The tides were good to take Lazuli out for another short weekend overnight trip: we could leave around 1pm, and return between 1:30 and 5:30 on Sunday afternoon.
My sister Suz and her daughter Abby jumped at the chance to come along for the trip, and timing meant Abby could still do her soccer game in the morning.
We’ve been leaving more and more stuff on the boat, so this weekend we only needed two trolleys!
When we got the boat, the anchor chain had various colour markings at regular intervals.. some red, some yellow, some green… but we had no idea what they meant.
It’d been on our list to remedy this, so as we got up there by 11am we had enough time to lay the entire chain out on the walkway and put on our own indicators.
Turns out the markers we thought were 10m were closer to 7m, so we’ve had less out than we thought.
Our boat neighbours saw us setting up and mentioned one of their friends had just come back in because it was “a bit wild out there”.
Willy Weather showed about 15kts WSW.
With the wind right behind us once we were out of the marina channel, we motored to the Lateral beacon off North Reef.
We had to doge a race/regatta coming from up south, but we then put the main up and pointed to Mud Island.
We were sitting on about 8kts with just the main up, but was a little overpowered, so we dropped it a bit and put in reef #1.
We were still going 8kts but in much more control and much more comfortable.
While we would have loved to have taken them to Moreton, westerly winds meant Moreton was a no-go.
We (I guess I should say “I”!) decided a quick trip down to Mud Island was the go: we’d seek shelter on the Eastern side.
We tucked in close to the shore along with two other boats also sheltering from the westerlies.
Suz had forgotten her fishing gear, but she picked up some bait at the marina. I had a quick go but didn’t get any nibbles. I cast out the other side towards Mud and still got nothing.
With the wine calling, I gave the rod to Suz and within 10seconds she had a fish hooked and was bringing it in. As is usual I hadn’t expected to catch anything so we didn’t have the net out.
Just as she was about to bring it on the fish (we think Snapper) wriggled free and swam off :(
With the net now ready Suz put some more worms on and had another go. Wasn’t long before she had another fish hooked!
It was a nice looking (but still too small) Snapper. A few photos later and it was back swimming.
We then took turns to see who could catch the smallest fish!
We enjoyed the quite and cloudless night. Steak, salad and red wine (thanks Suz!) for dinner followed by some chocolate.
Earlyish bed (no late night whisky drinking partners this time). We had a few time when the boat rocked a bit from swell off the ships coming/going into port but otherwise a nice anchorage.
We didn’t have too much planned for Sunday other than starting the day with coffee and pancakes.
With breakfast done it was time for more fishing.
Despite lots of other boats around this morning, we didn’t have any luck.
We launched the tender and I took off to go see if there was anywhere close by with easy access onto the island. It was close to low tide, so no there wasn’t.
With the sandhills only an hour away we decided to head there. Even though it would be crappy conditions we didn’t plan to spend much time sitting around at anchor.
Abby found driving over under power a little less stressful than sailing along at 8kts trying to dodge container ships coming out of the port :)
We had anchored up near the little sandhills trying to get any protection we could (nothing really!) so we just went in to explore them. We all jumped into the tender and had a slow but dry ride in. The bay is really quite cold now!
The girls always enjoy exploring beaches at low tide. We didn’t appreciate the sea-grass as much as Suz (apparently we walked over at least 5 different types!)
We’ve had the kites on board the last few trips but never got them out. The Westerly winds provided the perfect opportunity.
The boat ride back was a lot slower, and quite a bit wetter now we had to head into the chop.
We had a quick lunch and tried to sail back home. However, with the wind coming from the West (maybe even WNW) it meant we would have to tack the whole way back. We sailed for about an hour before dropping the sails and motoring a direct line back home.
With the engine on and sails down, it gave Suz and I (Kristie skippering) plenty of time to get the boat pretty much packed up before we got back.
We had a helpful yachtie come and grab out lines and help us dock (we’ve found so many people there really friendly and helpful!).
The girls (and ladies) took one load up to the car and brought back 5 trolleys. We had them loaded and heading back up to the car within 30min of docking.
A quick goodbye and then around the corner for dinner (5pm is dinner time for us!)
Stuff that broke this week:
- nothing (that I know of!)
Lessons learnt:
- Reef early
- Mud Island is fine in Westerlies
- Mud Island is probably good for fishing
- I can’t catch edible fish.