Friday 5th December - Coral Sea Marina
Our friends on Tandanya are heading off today, so farewell to them. The girls gave Mia a big hug!
They are heading straight down towards Gladstone, where as we will have a few days around the Whitsundays before we head south.
Did the usual pre-departure boat jobs - filling the water and dropping off the rubbish.
I dropped our car keys up to office as my parents are flying up to come and drive our LandCruiser back to Brisbane for us!
Discovered we were nearly out of sunscreen, so Kristie walked off to go and purchase some more.
We finally got going just after 10:30am.
Got out clear of the moored boats and we quickly had our sails up and sailing at 9kts towards Blue Pearl Bay.
There were a few available moorings so we choose one close to where the sculpture was supposed to be
I was 5min late for my Friday afternoon meeting, joining the call as Kristie was still trying off the mooring lines.
As soon as the meeting was done, Kristie and I geared up to go for a snorkel and find the Maori Wrasse sculpture that we hadn’t found last time we were here.
Note: Kristie wasn’t leaving the Whitsundays until we had found ALL the sculptures ;)
The viz wasn’t the best so it made finding it difficult.
We both had a few jump-scares from a real Maori Wrasse that came out of the gloom to check us out.
We swam around in circles for ages, before I got into the tender to make a call to get directions.
Russ gave me the right directions/instructions; we needed to look for an “X”, not a “+” (cross).
I lined up the tender and Kristie swam over and found it straight away.
We went back to collect the girls and brought them to see it as well.
We never really planned to spend the night here, the swell wraps in quite a bit so unless conditions are great it’s not the nicest bay to stay in overnight.
Motored across to Stonehaven, which compared to our last visit was rather quiet and we had the pick of moorings.
Sunset drinks, followed by a light rain shower
Saturday 6th
I caught up on some work.
Got going early and motored across to Langford to get a mooring.
We started lowering the tender when the rear winch rope snapped and the tender fell to the water (with the front still up high)!
No damage, I cut the broken rope off and tied it back up.
Kristie and I jumped in to go and find the turtle statue. This one is marked on the navionics maps.
However, when we got there, the position was right under the back of SV Summer Jo.
Depending on which way they swung we could get down and check out the turtle.
Went to get the girls but by the time we got back to the spot, SV Summer Jo was hanging right on top of statue, and they suggested we come back later. They weren’t happy we were close to them.
We weren’t happy they were anchored in a no-anchoring zone and were sitting on top of both public tender moorings!
They claimed they were doing nothing wrong, and had anchored outside the “No anchoring zone”, and they had 100m of chain out.
Fun fact: in a “No anchoring zone”, no part of your anchor or chain can be inside that zone!
On the way back to Lazuli Kristie jumped in for a swim and to take a photo of a real turtle.
Tender up, and we motored towards Manta Ray Bay, but both moorings were occupied so we picked one up in Luncheon Bay.
We all got into the tender and went over to the tender moorings in Manta Ray Bay.
The usual enormous schools of fish that we had last time weren’t there; it was mostly just the GT’s and George (the local Maori Wrasse) eating our bread.
We swam over to the Manta Ray statues, and we all took turns swimming down to touch them. Only I had seen Emma swim down last time so she wanted Kristie and Kristina to see her do it again.
We had a big high tide, so possibly a bit deeper than last time; about 6m to the statues and they both got down ok.
Motored back to Stonehaven as the ENE swell made most of these bays on the top of Hook Island pretty unpleasant!
Sunset drinks.
Sunday 7th
Woke up and motored back across to Langford Island to try and snorkel the turtle statue without SV Summer Jo.
Half a dozen turtles were swimming within a short distance from the mooring; they were feeding on all the jellyfish in the water.
Family snorkel on the Turtle statue. Lots of little jellyfish in the water so we didn’t spend too long in the water.
With the turtle found we then had a go at finding the coral polyp statue. It also was marked on the maps so easy to find.
Motored around the top of Hook Island to head around the corner to Mackerel Bay.
We grabbed one of the two moorings there.
The Marine Parks guys came to say “Hi” and just check we knew what zone we were in.
Kristie and I had a snorkel. We had the spear gun in the tender in case we found any lobsters but we didn’t spot any at all.
Great coral; a few fish and we saw a stingray.
Sailed out towards Chalkies. A bit of a slow sail, and we eventually had to drop the sails so we made it there before sunset!
The resident turtle turned up when we got there, but we weren’t quick enough to feed it so it didn’t stick around.
Sips and dips on the beach for our last night in the Whitsundays.
We went for a walk down the beach to get some photos.
We climbed the sandhill to get a bit of a view and some better sunset photos.
I had a bit of an emotional moment on the beach; we have a lot of good memories from our time around the Whitsundays, and many of those good times were on the beach here.
It is bittersweet leaving it all behind: we have to go south, but we could easily spend more time here.
I put our green squid light out. Last time we were here with Jess and Chris there was a school of tiny squid (maybe about 6 inches long).
Tonight we had (maybe the same?) similar sized school turn up, but they were now about 3 times that size. Kristie and I both put lures in but still couldn’t catch any of them :(
The turtle turned up to check out the green light and gave us a second chance; we fed it some of the squid we had.
But with the tender already up for the night, all we could do was throw the squid over the side.
The turtle kept swimming round to the back of Lazuli as obviously, that is where he is meant to be fed.
Quite a few big GT’s hunting in the green light.
Monday 8th
The turtle came back, and this time we were ready (Kristie had asked me put the tender down as soon as I got out of bed so that we were ready if it did turn up!).
We all had a turn hand feeding the turtle; we got through an entire large bag of squid bait.
With the turtle fed, and all the sculptures found, it was now time to leave the Whitsundays and sail south :(
We were planing on having the night at Thomas Island, but with the wind more ESE we were going to have to sail around the western side of the Lindermans and then turn south.
We had an upwind journey ahead of us, having to tack our way across to Thomas.
We had the lure out as usual, but no luck.
We dropped sails and motored into the bay at Thomas Island. There was too much swell was still coming in, so we turned around and continued on to Goldsmith Island.
Kristie enjoyed a nap while I enjoyed overtaking another yacht heading the same way.
The horseflies turned up as soon as we got into the bay before we had even stopped moving :(
There are two moorings there so we grabbed one of those.
Kristie and I went in for a walk on beach and enjoyed a swim.
Met “Moonshine” (who we overtook on the way here) in at the beach and had a chat with them.
Back on the boat Emma and I baked some banana bread.
Tuesday 9th
I wanted to get the tender outboard up onto the pushpit ready for when we did the bigger sails over the next few days.
I tried to remove the padlock, but it was rusted closed; I applied lots of WD40 in the hopes it would loosen it. But no luck.
Dropped mooring and tacked all the way down to St Bees.
The only mooring available was a yellow (10m mono max, and there was Marine Parks boat was on anther mooring next to it). It was also a bit rolly at the end so we motored back out and sailed across to Scawfell Island.
There are four moorings there, and all were empty. We did a bit of back and forth trying to work out which one would be best.
Ended up settling on the one with more wind but seemingly less swell.
Kristie and I went for a walk on the beach. We saw quite a few turtle tracks, at least two of them very fresh.
Had a swim.
Back to Lazuli for dinner.
At night we were surrounded by glow in the dark jelly fish. You couldn’t spot them with a torch, but you’d see the flashes/lights all around when it was dark.
At 8pm I dropped Kristie back into the beach to be on turtle watch. She was hoping that some would come up the beach to lay eggs.
We would wake the girls and bring them in to the beach if it happened. It never did, and I went back in at 10:30pm to collect Kristie.
It was low tide, and she had to walk quite a long way out to get to the tender!
Wednesday 10th
I needed to work all day, so we’d have another night here.
Kristie and Emma baked GF apple scrolls.
Lunch.
We all went in for a family swim and play on the mat.
We took the GPS positions for the 14 turtle nests that we could see on the beach.
I managed to get the outboard engine off and we hoisted up to the back of the boat.
More glow in the dark jelly fish at night.
Thursday 11th
Early start, up before 6am to head towards Curlew.
We sailed for a bit, then wind dropped so we motored. Wind came up so sails up again.
Tried the main beach/anchorage at Curlew, but it was not good, so went back around to the western side to a little bay there that was a bit more protected.
Anchor down close to 5pm.
Our anchor alarm had a busy night as we kept moving around.
Friday 12th
We had a rolly night :(
Kristie was up before 4am.
Had our anchor up before 7am.
Light rain shower while sailing towards Percy.
Caught a Spotty (Sharky? School?) Mackerel 3nm out from Middle Percy Island.
There weren’t any other yachts in West Bay so we had the pick of where to anchor.
The cruise ship “True North” was there with the 6 run-abouts and helicopter on top: the cheapest birth was $21K for the 13-day tour from Cairns to Brisbane!
We all went to the A-Frame and looked for the signs our boat friends had left (those who came north after us and south before us).
Had a lovely swim.
Both girls went to up see if there were any passion fruit, but no luck.
Kristina found a coconut and I opened it up on the spike out the back.
We had our drinks and a chat with the very friendly crew and some of the guests on True North.
Kristina borrowed one of their SUP’s to go for a paddle.
Back on the boat we were having Bacon and Eggs for dinner. Emma was helping me with the eggs, when one of the ones she cracked in there was green/rotten.
She and I both nearly threw up from the smell.
Had to start again and use up the rest of our eggs :(
(We’ve since learnt to be more consistent with cracking eggs into a smaller container one at a time.)
Put the green light out again, but only saw a tiny baby cuttlefish.
Kristina did some star-gazing. We are a long way offshore, so the night sky is quite amazing.
Saturday 13th
Woke up to find we had the bay to ourselves (True North travels during the night).
I caught up on the last blog.
Kristie did some hand-washing.
I dropped Kristie in to the A-Frame, and she met Don (82 years old) who’s the caretaker at the Homestead.
Picked up Kristie to bring her back for Lunch, then dropped her back in.
Kristie radioed from the beach to tell us there was a dugong swimming around Lazuli. Kristina came up to check it out with me.
I came in for a swim with Kristie, leaving the girls onboard.
As the tide was up we could go and explore the lagoon in the tender. Not too much to see but interesting nonetheless.
On the way back to Lazuli we stopped by to say hi to “Esconder”, a nice aluminum “Coral Coast” power cat with Pat, Courtney, Riley, and their toddler.
Back on the boat we had to up anchor and move further out as the wind had swung, and we were now sitting too close to the beach and would just be touching at low tide.
Sip’s and dips on the beach with the girls, as well as Pat and Riley. The girls and Riley had a great time running around.
Met some campers who’d turned up in a small fishing boat.
Also met the new volunteer helping out on the island.
Opened another coconut.
Late dinner back onboard - we enjoyed some of the mackerel I caught the other afternoon.
Moonshine came in sometime during the night.
Sunday 14th
Woke up to see new turtle tracks on the beach.
Pat dropped off a bag of Yellow Fin Tuna, and then took Kristina for a fast ride in their tinny (they have a 25HP on the back!).
Family tender around the corner to the sand hills. We were on a mission to find some glass tubes in the sand made by lighnting strikes.
It was a steep climb to the top. While up the top we watched Esconder powering towards Yeppoon on the flat seas; Kristie was wishing she could travel that quickly!
Didn’t find any glass tubes (Nauti Kitty had found some on the way up), but did find an interesting rock and some coral at the top of the sand hills.
We stopped by the other sand cliffs on the way back to get some more photos.
Lunch on Lazuli.
Kristie made some sour cream (long life cream + vinegar) ready for the baked potatoes tonight.
I dropped Kristie into the beach.
I cooked banana bread, and prepped for dinner at the fire pit at the A-Frame.
Picked up Kristie to get ready, then we all went back into the beach.
Two little fishing boats stopped in for a bit, but they didn’t stay the night. One of them left a sign in the A-Frame with a lure attached to it on the back of one of the seats next to the walkway.
It was perfect height for a toddler to grab or to snag your leg on the way past.
We relocated the lure after they left!
Kristie and Kristina went off to collect wood while Emma and I got the fire going.
I had prepared roast jacket potatoes in alfoil back on the boat, so put them in the camp oven on the fire.
With that all done and on the go it was time for a swim.
Sips, kabana, nibbles, coconut (soft flesh!) with pineapple and honey and soy sauce (another thing we learnt from Nauti Kitty)! Yum.
Kristie and Kristina made a barrier around one of the turtle nests using some coconuts.
We had our dinner at the A-Frame by ourselves.
Marshmallows on the fire after dinner.
Had a walk down the beach looking for turtles (there were fresh baby turtle tracks from the night before).
Lots of bioluminescence on the tender on the way back.
Just us here in West Bay tonight.
Monday 15th
Dropped Kristie into the beach.
I spent the morning working.
Kristie came back on board for lunch, then dropped back to the beach.
Goats were introduced in 1874 by the British Admiralty to provide meat, milk, and skins for shipwrecked or passing mariners.
I had more work to do.
I went into bring Kristie back to boat to get ready for an afternoon swim.
Kristie and I enjoyed a swim/float with drinks and popcorn.
I then spent some time prepping Lazuli to be ready for a BIG sail to Keppels tomorrow - it’s going to be over 100nm!
Had the bay to ourselves again.
Tuesday 16th
Alarm at 5am. Motoring soon after with breakfast when underway.
I worked while Kristie helmed.
Kristie had a nap, but was rudely woken up when we hooked a fish.
Got this one in easily enough - turned out to be a 108cm Spanish Mackerel.
Quickly processed, bagged, and into the fridge.
The wind turned up, and we could start sailing at 10am.
We saw quite a few rain clouds ahead and behind us, but we managed to avoid all the heavy rain.
Up wind all the way. Had to motor around a few rocks/headlands.
Lots of slow bits as we were trying to point and couldn’t make good speed.
Once we got around the last headland we could bear away and get a bit of speed sailing directly to Great Keppel Island.
Sometime after dark the wind hit 20kts; we dropped sails and motored the rest of the way.
Motored around to the Pub side thinking it might be ok, but it was terrible.
Motored back around to Svendsen’s Beach. Had a few good lightning strikes to light up the beach for us so we could see where we were going.
There were half a dozen other boats already over there, so we couldn’t get in too close.
Dropped anchor there and in bed by 11pm… a LONG day. Too long.
Wednesday 17th
Very rolly, possibly the most rolly we’ve had on the entire trip!
Moved in close to get out of the swell. Dropped anchor in a spot that was probably 0.5m LAT (it was currently high tide so we had nearly 5m depth).
We waited there until we could call the marina to confirm we could come in early.
As soon as they confirmed we could come in early we left to head straight to the marina.
Motored all the way there (about an hour).
We had just a bit of rain as soon as we got there.
Kristie and I went up to the marina office to pay. Dropped off some rubbish and booked the courtesy car while up there.
Kristie did two loads of washing. It took longer than usual as she broke one washing machine and only one dryer was working.
I did some work.
Strong winds today (which is why we are here!), it got up to 20kts in the afternoon.
Heavy rain, but thankfully we had a break just as our Woolies delivery turned up.
Wind got to just over 30kts in the evening; we were very, very glad that we weren’t stuck out at the Keppels on anchor.
Thursday 18th
Work.
Courtesy car into Yeppoon Central for Santa Photos.
Big W so Emma could spend some of her birthday money, and I needed some headphones as my Airpods don’t even last a full hour meeting now.
Back to the marina.
I cooked up the rice, and then Kristie and Emma put together Sushi from the Yellow Fin Tuna. Yum.
I did more work.
Kristie had a nap.
We all got an afternoon bus into Yeppoon to go for a swim. Bus was free as their EFT wasn’t working.
Windy, and cold. We didn’t last long in the pool.
Kristina had a quick climb in the playground, but it was too cold for Emma.
Takeaway dinner - nuggets for the girls, Thai for us.
Free bus home as EFT was still broken.
Friday 19th
Kriste and I walked up to “Fan Rock” after breakfast
I had meetings and spent the morning working.
Kristie and girls bussed to Town Hall for Christmas activities.
They walked to cinemas to watch Zootopia 2 which they all enjoyed.
Then onto Yeppoon Central to collect their winnings from entering the receipts at the shopping centre yesterday.
~$360 worth of ‘Christmas Fashion’ prizes.
Bus back to Marina.
Kristie and Emma walked over to Exhale to leave Charlee a pressie.
Kristie filled the water (two of the three tanks were empty).
Saturday 20th
Easy morning, no rush. We are planning to get to Gladstone via the Narrows so we don’t have too far to go today.
Kristie did a rubbish run.
I bought a Yeti Esky (an extravagant purchase, but we plan to take two bags of frozen mackerel down to Brisbane and I don’t want it thawing out!).
We stopped at the fuel dock on the way out of the marina.
Easy sail down to the entrance of the channel.
A bit slower when we had to go dead down wind and against ~2kts current flowing out of the river system!
Dropped sails and motored to within a few miles of the start of the narrows.
There’s one other boat (Whoosh - we first saw them on a mooring at St Bees) we can see who will also be going through tomorrow morning.
Emma and I baked some chocolate brownies.
Enjoyed a relaxing afternoon.
Mozzies came and found us as soon as the sun dropped. There wasn’t any wind to keep them away :(
We had dinner up top, and while we were all eating Emma spotted something weird in the sky.
It was a whole row of lights, one after another going across the sky in a line.
After a bit of googling we worked out it was a recent (14th Dec) launch of 27 new Starlink satellites.
As the launch was still so recent they were all still in a train. Very cool to see.
Tomorrow we motor down through the Narrows and into Gladstone.
Sunday 21st
The Narrows has a few sections that actually dry out at low tide. LAT is about -1.4m (i.e. at the lowest possible tide the land is 1.4m above the sea level!).
The official guidance is “1.5m + your draft” (ours is 2.3m) as the minimum height of tide required.
We have a high of 4.1m this morning, so we will hopefully have at least 30cm clearance going through!
Gladstone high tide was 9:46am, and we were advised to start heading through at 9:15am.
We had a bit of tide flowing in with us, but still we didn’t get to the first section until 9:20am.
The Beacon-to-Beacon has a dedicated section for The Narrows with good detail, and our navigation app has the purple line to follow!
There are three main sections that are shallow.
The first we only got down to 3.3m depth, but coming through the next two we saw 2.6m (i.e. 30cm under the keel) on two occasions.
The water floods in from the north through this part of the Narrows, and also flooding north up from Gladstone, meeting just on the other side of these shallow sections.
With quite a bit of water flowing, you need to be on the line (and on the ball!) the entire time lest you get washed into the shallow sections.
Once out the other side we could start riding the ebbing tide south towards Gladstone marina.
We had a bit of rain after we got through.
From the end of the Narrows there is still a two-hour trip to the marina.
By the time we got down to inline with the marina we would have had 2-2.5kts of tide going with us.
Fun fact: this is the first time we’d managed to get the tide in our favour here - every other time we’d come into port against it and gone out against it :(
We had an easy time getting into our berth. We had been allocated a blow-on berth, and also there was no other boat on the other side.
Two guys from the marina (Graham, who is great!) were also down to help catch lines.
With the forecasted weather for Christmas not looking that great, we were going to pick up a hire car tomorrow and drive back home for Christmas.
As such, we had a few boat jobs to do:
- cleaned the decks.
- washed the dodger/infill
- cleaned out the bathrooms
- emptied the compost toilet
- flushed the tender outboard
- removed and cleaned the boat logs
We did more packing.
Shaan from Tandanya offered to take the girls for a play at the park with Mia while we got jobs done.
Kristie did some laundry.
Once boat jobs were done (and the girls back onboard) Kristie and I went over to have a drink with Bride and Andrew on Hoot, who were back up for the night to get stuff of their boat that they’ll leave up here for a while.
Kristie had booked for us all to have dinner out at the Yacht Club. Hoot and Tandanya joined us there.
It was a lovely end to this part of our journey south.
Monday 22nd
Had breakfast then we finished packing and emptying out the fridge of any perishables.
Filled up the current water tank as it was down to maybe 1/3.
We needed two trolley runs to get all our gear up to the lounge.
Seeing all this, I was a little dubious how it would all fit in the little hatch we’d booked!
The girls and Kristie waited up in the lounge with luggage (and the aircon) while I got a taxi to the airport to collect our car.
Heavy rain started just as the taxi turned up!
Quick drive back to the marina and did some Tetris style packing to get everything in!
Drove home. Just one stop for a late lunch (pie and chips!) at the Traveston services.
Home to my mum and dads to unpack and then go pick up some delicious GF Chinese takeaway!
And relax.
We’ll be spending Christmas with family.
Not sure when we’ll be back up. That’ll depend a bit on the weather.
We still have over 250nm of sailing to get back from Gladstone to Brisbane, but that’s something we’ll deal with after Christmas!