The “Spring of Deception” had arrived in Brisbane and coincided nicely with favourable tides and my Birthday weekend.

Meade Adventures (Justin, Jo, Scarlett, and Alex) were keen to come out for an overnight trip on Lazuli.

With a steady 3knt “blowing” from the East, we didn’t even bother getting the sails ready for sailing.
The Meades turned up at 10:30, and we were on the way not long after 11am.

We motored across a very flat and calm bay, which made for perfect drone flying conditions. It’s much easier retrieving the drone with there are no sails up and the boat isn’t moving :)

About 15min out from Tangalooma we spotted a pod of whales in the bay just in front of us. We slowed down, enjoyed the show, and got some good photos of the whales.

As you would expect with the conditions, there were quite a few boats anchored up around the wrecks. We picked a nice spot a good distance from one of the mega yachts.
With the tide going out, we got the kids and tender ready for a quick snorkel and then play on the beach. We dumped 3 kids in with J and it was a bit much for them all.
Jo took the kids back to the beach while Justin, Kristie and I had a snorkel. I swam back in to try and convince them to come back out with shoes and life jacket on.
Only Scarlett came back out, but she had a fantastic snorkel and saw plenty of fish, a turtle, and massive flathead.

With the kids happy on the beach, I zoomed back to Lazuli to get supplies for the afternoon, and we settled in for our much required sips’n’dips on the beach.

Kristie had done the shopping and bought me my favourite Roaring 40’s blue cheese. Washed down with some fine whiskey. Life is good.

Unlike last time we were here with Scott, we had a great sunset and made the most of the warm weather.

We did dinner for the kids, then us. Brownies with strawberries and cream for birthday dessert.

We were all out on deck doing some star gazing when Jo noticed the bioluminescence in the water. We spent a good 30min making light shows in the water.
(they’ll also make a light show in your toilet if you turn the lights off!).

An early(ish) bed as we’d all had a fairly big week.

The wind had swung around to the North overnight, but was still quite nice in the morning. J cooked up a stack of his homemade bacon for breakfast.

We were then back on the beach for an hour before heading back home.

We had motored out of the channel and then got the kids sorted with food before putting sails up.
Another yacht left Tangalooma just before us. They probably didn’t realise we were racing them. We quickly overtook them and left them in our wake.

The girls (and Alex!) had fun sitting over the side of the boat getting wet.

We were tied up just before 3pm with the help from a couple from another visiting yacht. For a change we drove straight home instead of via Morgans!

Massive thanks to Kristie for making it a very special birthday weekend out on the boat, also big thanks to the Meades for bringing extra fun to the party.

Stuff that broke this week:

• Nothing!

Lessons learnt:

• Drones a cool, hmmkay.
• I need more fishing tips
• Best reset your anchor every day at Tangalooma.

The tides were good to take Lazuli out for another short weekend overnight trip: we could leave around 11am, and return between 12:30 and 4:30 on Sunday afternoon.

My BIL Scott and his sailing partner met us 10am, and we had the boat loaded up with plenty of time to spare before we had enough depth to head out.

Whilst I was off the boat on some important business, the rest of the crew had seen a pod of dolphins swimming nearby in the marina. A good start to the weekend away.

The wind forecast was for 10-15kts SSE, which was perfect for sailing to and anchoring up at Tangalooma. Full sails out for a fun sail across.

I got new jackets and pants for the girls to try and keep them a bit warmer up on deck. They worked pretty well.

There was only two other boats over at the wrecks, maybe they knew something we didn’t? The girls were keen for sips’n’dips on the beach, so we didn’t waste too much time getting the tender in and over to the beach.

The water was lovely and flat, albeit a little chilly. We enjoyed a few nibbles and drinks, and the girls spent the afternoon chasing seagulls and playing in the water.

When ever we stop at wrecks, we need to climb up this hill and take a photo, Kristina suggesting I could frame Lazuli between the trees.

Back on the boat we got to warm up a bit and had a pleasant evening and dinner.

It turns out the other boats did know something we didn’t - the wind swung round SW overnight (it wasn’t on the forecast!) so it was a bit of a bumpy night and morning.

We briefly considered heading down to the sandhills, but it wouldn’t have been any nicer and the girls were keen for more time on the beach here. The ride in was slower and not so dry as the day before.

The girls and I enjoyed a long walk up and back on the beach, with Emma collecting all the little jelly-like sea snail egg sacs she could find.

The clear, jelly-like sacs that you see along Australian beaches are not jellyfish.
They’re actually the egg sacs of predatory sand snails, like the moon snail or conical sand snail. 🐌
If you look closely, each sac contains thousands of tiny little eggs.
Moon snail egg masses usually float near sandy areas, and they often wash up on beaches in the spring.
They easily crumble when handled. These egg masses consist of tiny eggs in a jelly matrix.
The matrix absorbs water and swells to form the distinctive crescent-shaped tube which can be three to five times larger than the snail that laid it.
The egg masses break up in the water after a few days, releasing planktonic larvae from the eggs.

You can read more about them:

• https://www.dolphinresearch.org.au/weekly-creature-feature-do-you-know-what-this-is/
• https://collections.museumsvictoria.com.au/species/8732

We were nearly ready to head back when Kristie looked up from her book and noticed a whale spout just near our boat. A quick moment of disbelief before the two whales surfaced and continued their swim north through the channel between the sand and the wrecks.
It was going well (for the whales) until some idiot on a jetski (she was working for the hire place) got all excited and started chasing them… the Park Rangers came and had a good word to her afterward.
The whales swam all the way up to where Micat comes in, then turned around and swam all the way back out the deeper channel to the south.

With that excitement over, we got back onboard and had a quick lunch and got ready for to sail home. It was gusting 17kts SE when we left, so we stuck with one reef in and had a comfortable sail home. We saw one more “lost” whale jumping in the bay.

We were tied up just before 3pm, and a quick pack up saw as walking to Morgans for a very early dinner just after 4pm. Dinner done and on the road home by 5.

Stuff that broke this week:

• more stitching on the bimini infill and sail covers.

Lessons learnt:

• Whales do come in to the bay!
• Tangalooma is rubbish when it’s SW winds
• Don’t walk under birds sitting on wires

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.