A beautiful morning, with very light breeze, sunshine and a million tinnies buzzing around fro the first crack of daylight! It’s busy out here this morning as I sit on deck with my cup of tea and I could stay here forever. Such a great little place, good crabbing, good provisioning and great yacht club. Wide Bay Bar the challenge for today and then we will be hoping to sail.
So we had a fab breakfast of bacon and eggs and checked the forecasts. There is a southerly showing around Wednesday so we will keep an eye on that. Otherwise all looking well for a sail down the coast. We cleaned up after breakfast and prepared for sea, getting budgie aboard and stowed and generally ensuring that everything was stowed. We weighed anchor at around 11:30 and headed up Tin Can Creek towards wide bay. As we went we double checked all our bar crossing way points in all our devices, ensured we wer clear on the directions, and prepared life jackets. We made Inskipp around 12:45, and all donned life jackets and got into position. Paul on the wheel, Clare on Nav, Pete on sharp eyes and leads directions, and me on sighting leads. We secures all inboard and started to crossing after checking in with Coast Guard Tin Can Bay. Our first course was around 048 down the centre of Wide Bay Harbour, until we could see the leads on Inskipp Point in line. At that point we altered course to 087, keeping the leads in line. We then had to spot the directional light north of Hook Point on Fraser, and then reach our waypoint and turn to keep the directional light in sight and aim for our next waypoint. This is where we saw shallow depths, minimum of around 6 m with about a 1.5 m swell. However, you could see the deeper darker water beyond and after holding our breaths collectively for about the last 200 m, we wer in deep water and celebrated with a beer.
Clare prepared cheesy toasties for lunch as we set sails and headed south, preparing for some sea time after a lot of engine and inshore navigation. The scenery as we headed down to double island point is quite spectacular with giant dunes, creating sand cliffs that look huge. It’s quite astonishing.
A lazy afternoon of motor sailing down the coast, checking in with the coast guards at Mooloolaba by phone. We heard several people try to check in with them on vhf 16 and be roundly reprimanded for not using 73. We went to 73, but this was in heavy use by coast guard Brisbane, apparently trying to locate someone who kept on giving their cursor position instead of their actual! We tried 80 and 81, but to no avail, so Pete called up by phone!
We saw distant whales, a sea snake and some flying fish, more sea pets he than Hervey Bay! We had sundowners around 5, with Clare and I testing out our Captain Morgan bombs, then dinner of green chicken curry, then watches, having lost the Paper Scissors Stone battle, I was first on at 6pm, until 8, followed by 6 luxurious hours off. However, an exciting fist watch as a trawler appeared and seems to be on our course. Having watched fro some time, I tried to alter course inside him, but this was no good and Paul came up to check for me and we went behind the trawler and I watched him head into shore. No other excitement on my watch, gentle breeze from the east, just enough to hold the main full, a steady 7.5 knots under power, and a starry night.
At 8 Clare came up for her watch, and I retired. I slept really well through until my alarm at 1:45am, when I got up to relieve Pete. He passed me a tea, pointed out receding fisho targets and Point Lookout light. I settled in with just one passing ship, well outside us, as cruise liner heading North. At 4am, Clare came back on, and I handed over with Venus rising in the east and no targets on the AIS.
winedarkseablog 