Mooloolaba to Great Keppel

Monday 7 April
This morning it’s raining and the forecast has been updated to 20-25 knots. It was supposed to ease off. So we stay put and relax.

Tuesday 8 April/ Wednesday 9 April
Today the wind has eased off a little bit but the rain has increased to very frequent showers. I can walk a little bit on my painful toe (not on the beach though) to the ice cream parlour. We are thinking about leaving tonight and changing our mind every 10 minutes. Every hour we look up the weather website to see were the showers have gone to. (They seem to be always right over Mooloolaba). Anyway, we put the alarm clock at 11.30pm and look one more time at the weather website. Oh, the rain has gone away. The wind has eased to 10 knots. So off we go at midnight to face a rather large swell. It will ease off more, I am sure of that. Will it? No, of course not. After about 2 hours the wind is back to 20 knots. Then more rain and finally 25 knots. I gave back my dinner to the fish and wished to be somewhere else. At some stage I didn’t even care if I got wet from a wave or rain. After Double Island Point the seas and swell got a little better and I did too. Taking the helm helps. Bar report said “manageable with no breaking seas over the channel. What does “ Manageable” mean? Well, it meant it was a hell of ride from the first waypoint to the second. The rest of the crossing was “ manageable” in my eyes. So after the crossing we continued on to “Garys’ Anchorage where we did not want to anchor next to so many power and houseboats. “Lets go a bit further in” were her last words. And so we go stuck at 3.30pm and 2 hours before low tide. We tried desperately to come free but no luck. What kind of tide do we have at the moment? A springtide of course. At 5.30 dear little Jemimah was well and truly on the side in 1.1 meter of water. So we did the only logical thing. We set the alarm clock at 8.30pm and went to sleep (the backrest of the sofa was the better choice to lie down). At 9 pm we were free and re-anchored 20 meters further into the channel and continued our well deserved sleep. Well, the last 24 hours I really would like to forget but I am sure we never will.

Thursday 10 April
The trip throught the Sandy Straits was uneventful. We managed to sail through it with the tide to our advantage. Going past Kingfisher Bay with the tide still running out for another few hours and that beautiful breeze at broad reach we kept going towards Bundaberg and arrived at midnight after a beautiful “ half night sail”(the breeze kept blowing all the way). We finally anchored in the river next to the fuel dock.

Friday 11 April
Got going at 6 am. Destination Pancake Creek 65 miles away. Beautiful sunrise with an equally beautiful land breeze at first. Then no wind. After 5 hours motoring the seabreeze kicked in and the sails got us to Pancake Creek just before sunset and low tide. Why am I so nervous going in here? Can’t shake the grounding off yet.

Saturday 12 April
Up anchor again a 6am. Destination - Keppel Island or Cape Capricorn (Yellow Patch). But first we must go through 30 anchored Bulk Carrier Ships. Michael called Gladstone Harbour Control on channel 13. One Inbound Ship scheduled at 7.30. Oh that’s good. It will go in before we cross. But as we got closer we saw no movement. 8.30 a.m., we called them again to confirm the movement. Yes, one is scheduled to go in right now. We look at them and watch the chimneys. Yes, that one is blowing smoke. Its that one. No, it stopped. Then another one is blowing smoke. But that one stops as well after one minute. Which one of the 30 big ships is about to leave right now and cross our way? None! We saw no movement at all and motored the 2 hours through the anchorage. After we passed the last ship it was time to try the brand new MPS light wind sail. It looked good at first. But you actually need some breeze to make it work. Unfortunately there was none and the spinnaker was pulled in again and the engine brought to life. We passed beautiful Rundle and Hummocky Islands and Cape Capricorn and arrived at Great Keppel just before sunset.

Statistics for week one:

Distance travelled: 353.5 miles (one eights of the way to Darwin)
Engine hours: 22.7 (those light winds really got us)
Travelling time: 59 hours 15 minutes
Average speed: 5.966 knots
Domestics: none
Animals: Dolphins since Double Island Point, and lots of butterflies.

Next report will be from the Whitsundays.

Now the last word about cruising from a book I just finished:
Yes it is pure escapism, a retreat from reality, an abrogation of responsibilities, and isn’t it just great.