The 2nd week of the Sept school holidays had been penciled in some time ago as good opportunity to take Lazuli out for more than an overnight trip.
It also coincided with Kristie’s birthday.
With the advanced planning, we’d lined up my brother and his daughter to come out for a day trip on the Sunday, and Kristie’s parents on the Monday.
After dropping Craig and Tal off at Raby Bay public pontoon once before this has become our go-to pickup point.
It’s nice and sheltered, and the channel in reasonably deep (we need about a 1.1m tide to be safe and less stressful!).
Given the tides and wind, we weren’t in much of a rush on Saturday.
Saturday morning was Park Run at Ipswich for Kristina and I - followed by Maccas as we did a pretty good time.
We got up to Scarborough around 11ish, and got the boat ready, had a quick lunch and then set out for Raby Bay.
We had reasonably good winds and could sail most of the way down on one tack, with just a bit of motoring at the end.
It did take a bit longer than anticipated, so we got there with the sun going down.
Raby Bay is quite shallow, and there’s really only one spot that is both protected and deep enough at low tide for us.
It also happens to be sort of in the road of everyone leaving from and returning to the boat ramp. On the plus side we saw lots of boats up close!
We had a few attempts at getting the anchor to set before we could get “sips ‘n dips” underway.
I also set the AIS anchor alarm on for the first time this trip. Quite a handy bit of kit.
Sunday morning turned up without much wind and it wasn’t looking good for my brother’s day trip.
However by the time we picked him up and got back out beyond Raby Bay the wind had picked up to 12kn or so, and coming from the SE it meant we’d head for the top of Peel.
After this short stint at the wheel, the girls went back downstairs.. no seasickness issues for those three!
With the SE winds, we were comfortably cruising along at more than 8kn and in no time had got to the top marks at Peel.
Given it was only 11am, and you can’t really do much there, we sailed on a bit more, dropped the sails and motored around to Horseshoe bay.
It was a bit bumpy in the SE winds, but we had a quick lunch and launched the tender for a play at the beach.
By the time we’d got back to the boat and hooked up the tender the wind had died off, leaving us a slow run downwind back to Raby Bay.
We weren’t in a hurry, as we were planning to anchor there for the night again.
The drop-off went smoothly for us (tears due to forgotten cuttlefish for my niece) and we were back at anchor for more cheese.
Monday morning had even less wind than the day before. We weren’t picking up Chris & Rod until after 10, so we had a lazy morning (no luck fishing).
Pickup went smoothly, and given there was no wind we motored all the way to Peel, only having to stop for 4 humpbacks whales we saw between Raby By and Peel!
(2 lots of mum and baby swimming north).
After these encounters we got to Horseshoe bay, had a fine lunch (thanks Chris & Rod!), and then back to the beach for a swim.
We left to start the return journey home around 2pm, had our guests back on the pontoon before 3:30pm.
By the time we got back out into the bay the wind was up and from the NE. We had a quick sail back across to Peel.
We had the sails down and motoring the last bit before we were again waylaid by some lost whales, these ones just near the cardinal mark at the western end of Horseshoe Bay.
Given the forecast, we planned to spend 3 nights anchored here. It’d be great to not have to up anchor and move every morning.
I grew up going to Coochiemudlo Island for holidays, and we’d always look from our beach across to Horseshoe bay and all the boats there (we’d often count 200+ on good weekends!).
I always told myself that one day that will be me in my boat there. Monday night was that night.
Tuesday morning was one of those picture perfect mornings and ideal conditions.
It also happened to be someone’s birthday. Pancakes with jam and cream as requested by the birthday girl.
With breakfast and presents done, it was time to head to the beach and hangout there for a bit. Paddle boarding, swimming, throwing/catching, sandcastles.
We had freshly baked croissants for lunch, followed by more beach time, followed by more cheese, then creamy garlic prawns for dinner.
The next day was more of the same. Plenty of time at the beach, lots to eat, and not being in much of a rush to do anything.
Kristina was quite insistent we all had to jump off the boat.
When we bought the boat it came with quite a few self inflating life jackets. They were all out of service and not worth keeping.
However, two of them still had the firing mechanism intact, but out of date by 3 years.
Kristie and I had recently done our Sea Survival and Safety course so we’d a chance to see our jackets inflated, and thought it useful for the girls to see what would happen.
We took the 2 with us on the tender into the beach, and when ready we fitted the girls and had them jump off the tender into the water.
They both inflated reasonably quickly (they are the Hammar depth activated units) and was good to know that even 3 years out of date they still work!
The sudden inflation gave the girls a bit of a shock, and Emma wasn’t a fan of how they puffed up (they were large adult jackets)
I tried more fishing, but got nothing. Tried with fresh(ish) pippies but only got two nibbles the entire time.
Thursday morning was back to the beach for a quick swim before we had to head back home to Scarborough.
By the time we left the wind was 15-20 and straight from the North. Which is not great for going North to Scarborough.
We motored around the Eastern side of Peel, and then sailed straight across to St Helena, before motoring into the swell all the way home :(
We got back to the marina about 4pm, and I tried reversing into our arm of the marina. As soon as I stopped going forward the wind blew me all over the place.
There was no way we were going back into our pen without much stress and probably quite a bit of damage to other boats.
The marina has a nice empty arm that’s easy to get onto for just these occasions, so we tied Lazuli up there and had a quick pack up.
Given it was 5pm, we opted for local dinner before heading home.
Massive thanks to Kristie going sailing on her birthday and being the best First Mate any skipper could wish for, also big thanks to my brother and in-laws for their company (and food!).
Stuff that broke this week:
- Nothing - though we came very close to having a toilet malfunction!
Lessons learnt:
- AIS Watchmate is useful.
- Now that I fixed the RADAR, it also is very useful (got to use it in anger crossing the shipping channel!)
- Still can’t catch fish
- When in doubt take the easy marina berth option
