's largest cities. 

Dinner tonight will be hamburgers and the first use of my new BBQ.

4 June

Southport

Greig is leaving us today to return to work in Sydney.  We also need a few provisions and I'd like to have a walk around.  So, we move the boat 1 mile down to the Mariner's Cove Marina just opposite the Mirage resort.  We'll stay there overnight before Gene and I head north through the inland waterway linking the Gold Coast with Moreton Bay tomorrow.

Gypsy Princess in her pen at Mariner's Cove