The Whitsundays - We made it!

We try to keep the blog as interesting as possible so hope you enjoy the latest news post.

The journey so far has made us appreciate how much the weather affects every decision we make and where and when to next set sail. On checking the weather as usual with all intentions of heading home we found perfect conditions to push north for the coming week mmmmm................. so that's what we did, we'll save Lady Musgrave for the homeward leg.

The first thing we started to notice was the landscape changing and the feeling of being very remote; no phone, VHF radio or Internet. The temperature started to become quite clammy and tropical and the water had turned an intense colour of turquoise in the sandy bays; very inviting for a swim. We took our time cruising through the Northunberland Isles just below the Whitsundays which are made up of small deserted islands overnighting at Pearl Bay and a group of islands called the Percy Isles.

It was on to Mackay to restock supplies where we had to navigate through 100+ tankers; whoops a bit close. Then onwards and upwards to the Whitsundays yippee! We plan to cruise around this area for at least a couple of weeks and when we've had enough start the return journey. The homeward leg should be quite exciting as whales are migrating north at this time of year heading to the warmer waters so we'll have to keep a close lookout as they pass us by.

This is probably going to be the last post for a while unless we have something news-worthy to report.
We hope you have enjoyed our journey so far and look forward to catching up with you soon.

Dave, Caroline & Archie :)

Rosslyn Bay Marina - Great Barrier Reef

After a rocky night at Great Keppel Island we headed to Rosslyn Bay to re-fuel, the south easterly was forecast to get stronger so we decided to stay a night at the marina: special treat. We took this opportunity to organised a mechanic to check over our engine as it hadn't been starting first time. Lucky for us when the mechanic came to look at it he couldn't get it started and found the starter motor had broken - now replaced phew!

Archie couldn't believe his eyes when he spotted a turtle feeding at the side of the pontoon. We had to carry him back to the boat or he would of been in the marina beside the turtle.

This is the point we decided its time to head home. We've had a great experience and now feel ready to resume life on land. Our adventure started 6 months ago and to us it feels like we've been away for ages. Its not over by any means it will take us 6 weeks plus to sail back to Sydney and hope to stop off at Lady Musgrave Island where the snorkeling is meant to be amazing. Looks like we may be at the marina for several more days though as the southerlies have set in for the moment :(

Great Keppel Island

We're currently trying to tuck into a bay at Great Keppel Island with 6 other cruising yachts eager to keep out of a southerly swell. Despite being on the north side of the island the swell is working its way around the corners. A couple of the yachts are using different techniques to stop them rolling around; one has his sail up, another has his boom out at 45 degrees with a weight holding it in place and we are attempting something else, running a second line from the back of the boat to the anchor chain to hold us into the swell. None of these methods seem to be working too well and we are all still rolling all over the place. No sundowners tonight as we are feeling too queasy.

Today we took the opportunity of getting onto terra firma and exploring the island which has a resort, a couple of restaurants and some nice walking tracks. We walked through clouds of blue and black butterflies which seem to have all hatched at the same time - impossible to photograph. The tides here have a bigger range than in NSW with close to 4m between high and low and when we returned from our walk the dingy was 100 meters up the beach. Poor Dave had to drag it down to the water himself as my knee is still recovering.

Up to Mooloolaba

Sunrise the morning we left Ballina, the sea was calm and the bar was totally flat. We had decided to continue heading north if the weather improved which it had.

When we returned to the boat we found we had a lot of cleaning up to do. The boat had been anchored in a bird sanctuary for the last three weeks and an osprey family nesting nearby had moved in. Samurai had become a handy perch to look for fish. Archie loves feathers and was very pleased with himself when he found one of the large osprey feathers.

We covered 200 nm in three days stopping briefly at Southport and Morton Bay arriving at Mooloolaba for Easter. The town was a buzz with people holidaying over Easter with great cafes, restaurants and a beautiful beach.

Having spent 3 days here we're now preparing for the next few legs up the coast to Bundaberg. In order to arrive at Wide Bay Bar close to high tide, we'll be getting up at 3:30am in the morning...uggh! About 450nm to go to the Whitsundays.

Our Outback Experience

We really felt we were getting into the outback when we arrived at the small town called Miles 340km west of Brisbane. The earth had become an intense red colour and we were stopped in our tracks when we spotted emus in a field. The roads seemed to never end with very little traffic passing us and no mobile coverage this was when we started monitoring our fuel gauge very closely.

Arriving in Mitchell (population 1000) we came across trees we have never seen before called Queensland Bottle Trees their name deriving from their shape. The swelling is due to water held in the trunk making them ideally suited to the outback climate. This town is famous for its artesian spa pools which are pumped up hot from the Great Artesian Basin - David gave them a try. The same source provides the water supply for the town and consequently the cold taps in our motel produced hotter water than the hot.

Our furtherest inland destination was an outback town called Charleville, 638km from Brisbane, we were interested in visiting their state of the art observatory which proved to be an amazing experience.

Its not until you get into the outback that you realise how tough the farmers must have had it in recent years battling the drought. This year they had a different problem to deal with as they have just had major floods throughout the area. The water has subsided in the towns and a huge recovery program is underway as they try and get back to business as usual.

Charlesville is the biggest town in this area and home to a flying doctor base. This base services approximately 622000 sq km of southwest Qld - an area almost the size of the UK (unreal!) and we took a tour around the centre.

There is also a weather station where the lone resident meteorologist gives free 'tours' as he goes through the morning routine of taking and reporting various measurements. The measurements are used by the pilots coming and going from Charlesville and are also fed into the models used for the national forecasts. The finale of the tour was to watch the weather balloon being launched into the atmosphere as shown in the picture: this happens automatically each day at exactly 9:15am. The balloon takes measurements every two seconds until it reaches high in the upper atmosphere and bursts - the balloon plus instruments including GPS is lost each time.

Currently heading back to the coast and stopped in Toowoomba which is a very pleasant town and seems very civilised after the outback. Picture shows Table-top mountain at Toowoomba.

Tomorrow night we will be back on the boat. Will we head north to the Whitsundays or will we head south to Sydney???


Find out next blog :)

Cyclone chasers - Balina to Bungerberg

First stop Rainbow Beach where we were picked up in a 4WD truck ready for a day tour of Fraser Island. This island is World Heritage listed as being the largest sand island on the planet where dozens of lakes, rainforests and sand blows cover vast parts of the island. It is home to 230 species of birds, Australia's purest dingo and many other species. We found ourselves having a very close encounter with large goanna lizards (1 meter in length) and had to chase them as they tried to ambush camp lunch. Pictured are a couple of the stops we had on the tour: the rainforest on the way up to Lake Mackenzie and the wreck of the Maheno to which we raced along the beach at high speed to reach.

Next day a short stop at Tin Can Bay, one of the few places you can feed wild dolphins : it all started in 2006 when a local found a dolphin in the bay unable to feed itself due to a shark attack. The locals started feeding the dolphin fish and it's been coming back ever since.

We headed on to Hervey Bay staying a few nights intending to do some diving only to be informed Cyclone Ului was due to hit Queensland in the coming days and waves between 4-7 meters and strong winds were predicted.......that was the diving out.

We continued on to Bundaberg visiting the rum distillery where we were forced to sample several different products. We stayed near Mon Repos beach which is the largest turtle nesting area in Australia. In March the last nests are hatching and we headed down hopeful to see the baby turtles heading to the sea. The night before we arrived five nests had hatched, but of course we weren't so lucky and despite waiting several hours no nests opened when we were there. Still the rangers did dig into one of the previously departed nests to count and classify the broken eggs which they do for research and in doing this we did come across one lonely hatchling who hadn't made it passed a grass root and had been struggling to escape all day. This one was released and we watched him struggle a further 20 metres down the beach to be swept away by the growing waves.

The lucky turtle :)
We were in Bundaberg when the cyclone hit Makay and The Whitsundays causing a lot of property and boat damage. In the end we were lucky not to be able to leave Ballina in the boat as we would of been very close to the cyclone action.

Due to the sea condition water activities are out so we have decided to venture inland heading to the Queensland outback and more adventure.

Heading north to Queensland

Well, we've finally left Ballina - but not by boat. Having spent 3 weeks on shore for Caroline's knee operation and partial recovery, we returned to the boat, keen to head on about a week ago. Unfortunately the weather was not great for several days and when it looked good for us to go last weekend, there was still a 1.5 - 2 metre swell hitting the bar (the sand bank at the entrance to Ballina). While not huge, this was still enough to generate significant breaking waves at the bar - see the pictures below for an idea - and prevent us from getting out to sea. After spending several days checking the bar, the swell and weather were building again and it was clear we'd be waiting another week at least for another chance....all very frustrating.
So....we changed our plans and have rented a car, planning to head north to Queensland and do a bit of touring, staying in cabins along the way. We are aiming to get to Hervey Bay visit Fraser Island and do some diving returning to the boat in three weeks time. When we return we will start to head back to Pittwater (Sydney) which should take us around four weeks weather permitting.




It's a bit disappointing not to get further, but on the plus side we have been to the Whitsundays, which was our ultimate goal, several times before with friends. We've also had a great adventure already and now are starting to look ahead to return to Sydney, keen to start new projects.

Finishing with a picture of one of the stunning sunset's on our trip.

Cheerio for now Dave, Caroline & Archie xxx

Samurai Gallery

The operation went well and hoping to be back on the boat at the weekend. We were going to post a shot of Caroline on her crutches but our camera has broken. We suspect some bird poo may have got into the mechanics - so much for being lucky!
As we have some time to kill we decided to share some photos that just missed being blogged.
Dave cooking up a storm: its the meat tray we won in Lake Macquarie and went vegetarian for quite a few nights afterwards. Too much meat!

Archie frequently patrols the decks looking for dolphins and sticks his head through any open window to check he is not missing anything. Well food mainly...........

Caroline is pictured donning her wet weather gear and surprisingly its really nice to have some rain as the temperatures are usually in the 30's.

Dave bringing Archie back to the boat after his walk. Archie is getting very brave in the dinghy these days launching himself at docks confidently when we are meters away. He has had to be fished out once because he has misjudged the distance. This is a very different Archie from when we started the trip and we're glad to see he's feeling more comfortable.

And finally, Dave trying to hoist the main sail to catch every breath of wind: it seems to be either too calm or blowing a buster. Rarely perfect conditions and we have found we motor sail most of the time - but hey, what's the rush?

Ballina

Hooray! We have left the Clarence River as the swell has calmed after nearly two weeks allowing us to cross the bar safely. The boat is anchored at Ballina where we will be leaving her for 10 days. We have hired a car and returned to Port Maquarie in order for Caroline to have a small operation on her knee. We have been asured she will be back sailing in two weeks everything going well :)

There are quite a lot of sea birds around and Caroline was hit by one messy bird poo, which we will assume is a lucky sign.

A big congratulations to Karen and Peter on the arrival of their first child, Lara Astrial Hocking, who was born on February 10th. We are looking forward to meeting her :)

Carry on up the Clarence

We are currently unable to leave the Clarence River due to 2 - 3m swells offshore and moving to the next destination which is Ballina the sea conditions need to be pretty calm as the entrance has a difficult sand bar crossing. Looking like we'll be here for a few days yet!
But the Clarence River is quite a pleasant place, with a few places to explore up river. We motored up to Harwood where the Pacific Highway bridge, closed for six months of repairs, blocks further progress (pictured).
The fields along-side the river are all full of sugar cane in this area. We also passed quite a few huge mansions along the bank, one for instance having what seemed to be a 9 hole pitch and put over the front lawns. Sugar cane appears to be good business. The picture shows the sugar mill at Harwood close to where we anchored.




We travelled a little further up river by dinghy in order to visit Maclean, the 'Scottish town' of NSW. All the telegraph poles here are painted with different tartans as shown in the picture. They also hold highland games here each year. Made me feel quite nostalgic!

Coffs and Yamba - Clarence River

We left Port Macquarie a couple of days ago overnighting at Coffs Harbour where we anchored beside the old jetty. We are currently at Yamba which is a little town at the mouth of the Clarence River. We planned to travel down the river as there are some really interesting stops but the bridge over the Pacific Highway which we would need to get opened is closed for 6 months while they do repairs :( We can still travel 8 nmiles up river so will spend a night at the bridge and do some walking.
Travelling up the coast from Coffs we passed the Solitary Islands which are environmentally protected and span for about 40nmiles, very popular with divers. The first picture shows South Solitary Island - there are several others dotted around.

Reaching Yamba in the Clarence river was a challenge as we had to navigate through a convoluted, narrow and shallow channel, to a marginally wider bay which was already quite full of boats. We eventually found somewhere to lay anchor from where the second picture was taken. As this shows we've had some slightly stormy weather while here, apparently side effects from a tropical depression up in Queensland.

Just as we were thinking we can do this everything is getting easier we managed to gaff (puncture) the dingy when coming up to an old wharf. The picture below shows David cleaning (which was overdue) and repairing it which took a while. The other pic shows me sporting an eBay purchase which I thought would come in really handy: a fold-up bike. This is the first time we have used it and could be the last as its a bit of a palaver getting it off the boat and set up.

Australia Day - Port Macquarie

A short hop, 15 nautical miles up the coast to Port Macquarie. We were slightly more anxious about the bar crossing at the entrance than usual as we read in the cruising guide this bar can produce more rogue waves than most, thankfully it was really calm so no drama's. In true Aussie fashion we flew the flag on Australia Day only to be out done by a group of parachutists that gave us quiet a fright landing right beside us on the beach. The day got pretty busy as small boats jostled for position to watch the days entertainment which was raft racing down the channel and bands. Just as we were taking in the sights along came party barge anchoring right in front of us. We must be getting old as we decided to head back to the boat for some peace and quiet, really sad! Next stop Coffs Harbour in a couple of days.

Camden Haven

This photo shows a two mile stretch of water known as Camden Haven Inlet which is part of a delta system. We are anchored bottom right opposite the town of Laurieton unable to proceed into the system due to a low bridge. We certainly can not complain we have 10+ pelicans flying around, dolphins swimming past and pubs, cafes and shops just up the road. This is certainly a very beautiful part of the country.
The first night we experienced two thunder storms and reasonably large hail which sounded like bullets hitting the boat, another reason to buy steel as no damage was done :) we also have been able to see Avatar in 3D which was brilliant! We plan to head off at the weekend as want to see a few bands on at the local hotel tomorrow night. We have been told its going to be a sell out - how exciting, a big night out!

Beautiful Port Stephens

Port Stephens is one of our favourite weekend getaways so being able to cruise around the bay looking for dolphins with no specific agenda was a treat. We had one surprise on our first day here. Though we planned our route through the channels carefully we ran aground when passing to the south of a south cardinal marker! Luckily it was just sand and our engine reversed us out after a few tense minutes. Phew!, another lucky escape, and a good lesson that sand banks can move and in this area it pays to give channel markers a bit of leeway.

Overall this has been a cruisie stop. The weather has been very hot for a couple of days then changed to drizzly today giving a nice relief to the temperature. We have also been able to pick up the tennis which is starting to get addictive. This week has been the run-up tournaments to the Australia Open which starts next week - a luxury having the time to watch.

The pictures show use leaving Port Stephens, not a very nice day. The other shows a rescue we witnessed at Broughton Island as we were travelling up the coast: looked like their engine wasn't working so were getting towed in.

Lake Macquarie wrap

Had lots of fun in Lake Macquarie. First night we anchored at Wangi Wangi and headed to the RSL for a couple of well earned beers, where we ended up winning the meat raffle. Archie was very happy to pose next to our prize; unfortunately he's just had a very bad haircut.

Next day we did a very slow 4 hour sail down Lake Maccquarie averaging about 2 knots with just the yankee out. A very relaxing way to enjoy the scenery. It is by and large a beautiful area, though there are several power stations around the lake that make for good landmarks.

We had an early start next morning in order to get through the channel at the 6am high tide. Then through Swansea bridge and out over the bar en route to Port Stephen's. The picture shows Swansea bridge and gives a good idea how narrow it seems when passing through. We were certainly concentrating on staying mid channel at this point.

We had the best sail so far up to Port Stephen's with little swell and 15kts of wind just aft of the beam. We passed the port of Newcastle on this leg which must have 50+ tankers waiting outside. Must be a strange job waiting on board one of these monsters to head into port.