The following is Kristina’s recount of the trip from Arch Cliffs to Bundaberg on Wednesday 7th May:

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When we left Arch Cliffs we needed to make a quick sail over to Bundy.
We were talking over the radio and racing our way along.
Everyone was trying to catch fish, then Kenny caught a big one. That just made everyone else try harder.
Next it was Russell's turn to catch one. 
Then it was ours and we failed.
We may not have caught a fish but it didn't take long to overtake the others despite their 30min head start.
We kept on sailing until we reached the marina and settled in.
When Exhale got to the marina, Charlie came over to our boat for a play.
After everyone was settled in, we all (including 'Nauti Kitty', 'Exhale', ''Bella Amalfi', and us Lazuli) went to a nearby restaurant for dinner.
Us kids had a go at the claw machine and we were very lucky to get fifteen chocolates.

Saturday 10th May

Bit of a lazy morning.

The girls and I found ourselves in the position of having zero presents ready for Mothers Day tomorrow.

There’s a nice little tourist info centre that also has a bunch of reasonable (quality & price) items for sale.

Kristina, Emma and I walked over and after a bit of browsing and after a few discussions on what Mum would and would not like we left the shop with enough for Mum, and the girls each chose a souvenir to purchase with their own money.

There’s also a fishing tackle shop right next door… how convenient.
Much to the girls annoyance, the guys in there were more than happy to talk at length about lures and load me up with enough for a few more attempts at catching something!

Back on the boat for lunch, then we walked around to the HMAS Gladstone to get a tour on there: https://gladstonemaritimemuseum.org.au/

We all really enjoyed the tour and got to go through the entire ship.

We started off at the engine room and where the steering happens:

Then up to the business end:

When they decommissioned it, they had to get rid of all the ammo. They went out to sea and shot it all!
That would have been fun :)
Other than that, it had been used a few times in anger to disable illegal fishing boats.

I wouldn’t mind having a ship with a bridge like this and such good crew to help run her :)

One of the more interactive tours we’ve been on, 100% can recommend.

The following is Emma’s recount of the HMAS Gladstone tour:

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We visited HMAS Gladstone.
It is a navy battle ship but now it's a museum.
When the sailors were on it they called it "Happy Rock" 
and when the sailors were off they called it "Sad Rock".
There was volunteer that took us on a tour inside.
We visited all the rooms and the deck.
I learnt that the flags were letters and numbers.
Something that was cool was the gun.
I got to sit in the seat and hold a bullet.
Me and Kristina had the job of looking for all the black phones inside.

Once the tour was done wes strolled over to Auckland House, a cafe/brewery on the water (my brother had recommended it).
We booked for a late lunch tomorrow for Mothers Day.

I walked back via Woolies to get some supplies for breakfast… about a 6km detour.

Back to the boat for the afternoon.

Sunday 11th May - Mothers Day

Bit of a sleep in, then it was presents for mum:

Followed by pancakes for breakfast:

I got in a load of washing/drying before we got ready to head off for lunch.

20min walk around to lunch. We’d booked in for 1:30pm, but we got there just before 1pm and could get a table straight away.
Food and drinks were excellent. Took a while to get them given how busy it was.

On the walk yesterday we’d met a couple from a boat opposite us at the marina and they had not enjoyed their lunch. Oh well, we did.

We’d brought togs for the girls so they could play in the water/splash park. There were a few other younger kids having fun as well.

I walked back via Woolies… another 5km detour.

Back onboard we got things sorted for a movie night. Nachos for dinner, and we watched “Ella Enchanted” (mum’s request).
Ice cream after dinner.

Monday 12th

School, and started a bit of work.

However, the fridge parts arrived today, and with my Monday meeting cancelled, today was going to be the only day I’d get to head off to the shops.

The marina does a courtesy van that drops you off at various places (leaves the marina at 10:30am) and picks you up at one or two spots at 1:30pm.

I got dropped off at BCF/Bunnings. I had a bit of a list of items to get.

• Filleting table (mounts to our rails) - good for not getting fish guts on the deck!
• Spotlight - our last one had broken.
• Glue - there’s always something that needs gluing.

It’s then a bit of a walk from BCF back to the shopping centre.
I had to get new winter PJ’s for Kristina, and a few scripts from the pharmacy.

Picked up a hot chook for lunch back on the boat.

With round one of shopping done, it was off to Jaycar (about 1.5km or so) to get some new interior lights (the kitchen sink one has been broken for a bit).
The aircon was so nice in there (we have to walk everywhere…mostly) I ended up buying more things.

I got back and fitted the new lights. They’re a drop in replacement, but much brighter and better looking.

Tuesday 13th

School and a full day of work.

Kristie did a walk to the shops & the post office, another 6km return.

Don’t think the girls got off the boat.

Pete and Jess and the boys from Nauti Kitty/Sardinia came over to say hi.

Wednesday 14th

School and work.

Fridge technician turned up to install the freezer.

Kristie and the girls had a turn going shopping via the courtesy van.
I needed a few more things from Bunnings and BCF (fish spike, batteries, electrical goddies, drill bits), and Kristie was keen to get some baskets to help (me) stack things in the freezer.
Another 2.5km walk from Bunnings back to the main shops to visit Woolworths, the pharmacy, bottle shop and Kmart.
Kristina spent some more pocket money and was pleased with her purchase of more lego to add to the collection we already have.

They enjoyed sushi at the shops for lunch (I had very much enjoyed my ice coffee and brownie on Monday!).
With an overflowing trolley, they very much appreciated the lift home on the courtsey bus.

Kristie went for a walk down to the fual dock with 6 jerry cans (4x 20L, a 10L & 5L). They only have Hi-flow diesel, and our boat doesn’t take that.
With a fuel nozzle that didn’t fit into the jerry cans, it was an effort to try and slowly dribble the diesel in. The bowser didn’t appreciate the low flow and repeatedly timed out.
After 3 phone calls to the tackle shop (and a wait each time for someone to walk down and reset the bowser) the guys tuned up with a makeshift funnel (cut off water bottle) which helped speed the process up.

After walking back to the Marina, Kristie called me up for assistance to help get the 115L of desiel back down the ramp to the pontoon.

I decantered 2 jerrys into Lazuli and sent Kristie back to the fuel dock to repeat the process. This time she took our funnel which made things a lot easier.

We’re 100% full now, ready to go exploring!

Ww also needed to dump some old oil, so Kristie set off to the dump point.

Thursday 15th

Kristie got a supply teaching day, so up early to get ready for that (and to submit the online Woolies order) before jumping in a taxi to head to Prep.

My turn to help with school this morning as I was done working for the week.

The fridge guy turned up to install the fridge compressor and check on the freezer (he had to adjust the amount of gas in it).

Out with the old:

In with the new:

I had a long list of jobs that needed doing before we head off, and I got most of them done.

• Emptied our water tanks (2 of the 3 were empty anyway) and refilled them.
• Changed the spark plugs on the tender outboard (long overdue)
• Fitted the filleting table (Kristie had started on it yesterday).
• Rewired some lights in Kristina’s room
• Rewired two lights in my room
• Fixed up some of the headliners that kept coming down…hopefully gorilla grip + sticky velcro dots will solve it??
• Adjusted the vang to the right length (hopefully).
• Pulled out the speed log and depth sounder and gave them a clean. They accumulate growth too quickly.
• Emptied the composting toilet (yay)
• Wiped/cleaned the bathrooms.
• Ran to Jaycar to purchase a 120mm 12V fan to extract the hot air from the space where the freezer compressor is.
• Installed the fan

Out with the old and in with the new:

There’s always a list, but it was handy being in a marina to knock a few jobs off the list (I think I visited the Ship & Sail chandlery at least 5 times during the week).

With school finished Kristie made the 6km walk back home via Woolies to collect a couple of items that we couldn’t get via the online order.

Our Woolies delivery (20 bags worth) turned up as I was making dinner.
Kristie and I got that back to the boat and the girls helped get it onboard.

Now to find a home for everything!

Dinner, then started putting everything away… a few items got rearranged to different spots (hope I remember where I put everything!)

Put a load of washing on after dinner.

Friday 16th

Getting ready to head off.

Woolies had delivered 120g of ham/salami… that won’t last us long. Kristie walked over to Woolies (in the rain) to get more before we head off (and a bunch of other items that got left off the shopping list).
We somehow have managed to head to Woolies eveyday we’ve been in Gladstone Marina and we’re not going to miss that walk when we’ve gone.

We were hoping to get out to Heron, but with the Northerlies we won’t head there.

At 10am we needed to make a decision; Kristie called/chatted to Nic off Exhale as they were on the way in.
Conditions out there were rough, and they didn’t recommend heading out.
Kristie booked another night here at the marina.
With sailing postphoned, it was time for school.

We caught lines for both boats when they came in.
Bella ended up directly opposite us, and Exhale about as far away from us as possible.

The ladies arranged to head to the Yacht Club for dinner at 6pm. Charlie came over to hang out with our girls.

Viv gave me a tour of their lovely Jeanneau, every nice inside and out!

We had quick nibbles and drinks on their boat at 5pm, before walking across for dinner.

They had us out outside down by the water. The girls went and got their own table, and requested their own number for getting their dinner. Love it.

Dinner was great. My Mexican Parmi was massive.

The girls enjoyed a run around in the park…

…and also found a tree to climb.

It started spitting on the way back, but held off on anything solid.

Got the girls in bed, then invited ourselves for drinks with Viv and Russ. Viv had a bottle of red from the nibbles earlier that needed finishing, and I brought over the decanter of Port that Evan & Prue gave us last year.

We had made plans to head to Heron tomorrow. The others needed to fill up and do a few jobs before setting off, but we will head off earlier.

Saturday 3rd May

We had a bit of a bumpy night and morning.

We got some school and work done, before deciding we’d move on rather than head into the beach down here.

We had planned to head to Wathumba Creek as we’d heard good things about it.
Half way there we saw 5 of other yachts at Arch Cliffs, and it looked calm and very pleasant, so we went in and dropped anchor.

We’d only been there half an hour or so when there was some commotion on the beach. It looked like someone was being carried up the beach from a tender.
Not long after the Rescue Helicopter turned up and landed on the beach.

They were there for a while before taking the person back with them.

We had felt it wasn’t right to head to the beach while that was going on, so after the helicopter left we went in for a swim.

We met another couple who were also on the beach: Viv and Russell. They are sailing on a 45ft Jeanneau ‘Bella Amalfi’.
It turns out it was them in their tender that had gone to assist the charter boat and picked up the victim (luckily Viv is a nurse!): a 14hr old girl had an arm and left chopped up badly by the prop from the tender the family were using on their charter boat.
The girl was air lifted to Hervey Bay hospital and had surgery that night.

We invited ourselves to sunset drinks on the beach before they took off.

We enjoyed a nice afternoon on the beach.

There were dingo tracks on the beach:

There’s a freshwater creek to play in, and up the end where the campers were is a rope swing for some fun!

Back to Lazuli to get dry and ready for drinks/nibbles on the beach.

Russ and Viv came over on their tender to tell us there were heading in to the beach.
One of the other boats came over as well to say hi on the way in: Nic and Kenny and their 9yr old daughter Charlie (on a cat ‘Exhale’).
We all went into the beach. Our dip and biscuits couldn’t match the platter Viv produced! The girls had fun playing with Charlie.
We also met George and Smiley who were on a cat and based in Tin Can Bay.

Back to Lazuli in the dark and cooked dinner.

Sunday 4th

Woke up to a rainy morning.

I tried to fix the watermaker. The end of one of the high pressure housings had blown off so I attempted to pull the entire thing out.
Bit of a mess. I got it back in, but no luck as I couldn’t get the pressure above 300psi, and only saltwater was coming out the sample pipe :(

Kenny dropped Charlie over to play with the girls. As I’d pulled downstairs apart, they played upstairs making loom bands.

Lunch then into the beach.

Kenny had pumped up their tube and the girls were super excited to have a go of that. With only a 8hp outboard, it was one kid at a time only!

Bit more of a swim, then up to the rope swing for some more swinging.

Was too wet for sunset drinks on the beach :(

Monday 5th

Labour Day - so no school or work!

We got ready to head into the beach to meet Charlie. A new cat (Nauti Kitty) had turned up so went over to say hi to them.
We had a chat and mentioned we were planning to head into Bundy for supplies as we would soon be out of meat.
They generously offered some of their fresh tuna if we wanted some. Yes please!

It started raining, so we took ourselves and the bag of loot (tuna) back to the fridge.
We’d told Kenny and Nic that’d we’d got tuna, and he suggested (insisted?) that we bring the tuna to their boat and he’d happily make sushi/sashimi for all!
Yes please!

Rain eventually cleared so we got to the beach. We walked up the sandhill and flew our kites from the top.

With the SE winds, up the top was the best/only spot to fly with good wind.

Pete from Nauti Kitty came in with his two boys (7 & 9).

The kids spend ages playing in the creek with the coffee rock.

Back to Lazuli to get ready for lunch. We took our swim mat over as well.
Kenny had whipped up the best sushi I’d ever had. Fresh tuna sashimi as well. Amazing.
Emma smashed the tuna as much as the adults did!

The kids then enjoyed jumping off their boat and playing on the swim mat.

Back to the boat for only a little time before we were back on the beach with everyone for Sips ‘n dips.

Fun times on the beach with everyone, with a lovely sunset over Lazuli.

Kenny got his drone out, and we all gathered for a group photo.

Another late night back to Lazuli for dinner.

Tuesday 6th

Kristie went for a SUP down the fresh water creek.

With our dinner supplies dwindling we had to make firm plans for what we were doing next.

Our fridge had been struggling with the low voltage (with a few days of rain), so we were looking at options to get it fixed.
Our built-in freeze hadn’t been working well since ever and we’d been using dads 40L Engel as a freezer; but if we have guests we’ll be short of space.
I had no luck getting anyone able to look at it in Bundy, but Gladstone was an option.
We had two days of good weather for sailing, so we could manage it.

I booked us into the Marina at Gladstone on Friday, and then booked Bundy for one night on Wednesday; we’d have to anchor overnight somewhere up that way on Thursday.

We then got the invite (via the Party Chanel - VHF #69) to come on over to Nauti Kitty for more sushi/sashimi.
Yes please!

We also took our mat across for lunch, and the 5 kids spent ages jumping off the cat and swimming.

They also spent ages jumping off the front, and then swimming underneath the cat to the back steps/swim mat.

Quick lunch then back to Lazuli for me to work and also confirm our plans and arrange trade visits.

I dropped Kristie and the kids into the beach and they spent ages there.

A dingo had been walking up and down the beach all afternoon.

As soon as Kenny and left to go back to his boat (Jess came in) the dingo started approaching the group and bailing them up and following them into the water.
Kenny jumped on the radio and Russ, Pete, and myself all sped in on tenders to rescue the women and kids.
Pete and Kristie went back into the beach armed with paddles to get the beach toys that had been left when the dingo turned up.

With a big sail tomorrow, everyone (including us) was getting their boats ready and there was no beach gathering.

Wednesday 7th

We had set alarms to get ready for a 6:30am start (as that’s what Kenny and Russ had talked about the day before).

We got up on deck at about 6am to see ‘Exhale’ already off, and ‘Bella Amalfi’ pulling up their anchor.
Without rushing too much we got going and were off at 6:30.

We motored out to the wind and set sail. They waited for us to catch up a bit which was great.
‘Exhale’ was going along nicely until the halyard detached from their main, so they had to take that down and motor on with just the headsail.

Kenny was the first to catch a fish, and then Russ not long after. We got nothing.

We eventually caught up and continued on past them both to head into the marina only a few minutes in front of them.

We got to our berth easily enough with a help from the marina staff. Help catching lines is always appreciated.

As soon as we got our boat tied up we walked down to catch lines for Russ and Viv.

I checked in and paid for the night.

Heading back to our boat we saw Kenny who had discovered they were in the wrong ‘blue’ arm of the marina and had to move. Russ and I went over to catch lines in their new spot.

Kristie called up the IGA who offer a service to come pick you up from the marina and take you back to the IGA, then back to the marina when you’re done. Handy!

I bought some bait with the hope of fishing when we got done tomorrow.

Charlie came over and the girls got stuck into the box of lego.

We got cleaned up met the others at 6pm to walk into Burnett Heads to go the pub for dinner.
It was about a 20min walk. The kids all had fun together, and the adult end of the table had a good laugh and feed.

We talked the publican into getting the courtesy bus going and dropping us all back to the marina. Handy!
The girls (mostly Charlie) proceeded to incriminate themselves in front of the driver in how they could hit the side of the chocolate-money-wasting-machine and get more chocolate out of it.

Said our goodbyes and got ready for the sail tomorrow.

Thursday 8th

With a big day today we were up at 5am for a 6am departure.

We had about 80nm to do to get up towards Pancake Creek or Rodds Bay.

Nauti Kitty followed us out of the river, aiming for the same area. A few other boats left not long after.

The day started with ~10knt SW winds, so good fast reaching and minimal swell/waves.

Eventually the wind swung around to the SE and matched the swell. Downwind sailing is not much fun. Lots of concentration.
I prefer to sail without autopilot when going dead downwind. Hard work but the autopilot can be a little slow to reach to going down waves.

We finally dropped anchor about 4:30pm down at Seven Mile Creek. A good calm anchorage with only one other boat there.

I didn’t have time for fishing before dinner as we’d sat down for a drink to relax after the big day.

With dinner done and the girls in bed I got the fishing gear out. I only had some frozen squid but that’d have to do.
Lots of small nibbles but couldn’t ever land them.
With time about to be done, I put two squid on and a bigger hook, and it wasn’t long before I had a big bite and definitely landed something.
I broke my rod getting it in, and it managed to splatter a bit of blood around the place. A quick photo then back into the water it went.

Then time to clean up and get to bed.

Friday 9th

Another early start, departing at 6am. We had about 4.5hrs to get to the marina.

We put out the headsail and just ran with that for a time before the motor went on (the sail stayed up) to help with going against 2+knts of tide.

Checked into Gladstone VTS (VHF #13) and proceeded into the harbour.

Got into the marina around 11am. Kristie did a few laps while I got lines and fenders ready.
There were two marina staff ready to catch lines, and with a big gap between our marina arm and the other it was an easy approach.

Kristie checked in while I got the boat sorted (shore power, sail bags zipped up, etc).

We had the technician for the fridge turn up and had a look at things. I’ve ordered two new Dometic units to replace the ones on the boat.
He disconnected the freezer one, and it had no gas in it (probably explains why it wasn’t working!).

Kristie had walked off to go do a small shop (bread). She got back just as the girls and I were on the way back to Lazuli after showering.
Amazing facilities at the Gladstone Marina - the best we’ve been to so far on our trip.
We had collected Emma’s new mermaid tail from the marina office - mum had posted it up to us at the marina.

Streak for dinner.

We’ll be here for a week, waiting out the strong winds, but more importantly doing boat jobs (and work!).

Tuesday 22nd

We’re leaving Moreton Bay and heading for Mooloolaba.

Forecast for today was pretty much perfect ~10knt SW winds and less than 1m swell.

We wouldn’t have to leave too early as we only had 30nm or so to get up to Mooloolaba where we’d booked two nights in the marina.

During the night before we’d had a bit of a squall and we and other boats had been swinging around a fair bit.

One of the other boats (Platon) that had come in after us ended up closer during the night and I’d stayed up a bit to make sure all was ok.

In the morning I was in bed and Kristie called out “this other boat is a bit close” and I was “yeah it was like that last night”.

I got up slowly and had a look - they were more than a “bit close” (“F’ing close” for future reference when describing how close another boat is!!)
I could almost hook their tender with our boat hook!

We tried waking them up with shouts and whistles, but no luck (we think they’d had boat drinks the night before!).

A couple from another boat near us (turns out to be Kriste’s Uncles neighbours) saw the predicament and jumped in their tender and came over and knocked on the hull and finally woke them up.
The skipper came up looking a bit sleepy and only in his boxers. He started up and moved away a bit then got his wife to take over while he got changed.
They moved further away and dropped anchor again.

We had a good chat with the helpful neighbours, then eventually pulled up our own anchor and got underway.

We motored to the end of the channel / SW corner of Bribie then raised the sails.

It was a slow downwind sail to the other side of Bribie. Once out in the channel we gybed and got into the SW winds and started reaching towards Caloundra.

We had flat seas and good winds, and spent most of the time doing 7-9knts SOG.

We ended up getting to Mooloolaba about 11:30am, dropped the sails, set the fenders and lines and headed into the river.

We had got there earlier than expected and before high tide. The shallowest we saw was 3.0m.

We had a hand with lines and got into E6 without too much effort.

With the boat settled we had a few jobs to do:

• Voting - we wouldn’t be anywhere near a polling both on Election Day, and with no home we hadn’t sorted out postal votes.
• Shopping - we needed some supplies for the trip north.

Spending $30 on Uber trips to vote in this election was most disappointing and unwelcome.

Back on the boat we organised to catch up with Neil & Nat on Waymaker who were also in Mooloolaba. They had their boat listed and ready to sell, so we met at a bar down at The Wharf.

We got messages from Kristina at 6:30pm saying they were out of iPad time and hungry, so could we please come back and feed them (yes, we left them in charge of the boat while we went drinking!).

Wednesday 23rd

Breakfast then got ready to head down the beach for a swim. The waves weren’t that big, but perfect for the girls on their bodyboards.

Back on the boat for lunch.

Kristie had invited Murray & Marie (one of her aunts & uncles) to visit as they live up the coast. We enjoyed coffee and afternoon tea with them onboard.

Kristie had also organised for Rach and her two kids to drop by after school and come and checkout the boat.
They got there about 5pm then went down the road for Fish ‘n Chips.

Once they left we walked into the shops and found and ice cream. We were enjoying them when we realised a storm/rain was nearly on us.

Kristina and I ran back to the boat and closed up the windows before the rain arrived.

Kristie and Emma got there not long after and we got the sides up just in time.

Thursday 24th

Early start today as we have a long trip up to the Wide Bay Bar and need to get there before high tide (5pm), and before sunset!

We were up at 6am and left the marina at 6:45. It was a cold rainy day with a bit of wind.

We motored all the way, but eventually we unfurled the jib to give us a bit more speed, but also reduce the roll somewhat.

We got to the bar in good time. We checked in with the Coast Guard before heading in. We followed the leads (on Fraser) in and matched up with the marks received from the Coast Guard.

The next leads (those on the mainland) are a bit off and need to go off the marks instead.

Even with the ~1.5m swell we had an easy crossing.

We motored all the way down to Tin Can Bay and dropped anchor.

Friday 25th

ANZAC Day.

Rest Day.

Saturday 26th

Parkrun was ditched in preference for Dolphin Feeding. The cafe has volunteers that organise and run the dolphin feeding each morning.

We got there about 6:45am and there was already a queue (not surprising given the last weekend of school holidays.)

It was $15 each for entry and feeding. There was about an hour of talking/watching before feeding started.

There were 7 dolphins there, so each group was sent to their own dolphin. As it was high tide, it was a bit of a wade to get there (almost up to Emma’s shoulder!).

We each got one small fish, handed that to the dolphin underwater, then moved out of the water.

We got back to the tender and I took the girls back to Lazuli while Kristie went walking/shopping (the local Foodworks).

As always there are boat jobs. The vang was next on the list. I had purchased 10m of Dynema at Southport but hadn’t yet got around to using it.
I had my fids and book, and with the help of YouTube I got the vang rebuilt (one final splice to do but I need to wait until the sails are up to ensure the length is correct).

With the splicing done, we had lunch and then got ready to head into the public swimming pool for the afternoon.
It was a longer trip around to the boat ramp as it was low tide.
Tender up, and I installed the Garmin Striker I’d purchased to be our depth sounder/fish finder on the tender.

When it was done I joined the others for a swim.

With Kristie diving tomorrow, we needed to move Lazuli 1.5nm up the river to Carlo for an easier trip to the dive centre in the morning.

It didn’t take long and we were more or less opposite the channel into Carlo.

Sunday 27th

Early start to get Kristie and her dive gear into Carlo / Wolf Rock Dive Centre by 7am.

The girls and I had an easy day on the boat.

Picked up Kristie about 2pm.

Did some more sorting - one of our boxes was a mess of charging cables and adapters. We sorted that as well as sorting our other boxes of First Aid stuff.

Sips ‘n dips and a few rounds of Uno.

Monday 28th

School & Work (we’d had last week off, so it’d been a while since the last school lesson onboard.)

After lunch we moved 1hr north to the end of the Tin Can Bay inlet. We needed to get closer to help with the trip the following day.

It was low tide so we went into the mud flats to explore.

We saw some shovel nose rays in the shallows. Flew kites, explored.

Afterward, Kristie when for a SUP but didn’t see anything.

Tuesday 29th

Today’s mission was to get to Sheridan Flats just before the high tide. The various soundings left by other boaties indicated a depth ranging from 0m to 0.6m LAT.
Given our draft of 2.3m, we needed to get it right :)

Up at 6am and motoring by 6:30am.

School and work while underway.

For the first hour we had tide going with us (incoming), but that then swapped to tide going against us (still incoming).

We got to Sheridan Flats at about 9:30am. It’s a very short shallow section.
The minimum depth we saw was 2.8m. This corresponded to a 2.8m tide at Boonlye Point, and 3.6m at Turkey Island.

I had a client meeting scheduled for 11:30am. At 11:15 we realised we wouldn’t quite make it to Kingfisher by then.
We turned straight into the beach and dropped anchor with 5min to spare.
With the meeting done, we moved 5min down to Kingfisher and dropped anchor there (the last - most southerly boat in the group).

With lunch done we went into the beach, taking the tender in close to the Sunset Bar.

We had some fun herding the Soldier Crabs, then went up to have a swim at the resort. The spa was not heated - very disappointing!

We had to drag our tender quite a way back down the before before we could head back to the boat to change and get supplies for sunset drinks.
It happened to be the lowest tide they’ve had for a long time. We found knee-deep mud!
Fun fact: our tender scoots along nicely on top of the mud :)

Back to the beach (we parked closer to Lazuli - and a lot further away from the resort).

Sunset drinks, then joined my parents for dinner at The Stone & Wood.

Late walk back to the tender then back to Lazuli.

Wednesday 30th

Work and School.

Then back to the pool. The spa was heated today!

Mum and dad joined us at the pool, and we had lunch there.

More swimming, then we went back to their room for a shower.

They had room 243, which was a perfect spot for birdwatching! I think dad ended adding 10 birds to his 2025 list.

There was a bit of rain, so only dad and I went for the Bush Tucker walk. This was especially interesting. We tasted several berries.

Sunset drinks - we’d ordered a (small for the price) bowl of prawns and enjoyed them with some other chips and cheese.

Back to the resort for dinner at the Dune restaurant. A bit too fancy for the girls and not much on the menu for them other than prawn crackers and rice.

Dad had very generously booked us into the Night Walk with him and mum. We wandered quite a bit: the creek for eels, logs/UV light for scorpions, jetty for fish/stingrays.
Kristina managed to drop her head torch into the water from the jetty, so she and Kristie ran down the jetty and out to get it (fully clothed with the water up to her armpits!)… It floats, and still works!
Just at the end of the walk we saw a Sugar Glider do a nice glide right outside the reception area.

Back to Lazuli in the smoke from the light show, another late night.

Thursday 1st May

Work and School.

Mum and dad were on the 4wd bus tour today, but we had a key to their room!

Early lunch and then back to the resort to use the pool and heated spa.
Chips and gingerbeer/cider for lunch.

Showered and then got an ice cream.

Sunset drinks. Mum and dad joined us after getting back from their tour.

We also met Matt + Maddy + Flint + Olli who were anchored near us on their boat “Skyus”.
The kids played together well.

Dinner back at the Stone & Wood.

We went to see if we could find a Sugar Glider for mum and dad. Took us about 30min, but we eventually found one.
Emma was the first to spot it glide, but it did a few more glides and dad saw them as well. We got a good view when it landed in a low down tree/branch.

There was also a light show on at the resort. My parents had done it the night before and enjoyed it.
We went back to their room as their balcony overlooks that area. Saw a reasonable amount, enough to be happy we didn’t spend $100 for the 4 of us to go.
It was still good though.

Another late night trip back to Lazuli.

Friday 2nd

Mum and dad were checking out today. We waved at them when their barge went past.

School / Work - though Kristina didn’t wake up until 8:45!

Kristie took the girls in to do the Bush Tucker walk, while I stayed onboard to do some more work.

I picked up the girls and brought them back to the boat while Kristie stayed ashore to do some washing.

The wind had picked up, and it was pretty bumpy where we were anchored. We decided we’d move up to Platypus Bay past Moon Point.
Got a bit of rain on the way.

Reasonably calm once we were in close and anchored.

The weather forecast isn’t that great, so we’re not sure what/where we’ll go in the next week or so.