2008 Brisbane update…(I started this blog-spot for the trip North last year…)
After 5 &1/2 months we returned to Brisbane in late December, back to our mooring at the Garden Point. It has the best views, it’s convenient and it’s cheap at $55.00 a week.
Hiroko is doing another post-graduate degree at Q.U.T. This course is a Master of Education to teach Special Education. Her efforts and dedication is amazing, doing at least 60+ hours a week studying in the library....
Life in the Brisbane River is pretty comfortable, we've got lots of yachties around us, plenty of stories, free advise and a friendly community to live in, right in the heart of the city...
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Wednesday, December 19, 2007
Mooloolaba to Brisbane…(via the Tangalooma Shipwrecks)
Mooloolaba is the heart of the Sunshine Coast and where we anchor Arete up the river near the bridge is a perfect spot; it’s protected from the winds & swell, easy access to town, with a new public jetty to lock up the dingy when you go ashore. Ray and Tracy invited us up to their home for lunch Thursday afternoon. Ray is building a 44ft Easy Catamaran and I know it’s going to be amazing. They live in a lush tropical setting on three acres up in the mountains, looks like Maui Hawaii to me. We met Ray and Tracy two years ago in The Whitsunday’s and we always contact them when we are in Mooloolaba.
That night I set the alarm clock to wake me at 11:30pm, high tide, it was pitch black but we brought up the anchor and motored Arete up onto the beach, I jumped off the bow and walked the anchor up the sand a few meters. Went back to bed and woke at 4:45am with Arete sitting on the beach; High and Dry..at low tide...I got busy with a scrapper, first knocking off all the barnacles and other stuff that had grown under the waterline. I also replaced the anodes on the rudders and removed some slimy stains that all boats get…about 9:00am the tide was back in enough to float Arete off the beach and we returned to the anchorage out in the middle of the channel. I was quite pleased with my efforts and Arete looked great. I was rewarded when Hiroko cooked Banana Pancakes for breakfast…
I’d been in contact with a few of my yachtie mates from The Garden Point Mooring in the Brisbane River during the week and they planned a weekend trip to the Tangalooma Shipwrecks so at 5:00am we were bringing up the anchor and headed south into Moreton Bay. Arriving at the wrecks about noon it was very busy as it being a weekend and school holidays but we able to drop the pick near “Lava” and later “Thula Moma” arrived so it was great to catch up with my Brisbane neighbors…The following day “Mingles” arrived and we all enjoyed the weekend of fun in the sun, swimming, snorkeling, paddling the kayaks around and throwing the Frisbee on the beach. That night the wind picked up and swung around to the NW this bringing a big swell and making it very uncomfortable. No worries as we were headed up the Brisbane River in the morning. Our final sail of the trip was great, a broad reach across the bay and catching the incoming tide up the river 13 nautical miles from the Brisbane Bar to our mooring at The Garden Point. It’s 34 miles from the wrecks to our mooring so the trip ended about 2:00pm. Almost 2000 nautical miles now were are back where we started about 5 &1/2 months ago...
Mooloolaba is the heart of the Sunshine Coast and where we anchor Arete up the river near the bridge is a perfect spot; it’s protected from the winds & swell, easy access to town, with a new public jetty to lock up the dingy when you go ashore. Ray and Tracy invited us up to their home for lunch Thursday afternoon. Ray is building a 44ft Easy Catamaran and I know it’s going to be amazing. They live in a lush tropical setting on three acres up in the mountains, looks like Maui Hawaii to me. We met Ray and Tracy two years ago in The Whitsunday’s and we always contact them when we are in Mooloolaba.
That night I set the alarm clock to wake me at 11:30pm, high tide, it was pitch black but we brought up the anchor and motored Arete up onto the beach, I jumped off the bow and walked the anchor up the sand a few meters. Went back to bed and woke at 4:45am with Arete sitting on the beach; High and Dry..at low tide...I got busy with a scrapper, first knocking off all the barnacles and other stuff that had grown under the waterline. I also replaced the anodes on the rudders and removed some slimy stains that all boats get…about 9:00am the tide was back in enough to float Arete off the beach and we returned to the anchorage out in the middle of the channel. I was quite pleased with my efforts and Arete looked great. I was rewarded when Hiroko cooked Banana Pancakes for breakfast…
I’d been in contact with a few of my yachtie mates from The Garden Point Mooring in the Brisbane River during the week and they planned a weekend trip to the Tangalooma Shipwrecks so at 5:00am we were bringing up the anchor and headed south into Moreton Bay. Arriving at the wrecks about noon it was very busy as it being a weekend and school holidays but we able to drop the pick near “Lava” and later “Thula Moma” arrived so it was great to catch up with my Brisbane neighbors…The following day “Mingles” arrived and we all enjoyed the weekend of fun in the sun, swimming, snorkeling, paddling the kayaks around and throwing the Frisbee on the beach. That night the wind picked up and swung around to the NW this bringing a big swell and making it very uncomfortable. No worries as we were headed up the Brisbane River in the morning. Our final sail of the trip was great, a broad reach across the bay and catching the incoming tide up the river 13 nautical miles from the Brisbane Bar to our mooring at The Garden Point. It’s 34 miles from the wrecks to our mooring so the trip ended about 2:00pm. Almost 2000 nautical miles now were are back where we started about 5 &1/2 months ago...
Wednesday, December 12, 2007
Gladstone to Mooloolaba…
Monday Dec.3rd we woke to a beautiful morning in Graham Creek, birdsongs and blue skies….Drinking my first cup of mango tea of the day I saw about a half dozen Dolphins doing what they always do; eating fish and playing around…This group had a couple very young ones, ( just babies) swimming right next to mom. That’s a nice way to start the day!!!
After we had breakfast and enjoyed the Dolphin show the tide began to ebb so we weighed anchor and went downstream with the tidal flow…An hour or two later we called into Gladstone Harbor Control to notify them of Areté entering their piloting area. A huge coal carrying cargo ship had run aground two days before in that storm. We’d heard them on the radio giving “a notice to all mariners” requiring all vessels to check in with harbor control before entering their area…Tying off in Gladstone Marina was a dream as we were given the end of the finger so it was easy even with the 20 knots of
Southeasterly breeze on the nose…Walking to the marina office I saw Peter and Ruth of “As If”, our neighbors at the Mackay Marina. That evening we all went out for dinner at the Port Curtis Sailing Club. I wore long pants and shoes, for first time in a long long time…
We enjoyed two productive days in Gladstone Marina, the cheapest on the East Coast at $20.00 a night…I changed the oil in the outboards, bought some fishing tackle at “Tackle World” and Hiroko enjoyed a couple days in town, shopping and doing stuff like that…
Wednesday Dec. 5th we had North by Northeast winds 10~15 knots with afternoon sea breezes so we headed out with the tide and sailed in light winds to Pancake Creek 36 miles south. Buddy sailing with “As if” we were able to take photos of each others yachts at full sail, something I’ve wanted to do since I painted, re-lettered, and added the black pirate headsail. A near perfect day on the water, I’d of liked a bit more wind but ya can’t have it all…I caught another shark and was trying to get my lure back when he went nuts and broke the wire leader and swam away with my $20. hard bodied Halco lure…
Thursday Dec. 6th we were up at 4:30am and had the anchor up and away by 5:00am with seven yachts headed out of Pancake Creek, another great day sailing, light winds so we needed to run the motors off and on as it’s 65 miles to Bundaberg and I needed to get there before they closed to get the propane tank filled, or no cooking…Trolling an assortment of lures at different speeds I went fishless again, but I guess that’s why it’s called fishing not catching, isn’t it? Again we had dolphins visiting us a few times during the 12 hours it took to reach the port of Bundaberg in the Burnett River…We spent the next day on anchor we needed a few things and I wanted to get the navigational system working again on the computer. I spent most of the day loading and re-loading “Captain” and “Max Sea 7” but it was unsuccessful…O~well we can do without for a while, I guess…
Friday Dec 8th Areté sailed across Hervey Bay and anchored up near Rooney’s Point again I trailed different lures at a variety of speeds but no fish, one huge strike but he was off as fast as he was on….52 nautical miles and another fine day on the water. That night Hiroko made a Japanese dinner and Peter and Ruth joined us, too bad the wind died down right at sunset allowing the bugs to attack, we ate dinner with a couple candles and two mosquito coils burning in near darkness…Good fun though, not much you can do about nature sometimes…the following morning the ocean was flat and glassy as it is when there is no wind at all so we motored along Frazer Island and bang…fish on !!!
This was the first fish I’ve caught when motoring so it was a lot different that trying to bring them in at 6 knots...Hiroko dropped the speed to idle and I landed my first Spanish Mackerel; it was a beauty too at 128cm long ( 4 feet 4 inches in the USA)…( see photo to right )
About noon the sea breeze came up and up went the sails…This being a Sunday afternoon in Hervey Bay there were lots of boats on the water, as it should be, you don’t get days much nicer than that one…Hervey Bay and the Great Sandy Straights are known for sandbars and Pete found one but was able to back up and get right off using his two powerful diesel motors. That’s the exact reason I wanted that navigation software working on the computer…We did make it to the anchorage in front of the Kingfisher Resort 35 miles for the day and we had fresh fish for dinner on “As if”…I gave away lots of fish as we had way more than we could eat and “Saba” ( mackerel in Japanese is good eating!)..
Monday Dec.10th at 6:30am saw us waving farwell and happy holidays to Peter and Ruth as they will spend Christmas and New Years in Hervey Bay and we motor~sailed south through “The Great Sandy Straights” within 30 minutes we were in 2.5 feet of water and looking for the channel…I let a few of my favorite vocabulary words go and eventually we got back in the channel and deeper water…We’d timed it to go up on the flooding tide and through the really shallow parts at high water and then use the ebbing tide to push us through…It worked just like I’d planned and that’s always a nice feeling…We needed fuel, as the following day was the Wide Bay Bar and the long haul to Mooloolaba 65+ miles. The only place to get fuel is Tin Can Bay and that’s also really shallow at low tide so we picked our way up there and as it was just about dry in places we were able to buy some really expensive fuel,…what can ya do when that’s the only place to buy fuel…I paid $108.00 for three 5 gallon jerry cans of fuel at the fuel dock!!!
"glad I don’t own a stink boat"!!!
Tuesday Dec.11th This is the day I’ve been thinking about for weeks, it’s the day to cross the Wide Bay Bar and then around Double Island Point and on down to Mooloolaba…( See Wide Bay Bar photo to right )
The weather forecast said a Southeasterly change will come through on Wednesday at 20 knots so getting to Mooloolaba will be huge!..Of course I didn’t sleep at all the night before as I just can’t stop thinking about everything and playing the different scenarios in my mind…That night the wind was blowing hard and about midnight a thunderstorm brought some great lightning and an hour of rain but after that the winds were calm and this helped to ease my mind knowing that the swell would be a little lighter in the morning crossing “The Bar!”…At 4:40am I couldn’t take it any longer and got up to go over the sail plans for the day…
We were the third catamaran to cross the Wide Bay Bar that morning with a fancy Schionning Catamaran following us through...The bar was kind and gentle that morning, but it’s always a thrill…We went wide around Wolf Rock and Double Island Point setting a course South by Southeast for Mooloolaba…Full sail in light winds at about 5.5 knots of boat speed…Hiroko got out her sheet music and was singing the jazz classics she loves so much, soon a group of Dolphins came to play in Areté’s bow wake…They just love to show off and I would too if I could swim like that! They did spins, jumps and twirls. ..they stalled and let their back fin rest aginst the hulls of Areté then pushed off and raced ahead with bursts of speed you couldn’t imagine…It was the longest show we’ve had on the entire voyage and they were talking to each other too…Of course I was talking to them as I always do…Nice to have friends like that visit once in a while…Later Hiroko was going over the many photos she took most of them just after they went back underwater…She thought maybe her singing attracted them? Not sure but I asked her to keep on singing…I’m glad they aren’t fooled by my trolling lures as it would crush me to catch one of them but they are really smart and they know what’s real fish and what’s a lure…good on ‘em…
Mooloolaba is perfect for a cruising yachtie, it’s got everything ya need or want within walking distance. We are hoping this Southeasterly breeze comes a around to the East or NE and then it’s back to Bris~Vegas.
Monday Dec.3rd we woke to a beautiful morning in Graham Creek, birdsongs and blue skies….Drinking my first cup of mango tea of the day I saw about a half dozen Dolphins doing what they always do; eating fish and playing around…This group had a couple very young ones, ( just babies) swimming right next to mom. That’s a nice way to start the day!!!
After we had breakfast and enjoyed the Dolphin show the tide began to ebb so we weighed anchor and went downstream with the tidal flow…An hour or two later we called into Gladstone Harbor Control to notify them of Areté entering their piloting area. A huge coal carrying cargo ship had run aground two days before in that storm. We’d heard them on the radio giving “a notice to all mariners” requiring all vessels to check in with harbor control before entering their area…Tying off in Gladstone Marina was a dream as we were given the end of the finger so it was easy even with the 20 knots of
Southeasterly breeze on the nose…Walking to the marina office I saw Peter and Ruth of “As If”, our neighbors at the Mackay Marina. That evening we all went out for dinner at the Port Curtis Sailing Club. I wore long pants and shoes, for first time in a long long time…
We enjoyed two productive days in Gladstone Marina, the cheapest on the East Coast at $20.00 a night…I changed the oil in the outboards, bought some fishing tackle at “Tackle World” and Hiroko enjoyed a couple days in town, shopping and doing stuff like that…
Wednesday Dec. 5th we had North by Northeast winds 10~15 knots with afternoon sea breezes so we headed out with the tide and sailed in light winds to Pancake Creek 36 miles south. Buddy sailing with “As if” we were able to take photos of each others yachts at full sail, something I’ve wanted to do since I painted, re-lettered, and added the black pirate headsail. A near perfect day on the water, I’d of liked a bit more wind but ya can’t have it all…I caught another shark and was trying to get my lure back when he went nuts and broke the wire leader and swam away with my $20. hard bodied Halco lure…
Thursday Dec. 6th we were up at 4:30am and had the anchor up and away by 5:00am with seven yachts headed out of Pancake Creek, another great day sailing, light winds so we needed to run the motors off and on as it’s 65 miles to Bundaberg and I needed to get there before they closed to get the propane tank filled, or no cooking…Trolling an assortment of lures at different speeds I went fishless again, but I guess that’s why it’s called fishing not catching, isn’t it? Again we had dolphins visiting us a few times during the 12 hours it took to reach the port of Bundaberg in the Burnett River…We spent the next day on anchor we needed a few things and I wanted to get the navigational system working again on the computer. I spent most of the day loading and re-loading “Captain” and “Max Sea 7” but it was unsuccessful…O~well we can do without for a while, I guess…
Friday Dec 8th Areté sailed across Hervey Bay and anchored up near Rooney’s Point again I trailed different lures at a variety of speeds but no fish, one huge strike but he was off as fast as he was on….52 nautical miles and another fine day on the water. That night Hiroko made a Japanese dinner and Peter and Ruth joined us, too bad the wind died down right at sunset allowing the bugs to attack, we ate dinner with a couple candles and two mosquito coils burning in near darkness…Good fun though, not much you can do about nature sometimes…the following morning the ocean was flat and glassy as it is when there is no wind at all so we motored along Frazer Island and bang…fish on !!!
This was the first fish I’ve caught when motoring so it was a lot different that trying to bring them in at 6 knots...Hiroko dropped the speed to idle and I landed my first Spanish Mackerel; it was a beauty too at 128cm long ( 4 feet 4 inches in the USA)…( see photo to right )
About noon the sea breeze came up and up went the sails…This being a Sunday afternoon in Hervey Bay there were lots of boats on the water, as it should be, you don’t get days much nicer than that one…Hervey Bay and the Great Sandy Straights are known for sandbars and Pete found one but was able to back up and get right off using his two powerful diesel motors. That’s the exact reason I wanted that navigation software working on the computer…We did make it to the anchorage in front of the Kingfisher Resort 35 miles for the day and we had fresh fish for dinner on “As if”…I gave away lots of fish as we had way more than we could eat and “Saba” ( mackerel in Japanese is good eating!)..
Monday Dec.10th at 6:30am saw us waving farwell and happy holidays to Peter and Ruth as they will spend Christmas and New Years in Hervey Bay and we motor~sailed south through “The Great Sandy Straights” within 30 minutes we were in 2.5 feet of water and looking for the channel…I let a few of my favorite vocabulary words go and eventually we got back in the channel and deeper water…We’d timed it to go up on the flooding tide and through the really shallow parts at high water and then use the ebbing tide to push us through…It worked just like I’d planned and that’s always a nice feeling…We needed fuel, as the following day was the Wide Bay Bar and the long haul to Mooloolaba 65+ miles. The only place to get fuel is Tin Can Bay and that’s also really shallow at low tide so we picked our way up there and as it was just about dry in places we were able to buy some really expensive fuel,…what can ya do when that’s the only place to buy fuel…I paid $108.00 for three 5 gallon jerry cans of fuel at the fuel dock!!!
"glad I don’t own a stink boat"!!!
Tuesday Dec.11th This is the day I’ve been thinking about for weeks, it’s the day to cross the Wide Bay Bar and then around Double Island Point and on down to Mooloolaba…( See Wide Bay Bar photo to right )
The weather forecast said a Southeasterly change will come through on Wednesday at 20 knots so getting to Mooloolaba will be huge!..Of course I didn’t sleep at all the night before as I just can’t stop thinking about everything and playing the different scenarios in my mind…That night the wind was blowing hard and about midnight a thunderstorm brought some great lightning and an hour of rain but after that the winds were calm and this helped to ease my mind knowing that the swell would be a little lighter in the morning crossing “The Bar!”…At 4:40am I couldn’t take it any longer and got up to go over the sail plans for the day…
We were the third catamaran to cross the Wide Bay Bar that morning with a fancy Schionning Catamaran following us through...The bar was kind and gentle that morning, but it’s always a thrill…We went wide around Wolf Rock and Double Island Point setting a course South by Southeast for Mooloolaba…Full sail in light winds at about 5.5 knots of boat speed…Hiroko got out her sheet music and was singing the jazz classics she loves so much, soon a group of Dolphins came to play in Areté’s bow wake…They just love to show off and I would too if I could swim like that! They did spins, jumps and twirls. ..they stalled and let their back fin rest aginst the hulls of Areté then pushed off and raced ahead with bursts of speed you couldn’t imagine…It was the longest show we’ve had on the entire voyage and they were talking to each other too…Of course I was talking to them as I always do…Nice to have friends like that visit once in a while…Later Hiroko was going over the many photos she took most of them just after they went back underwater…She thought maybe her singing attracted them? Not sure but I asked her to keep on singing…I’m glad they aren’t fooled by my trolling lures as it would crush me to catch one of them but they are really smart and they know what’s real fish and what’s a lure…good on ‘em…
Mooloolaba is perfect for a cruising yachtie, it’s got everything ya need or want within walking distance. We are hoping this Southeasterly breeze comes a around to the East or NE and then it’s back to Bris~Vegas.
Monday, December 3, 2007
Port Clinton to Gladstone
One of my favorite Jimmy Buffet songs is “One Particular Harbor” and Port Clinton has become that “one particular harbor” for me of this trip…
At 5:00am the 29th of November. We had the anchor up and we were headed out between Black Rock and Round Island.
I went out wide hoping to avoid the considerable tidal disturbance around Cape Manifold and after watching “Finding Nemo” in Mackay, I wanted to find that “Great Australian Current” that they took to Sydney to look for Nemo…I was trolling three lures looking for Nemo’s big brothers…The first strike of the day was a big Mahi Mahi, that hit the pink squid and had a great first run, I’d tightened the drag and was starting to bring him back when he jumped out of the water did a little tail walk to let me know who he was and then spit the hook and swam away…An hour later I landed a shark and got my 6 inch Halco spoon back and released him…Then somewhere between Cape Manifold and Corio Bay I caught a 112cm Cobia / Kingfish ( that’s about 3and ½ feet back in the USA)…At the same time I’m trying to bring him aboard the other reel starts screaming, fish on !!!
After landing the Cobia I go over to the starboard side and put the game rod into the Gimble belt and started to try and get back some of the line he’s been running out…
I fought this fish a long time,…finally getting him close to the back of the boat and I identified him as another Cobia even bigger than the one we have aboard already…This fish was so strong and my arms were really burning…eventually he spit the hook and swam to his freedom.
He won and I felt as if I were just a sparring partner. As he swam away I felt proud of him and wished him well… He was a great fish!!!…We already had landed a huge fish, I’ve caught Cobia before and know they are great eating and we’ll have enough fish filets to give everyone some when we arrive at The Great Keppel Island…later that day…
About 3:00pm we entered Rosslyn Bay Marina to get fuel and water and take out a week’s trash…going into marinas scares me a bit, as this is where many accidents happen…Hiroko and I are both gaining confidence in the skills and the finer points needed in this lifestyle. Well,.. we got in, tied off and fueled up and away without any dramas.
Full of fuel and water we motored straight into the wind seven miles across Keppel Bay to anchor off the beach with the resort, between the three catamarans we sailed out of Port Clinton with 12 hours earlier…I dropped the dingy and delivered fresh fish to Doug off the catamaran “Rise Shine” and John off a 39ft Easy Catamaran “Gaiya” and then to have a beer with Craig and Paul on “A Vos Sante” a Perry 43 Catamaran…Paul invited us for dinner and I went back to get Hiroko, we’ve never been aboard a million dollar catamaran before and it was quite an evening. I’d been on the radio earlier in the day with Lance and Tricia of the catamaran “Euphoria” and told them I had fresh fish for them so they joined us for a great meal and conversations on A Vos Sante..We had the fish cooked two different ways and scalloped potatoes…Paul is a mad fisherman like myself and after my stories of the day fishing I’d just had he wanted to know about the magical pink squid lures I make, so I went back got the gear and showed him the secret and made him up a Super #1 Pink Squid Lure as a gift…
That night when we got back aboard Areté I open my log book; 53 nautical miles,12 hours, four chances with the fish, landed two, released one, two long distance calls to my Dad to tell him about the fishing, It was another one of my best days and O~yes it was a Thursjay!!!
Friday the last day of November, (the 38th day of the trip South)...I followed “Rise Shine” and “Gaiya” across Kepple Bay and into “The Narrows”...the passage between Curtis Island and mainland Australia, this is a passage that must crossed (the cattle crossing) at just the top of the tide or it dries out …These guys had it timed to perfection so we went in with the flooding tide, crossed at the top of the tide and came out the other side with the ebbing tide pulling us through…They both sailed on into the Gladstone Marina and we pulled into Graham Creek and anchored a couple miles upstream off the mangroves. I put the crab pots out at low tide about sunset…
At about 4:00am it started to rain very hard and it rained for 12 hours straight,…It rained like mad, like something you’ve never seem, well probably not but, being on a boat you are a very captive audience… We caught lots of rainwater for the solar shower. Played backgammon and dominos and drank lots of tea watching the storm.
Sunday was pretty sunny with a few showers, just swinging on anchor in a huge estuary creek with mangroves, lots of birds, fish, crabs and many flying insects…The winds are up over 20 knots out of the SE (a strong wind warning again) so I’d rather hang out here than in a marina…Though I know Hiroko thinks differently so Monday we’ll motor into the Gladstone Marina, check the internet and take care of a few things waiting on some Northerly winds to blow us south…
One of my favorite Jimmy Buffet songs is “One Particular Harbor” and Port Clinton has become that “one particular harbor” for me of this trip…
At 5:00am the 29th of November. We had the anchor up and we were headed out between Black Rock and Round Island.
I went out wide hoping to avoid the considerable tidal disturbance around Cape Manifold and after watching “Finding Nemo” in Mackay, I wanted to find that “Great Australian Current” that they took to Sydney to look for Nemo…I was trolling three lures looking for Nemo’s big brothers…The first strike of the day was a big Mahi Mahi, that hit the pink squid and had a great first run, I’d tightened the drag and was starting to bring him back when he jumped out of the water did a little tail walk to let me know who he was and then spit the hook and swam away…An hour later I landed a shark and got my 6 inch Halco spoon back and released him…Then somewhere between Cape Manifold and Corio Bay I caught a 112cm Cobia / Kingfish ( that’s about 3and ½ feet back in the USA)…At the same time I’m trying to bring him aboard the other reel starts screaming, fish on !!!
After landing the Cobia I go over to the starboard side and put the game rod into the Gimble belt and started to try and get back some of the line he’s been running out…
I fought this fish a long time,…finally getting him close to the back of the boat and I identified him as another Cobia even bigger than the one we have aboard already…This fish was so strong and my arms were really burning…eventually he spit the hook and swam to his freedom.
He won and I felt as if I were just a sparring partner. As he swam away I felt proud of him and wished him well… He was a great fish!!!…We already had landed a huge fish, I’ve caught Cobia before and know they are great eating and we’ll have enough fish filets to give everyone some when we arrive at The Great Keppel Island…later that day…
About 3:00pm we entered Rosslyn Bay Marina to get fuel and water and take out a week’s trash…going into marinas scares me a bit, as this is where many accidents happen…Hiroko and I are both gaining confidence in the skills and the finer points needed in this lifestyle. Well,.. we got in, tied off and fueled up and away without any dramas.
Full of fuel and water we motored straight into the wind seven miles across Keppel Bay to anchor off the beach with the resort, between the three catamarans we sailed out of Port Clinton with 12 hours earlier…I dropped the dingy and delivered fresh fish to Doug off the catamaran “Rise Shine” and John off a 39ft Easy Catamaran “Gaiya” and then to have a beer with Craig and Paul on “A Vos Sante” a Perry 43 Catamaran…Paul invited us for dinner and I went back to get Hiroko, we’ve never been aboard a million dollar catamaran before and it was quite an evening. I’d been on the radio earlier in the day with Lance and Tricia of the catamaran “Euphoria” and told them I had fresh fish for them so they joined us for a great meal and conversations on A Vos Sante..We had the fish cooked two different ways and scalloped potatoes…Paul is a mad fisherman like myself and after my stories of the day fishing I’d just had he wanted to know about the magical pink squid lures I make, so I went back got the gear and showed him the secret and made him up a Super #1 Pink Squid Lure as a gift…
That night when we got back aboard Areté I open my log book; 53 nautical miles,12 hours, four chances with the fish, landed two, released one, two long distance calls to my Dad to tell him about the fishing, It was another one of my best days and O~yes it was a Thursjay!!!
Friday the last day of November, (the 38th day of the trip South)...I followed “Rise Shine” and “Gaiya” across Kepple Bay and into “The Narrows”...the passage between Curtis Island and mainland Australia, this is a passage that must crossed (the cattle crossing) at just the top of the tide or it dries out …These guys had it timed to perfection so we went in with the flooding tide, crossed at the top of the tide and came out the other side with the ebbing tide pulling us through…They both sailed on into the Gladstone Marina and we pulled into Graham Creek and anchored a couple miles upstream off the mangroves. I put the crab pots out at low tide about sunset…
At about 4:00am it started to rain very hard and it rained for 12 hours straight,…It rained like mad, like something you’ve never seem, well probably not but, being on a boat you are a very captive audience… We caught lots of rainwater for the solar shower. Played backgammon and dominos and drank lots of tea watching the storm.
Sunday was pretty sunny with a few showers, just swinging on anchor in a huge estuary creek with mangroves, lots of birds, fish, crabs and many flying insects…The winds are up over 20 knots out of the SE (a strong wind warning again) so I’d rather hang out here than in a marina…Though I know Hiroko thinks differently so Monday we’ll motor into the Gladstone Marina, check the internet and take care of a few things waiting on some Northerly winds to blow us south…
Mackay Marina to Port Clinton
Sixteen days in the Mackay Marina, we saw lots of rain, Strong SE winds everyday caused by the cyclone up North and finally the Mackay Weather forecast was East by Northeast winds for the next couple days before another low comes through….The marina was a buzz of activity as everyone seemed to be sailing South the following morning…We had made many new friends on the W row of the catamaran berths. Hiroko’s birthday party two nights before was attended by Peter and Ruth of “AS If” ; Lightwave 35ft Catamaran & Warren and Glenda of “Catamaran Imagine” and Christian and Gina of “Caesura” a NZ monohull (who we know from the Garden Point mooring in Brisbane)…
Thursday Nov 22nd I was up well before first light, I can’t sleep when I get excited and I knew it would be a big day….at about 5:00am boats of all sizes and shapes were heading out of the marina…as Areté left the calm waters of the marina out around the breakwater putting the red beacon off our starboard beam and pointing Areté into the wind causing Areté bows to pitch up and down and the stern to do a curtsy to King Neptune, we are now underway….The early mornings often find light winds as we weaved through the 60 or so cargo ships anchored off Hay Point waiting to load up with coal and sail to ports the world over…When the winds did come up they were SE by East, hard on the nose, we motor sailed just off the wind not able to make much speed with the flooding tide, a running ocean swell leftover from the strong winds of the previous days…We eventually got to Digby Island at 7:30pm that evening…56 nautical miles and none of them easy…We had used a lot more fuel than I’d anticipated …I felt tired and a little dejected.
We had the anchor up and we were away at 5:00am the following morning, the winds calmed down during the night so we had glassy seas…which also means no wind so we motored along at 4 knots alternating motors trying to conserve fuel…the afternoon brought an Easterly sea~breeze I sheeted the headsail back as tight as I could get it, sailing “close hauled” we were able to make a little over 4 knots turning off the motors, we plodded along all day arriving at Hexam Island just 42 miles, at 5:00pm…Now feeling a bit more dejected as the winds haven’t been Northerly at all, a quick check of the fuel tanks this only makes me feel more helpless, there is no place to get fuel between Mackay and Yeppoon…the bright spot is I know the other yacht in the anchorage a Bavaria 38ft sloop, Greg called on the radio and invited us to follow him out at 3:30am…
There are a few rock islands around this anchorage which cause considerable tidal irregularities on the full flooding tides…3:30am was slack tide…
So day three out of Mackay started at 3:00am the moon was just setting when we got up and it was very dark soon after,…following Greg’s running lights we safely cleared the rock outcroppings, set sails and waited for the sunrise…again light Easterly winds saw us sailing close hauled tight on the wind and with the flooding tide coming out of “Strong Tide Pass” near Cape Townshend we were doing 1 knot over the land though sailing along at 4~5 knots…with one motor running…ahhhh we tried two tacks and four hours later were nearly in the same spot…of course the tides change every 6 hours so by mid day things were progressing much better,… the weather forecast was for 20knots of afternoon seabreeze so we knew the full moon was just a night away, so the moon would be up before sunset and we decided to push on another 40 or 50 miles to reach the Keppel Islands before the low comes through bringing strong SE winds for who knows how many days. This would make our longest day yet well over 100 miles, expecting to sail into the moonlight arriving about 10:00pm with nearly a full moon…
“Without risk, there is no adventure” as Sir Chay Blyth once said …A few miles North of Cape Manifold I was noticing the strong tidal pull, and trying to just pinch it enough to get around the cape and after that the wind angle would be much better to sail close reached to the Kepples…Right about then a SE change came roaring through at well over 30 knots and we got belted hard!!! Pulling Areté straight into the wind (Irons) , sails flapping like crazy, no steering, the seas became real steep and sloppy immediately , we dropped the motors, furled in the headsail just before it beat itself to death, got the mainsail down and turned around heading back to the safe anchorage of Port Clinton…The two yachts just ahead of us made the same decision and soon many boats were headed into the only anchorage open in the Shoalwater Bay Military training area…They were having some kind of live firing drills and all other anchorages were closed to private vessels. That night at anchor in Port Clinton (it sounds like it’s some port but it’s just a huge estuary system of mudflats, mangroves, a couple beaches, no development what so ever)
I watched the moon rise and came up with a great idea…Tomorrow was the full moon and most of those boats were headed south like us and we all might be here for a few days waiting on a weather window…
Sunday November 25th, I woke up with a plan, I grabbed a bunch of Areté boat cards and wrote “Full Moon Party on Areté..” Then launched the dingy and went around and invited everyone to join us for sundowners and watch the moon rise on Areté, I also said if they wanted to dress up like pirates they would not be the only ones as Hiroko and I are Peace Pirates…
That evening saw six dingys tied behind Areté, 11 people, from 6 different yachts, all different walks of life, 6 different countries but all of them deep down were pirates too!
Two guitar players provided the Jimmy Buffet songs and as the moon rose we sang
“A pirate looks at 50” …”Yes, I am a pirate,… two hundred years too late,… the cannons don’t thunder,… there’s nothing to plunder,… I’m an over forty victim of fate”
The party was a smashing success; we made 9 new friends and felt it was one of my best days!!! ( to see party photos, scroll down past all the text at bottom of page...)
Monday November 26th The wind was blowing hard from the SE when I woke up feeling like Tarzan after such a great evening…Enjoying an evening like that, getting to meet people and entertain on my yacht was a big part of the desire to move to Australia and buy a catamaran…’Cause those were the kind of people we came here to meet…
That evening Alan and Mary invited us for sundowners aboard “Investigator” their 56 foot Crouther catamaran…Alan is a shipwright and spent his working years building boats and the Investigator П must be one of the nicest catamarans in Australia. It had everything you could imagine, pure class just like the owners…Joining us onboard that evening was John and Gale from “Crystal Voyager” a 36ft Roberts monohull, and Allan Hays of the 30ft monohull “Dolphina” He’d sailed over from NZ a few months ago in a single hander race with 20 other yachts…Another great evening of sailing stories and boat talk…It’s often said “it’s not the destination but the journey that you remember” but it’s the people you meet that make it truly magic…Another highlight of the day was the weather report that a North/Easterly breeze was headed this way in a couple days...Yahooo!
Tuesday November 27th (Day #4 at Port Clinton) The Rockhampton Meteorological Agency read the weather at 5:20am saying 20 knot SE winds but Thursday the northerly should come through…that afternoon we were invited over to the “Crystal Voyager” to see how they get internet access even at Port Clinton..(the middle of nowhere, about 50 miles from civilization, as the crow flies) John and Gale are transplanted New Zealanders now Aussies and have just finished four years in Airlie Beach of the Whitsundays. John had 10 liters of unleaded fuel he could spare so we traded for a bottle of Bundaberg Rum and I threw in a 1.5ltr bottle of Areté Ginger Beer to sweeten the deal…They were pleased with the deal and the added 10 liters of fuel would give us much more confidence as our fuel was now very low…That evening I caught and released a Shovelnose Shark…I don’t eat sharks and hope they will show me the same respect…well that’s the idea anyways..
Wednesday November 28th was the fifth and final day in Port Clinton, (now my favorite place we’ve been!!) Late in the afternoon three catamarans arrived I knew two of them one from the Duck Pond in Townsville and Craig off the Easy Catamaran “CasaraCruzin” helping a friend sail his Perry 43 back to the Gold Coast. We’d met Craig and his wife Sara on our first trip North two years ago and have seem them in many different places between here and Brisbane, both on and off the water..
Sixteen days in the Mackay Marina, we saw lots of rain, Strong SE winds everyday caused by the cyclone up North and finally the Mackay Weather forecast was East by Northeast winds for the next couple days before another low comes through….The marina was a buzz of activity as everyone seemed to be sailing South the following morning…We had made many new friends on the W row of the catamaran berths. Hiroko’s birthday party two nights before was attended by Peter and Ruth of “AS If” ; Lightwave 35ft Catamaran & Warren and Glenda of “Catamaran Imagine” and Christian and Gina of “Caesura” a NZ monohull (who we know from the Garden Point mooring in Brisbane)…
Thursday Nov 22nd I was up well before first light, I can’t sleep when I get excited and I knew it would be a big day….at about 5:00am boats of all sizes and shapes were heading out of the marina…as Areté left the calm waters of the marina out around the breakwater putting the red beacon off our starboard beam and pointing Areté into the wind causing Areté bows to pitch up and down and the stern to do a curtsy to King Neptune, we are now underway….The early mornings often find light winds as we weaved through the 60 or so cargo ships anchored off Hay Point waiting to load up with coal and sail to ports the world over…When the winds did come up they were SE by East, hard on the nose, we motor sailed just off the wind not able to make much speed with the flooding tide, a running ocean swell leftover from the strong winds of the previous days…We eventually got to Digby Island at 7:30pm that evening…56 nautical miles and none of them easy…We had used a lot more fuel than I’d anticipated …I felt tired and a little dejected.
We had the anchor up and we were away at 5:00am the following morning, the winds calmed down during the night so we had glassy seas…which also means no wind so we motored along at 4 knots alternating motors trying to conserve fuel…the afternoon brought an Easterly sea~breeze I sheeted the headsail back as tight as I could get it, sailing “close hauled” we were able to make a little over 4 knots turning off the motors, we plodded along all day arriving at Hexam Island just 42 miles, at 5:00pm…Now feeling a bit more dejected as the winds haven’t been Northerly at all, a quick check of the fuel tanks this only makes me feel more helpless, there is no place to get fuel between Mackay and Yeppoon…the bright spot is I know the other yacht in the anchorage a Bavaria 38ft sloop, Greg called on the radio and invited us to follow him out at 3:30am…
There are a few rock islands around this anchorage which cause considerable tidal irregularities on the full flooding tides…3:30am was slack tide…
So day three out of Mackay started at 3:00am the moon was just setting when we got up and it was very dark soon after,…following Greg’s running lights we safely cleared the rock outcroppings, set sails and waited for the sunrise…again light Easterly winds saw us sailing close hauled tight on the wind and with the flooding tide coming out of “Strong Tide Pass” near Cape Townshend we were doing 1 knot over the land though sailing along at 4~5 knots…with one motor running…ahhhh we tried two tacks and four hours later were nearly in the same spot…of course the tides change every 6 hours so by mid day things were progressing much better,… the weather forecast was for 20knots of afternoon seabreeze so we knew the full moon was just a night away, so the moon would be up before sunset and we decided to push on another 40 or 50 miles to reach the Keppel Islands before the low comes through bringing strong SE winds for who knows how many days. This would make our longest day yet well over 100 miles, expecting to sail into the moonlight arriving about 10:00pm with nearly a full moon…
“Without risk, there is no adventure” as Sir Chay Blyth once said …A few miles North of Cape Manifold I was noticing the strong tidal pull, and trying to just pinch it enough to get around the cape and after that the wind angle would be much better to sail close reached to the Kepples…Right about then a SE change came roaring through at well over 30 knots and we got belted hard!!! Pulling Areté straight into the wind (Irons) , sails flapping like crazy, no steering, the seas became real steep and sloppy immediately , we dropped the motors, furled in the headsail just before it beat itself to death, got the mainsail down and turned around heading back to the safe anchorage of Port Clinton…The two yachts just ahead of us made the same decision and soon many boats were headed into the only anchorage open in the Shoalwater Bay Military training area…They were having some kind of live firing drills and all other anchorages were closed to private vessels. That night at anchor in Port Clinton (it sounds like it’s some port but it’s just a huge estuary system of mudflats, mangroves, a couple beaches, no development what so ever)
I watched the moon rise and came up with a great idea…Tomorrow was the full moon and most of those boats were headed south like us and we all might be here for a few days waiting on a weather window…
Sunday November 25th, I woke up with a plan, I grabbed a bunch of Areté boat cards and wrote “Full Moon Party on Areté..” Then launched the dingy and went around and invited everyone to join us for sundowners and watch the moon rise on Areté, I also said if they wanted to dress up like pirates they would not be the only ones as Hiroko and I are Peace Pirates…
That evening saw six dingys tied behind Areté, 11 people, from 6 different yachts, all different walks of life, 6 different countries but all of them deep down were pirates too!
Two guitar players provided the Jimmy Buffet songs and as the moon rose we sang
“A pirate looks at 50” …”Yes, I am a pirate,… two hundred years too late,… the cannons don’t thunder,… there’s nothing to plunder,… I’m an over forty victim of fate”
The party was a smashing success; we made 9 new friends and felt it was one of my best days!!! ( to see party photos, scroll down past all the text at bottom of page...)
Monday November 26th The wind was blowing hard from the SE when I woke up feeling like Tarzan after such a great evening…Enjoying an evening like that, getting to meet people and entertain on my yacht was a big part of the desire to move to Australia and buy a catamaran…’Cause those were the kind of people we came here to meet…
That evening Alan and Mary invited us for sundowners aboard “Investigator” their 56 foot Crouther catamaran…Alan is a shipwright and spent his working years building boats and the Investigator П must be one of the nicest catamarans in Australia. It had everything you could imagine, pure class just like the owners…Joining us onboard that evening was John and Gale from “Crystal Voyager” a 36ft Roberts monohull, and Allan Hays of the 30ft monohull “Dolphina” He’d sailed over from NZ a few months ago in a single hander race with 20 other yachts…Another great evening of sailing stories and boat talk…It’s often said “it’s not the destination but the journey that you remember” but it’s the people you meet that make it truly magic…Another highlight of the day was the weather report that a North/Easterly breeze was headed this way in a couple days...Yahooo!
Tuesday November 27th (Day #4 at Port Clinton) The Rockhampton Meteorological Agency read the weather at 5:20am saying 20 knot SE winds but Thursday the northerly should come through…that afternoon we were invited over to the “Crystal Voyager” to see how they get internet access even at Port Clinton..(the middle of nowhere, about 50 miles from civilization, as the crow flies) John and Gale are transplanted New Zealanders now Aussies and have just finished four years in Airlie Beach of the Whitsundays. John had 10 liters of unleaded fuel he could spare so we traded for a bottle of Bundaberg Rum and I threw in a 1.5ltr bottle of Areté Ginger Beer to sweeten the deal…They were pleased with the deal and the added 10 liters of fuel would give us much more confidence as our fuel was now very low…That evening I caught and released a Shovelnose Shark…I don’t eat sharks and hope they will show me the same respect…well that’s the idea anyways..
Wednesday November 28th was the fifth and final day in Port Clinton, (now my favorite place we’ve been!!) Late in the afternoon three catamarans arrived I knew two of them one from the Duck Pond in Townsville and Craig off the Easy Catamaran “CasaraCruzin” helping a friend sail his Perry 43 back to the Gold Coast. We’d met Craig and his wife Sara on our first trip North two years ago and have seem them in many different places between here and Brisbane, both on and off the water..
Wednesday, November 7, 2007
Sailing downwind in the Whitsunday Passage,
The weather forecast said three days of North by Northeasterly winds 10 ~15 knots with a Southerly change late Tuesday afternoon. That sounded perfect as I thought we’d have a nice sail through the Whitsunday Islands and be in Mackay Marina by the time the winds swing to the south…(Tuesday was Melbourne Cup day, a huge thing here in Australia…)
The sail out of Airlie Beach started slow in very light winds but picked up about noon to make it a nice day, we anchored at Cid Harbor in the lee of Whitsunday Island one of the places with enough room for a 100 yachts and that night it had many charter boats and a few of the mega buck yachts you see in only in the Whitsundays…Sunday morning we sailed out of Cid Harbor into the Whitsunday Passage (kind of like Interstate 5 in California)…This being the channel that runs right through the center of the premier sailing grounds in Australia…A perfect Sunday afternoon and all the fancy boats were out of their marina berths in Hamilton Island for a day of sailing…Areté running downwind with all the rags up…The Whitsunday Passage is a green ( no fishing) zone so of course there were schools of Tuna and Mackerel jumping, chasing bait fish…about 4:oo pm we pulled into a heavenly anchorage ; a key hole shaped bay, that looks kind of like a canyon with cliffs on both sides and a small sand beach and pine trees growing between of the rocks…It isn’t in the cruising guides so we had it all to ourselves…
The following day Monday Nov.5th the winds started very light so we had the small spinnaker sail up and then the wind started howling and down came the spinnaker and out went a half furled headsail…just a little sail up, no main sail and Areté is going like a Boeing…I heard another yacht on the radio telling someone his wind gauge says 27 knots…We don’t have a wind gauge on Areté but that seemed about right…We had just a bit of the headie out and screaming down waves, surfing the swells of a couple meters sometimes waves doubling up into roller coaster ride quality of whooop deee dooos…. just magic…!!!!!... About 5;00pm we started wondering where we could anchor in this much wind??? We chose a North facing bay on Keswick Island and saw couple yachts already there…This bay has a huge fringing reef that comes way out so we were forced to anchor in almost 40 feet of water…( this is near Mackay with the 5 meter tides, biggest on the Queensland coast)…the wind was still blowing hard from the NE keeping Areté on a very tight anchor chain…I put the GPS anchor drag alarm on and went to bed…At 2;00am the alarm starts beeping and that officially ended the evenings, sleeping, The Southeasterly wind change came through like a freight train I spent the next four hours watching the GPS to see if we were going to be washed ashore onto huge rocks that had waves smashing into them sounding like a car wreck, the swell picked up very quickly making just standing or walking around the boat difficult. There was no moon as it’s just a couple days before the new moon…At about 6;00am the sun came up and we got outta there ASAP! It’s 16 nautical miles from there to the Mackay Marina straight into the wind direction…it was rough as guts waves stacking up and spray coming over the decks…Of course I had to put the lures out and ended up losing a good lure not sure if it was a strike or rock...We were unable to make much speed in such rough seas…so it took 5 hours to get to Mackay Marina… …when we entered the breakwater I went below deck and saw books on the floor, all the stuff on the shelves in the bathroom scattered all over the bathroom floor…stuff everywhere, shelves empty…yes it was pretty bumpy coming across from Keswick Island…we were allocated berth W-42 right in the middle of the row with boats everywhere and a 20+ knot wind causing plenty of drift and making berthing this boat a real challenge, luckily a guy on another yacht grabbed a line and we were in the pen and tied off in one shot…Surprised myself that it went so well…my heart was pounding and my legs felt like jelly but we were out of the wind and secure…with just over an hour before the Melbourne Cup started…The guy on the million dollar catamaran next to us invited me aboard to see the race and have a look at what I’d buy if I win the lottery…He explained he just bought the boat and doesn’t know much about sailing and thought we were old salts cause the way we pulled Arete into the slip with all that wind…”See, you can fool some of the people some of the time”…
Well the horse my buddy Grahame called to give me some inside information on ran third so it was a good thing I didn’t have a chance to put any money on the race…It is hard to imagine how big the Melbourne Cup horse race is here in OZ but it’s a day when the gals dress up in their best dresses and wear hats, most offices close about mid day and everyone goes to the pub to watch the race…
Now we’re settled into the Mackay Marina life we’ll spend a couple days victualling and I’ll head over to Fishing World to get a few more lures as I’ll have many chances for some great fish sailing south from here in a few days…
The weather forecast said three days of North by Northeasterly winds 10 ~15 knots with a Southerly change late Tuesday afternoon. That sounded perfect as I thought we’d have a nice sail through the Whitsunday Islands and be in Mackay Marina by the time the winds swing to the south…(Tuesday was Melbourne Cup day, a huge thing here in Australia…)
The sail out of Airlie Beach started slow in very light winds but picked up about noon to make it a nice day, we anchored at Cid Harbor in the lee of Whitsunday Island one of the places with enough room for a 100 yachts and that night it had many charter boats and a few of the mega buck yachts you see in only in the Whitsundays…Sunday morning we sailed out of Cid Harbor into the Whitsunday Passage (kind of like Interstate 5 in California)…This being the channel that runs right through the center of the premier sailing grounds in Australia…A perfect Sunday afternoon and all the fancy boats were out of their marina berths in Hamilton Island for a day of sailing…Areté running downwind with all the rags up…The Whitsunday Passage is a green ( no fishing) zone so of course there were schools of Tuna and Mackerel jumping, chasing bait fish…about 4:oo pm we pulled into a heavenly anchorage ; a key hole shaped bay, that looks kind of like a canyon with cliffs on both sides and a small sand beach and pine trees growing between of the rocks…It isn’t in the cruising guides so we had it all to ourselves…
The following day Monday Nov.5th the winds started very light so we had the small spinnaker sail up and then the wind started howling and down came the spinnaker and out went a half furled headsail…just a little sail up, no main sail and Areté is going like a Boeing…I heard another yacht on the radio telling someone his wind gauge says 27 knots…We don’t have a wind gauge on Areté but that seemed about right…We had just a bit of the headie out and screaming down waves, surfing the swells of a couple meters sometimes waves doubling up into roller coaster ride quality of whooop deee dooos…. just magic…!!!!!... About 5;00pm we started wondering where we could anchor in this much wind??? We chose a North facing bay on Keswick Island and saw couple yachts already there…This bay has a huge fringing reef that comes way out so we were forced to anchor in almost 40 feet of water…( this is near Mackay with the 5 meter tides, biggest on the Queensland coast)…the wind was still blowing hard from the NE keeping Areté on a very tight anchor chain…I put the GPS anchor drag alarm on and went to bed…At 2;00am the alarm starts beeping and that officially ended the evenings, sleeping, The Southeasterly wind change came through like a freight train I spent the next four hours watching the GPS to see if we were going to be washed ashore onto huge rocks that had waves smashing into them sounding like a car wreck, the swell picked up very quickly making just standing or walking around the boat difficult. There was no moon as it’s just a couple days before the new moon…At about 6;00am the sun came up and we got outta there ASAP! It’s 16 nautical miles from there to the Mackay Marina straight into the wind direction…it was rough as guts waves stacking up and spray coming over the decks…Of course I had to put the lures out and ended up losing a good lure not sure if it was a strike or rock...We were unable to make much speed in such rough seas…so it took 5 hours to get to Mackay Marina… …when we entered the breakwater I went below deck and saw books on the floor, all the stuff on the shelves in the bathroom scattered all over the bathroom floor…stuff everywhere, shelves empty…yes it was pretty bumpy coming across from Keswick Island…we were allocated berth W-42 right in the middle of the row with boats everywhere and a 20+ knot wind causing plenty of drift and making berthing this boat a real challenge, luckily a guy on another yacht grabbed a line and we were in the pen and tied off in one shot…Surprised myself that it went so well…my heart was pounding and my legs felt like jelly but we were out of the wind and secure…with just over an hour before the Melbourne Cup started…The guy on the million dollar catamaran next to us invited me aboard to see the race and have a look at what I’d buy if I win the lottery…He explained he just bought the boat and doesn’t know much about sailing and thought we were old salts cause the way we pulled Arete into the slip with all that wind…”See, you can fool some of the people some of the time”…
Well the horse my buddy Grahame called to give me some inside information on ran third so it was a good thing I didn’t have a chance to put any money on the race…It is hard to imagine how big the Melbourne Cup horse race is here in OZ but it’s a day when the gals dress up in their best dresses and wear hats, most offices close about mid day and everyone goes to the pub to watch the race…
Now we’re settled into the Mackay Marina life we’ll spend a couple days victualling and I’ll head over to Fishing World to get a few more lures as I’ll have many chances for some great fish sailing south from here in a few days…
Wednesday, October 31, 2007
Sailing south from Townsville to Brisbane
A few weeks slipped by as we enjoyed our visit to Townsville, a magical place with free public swimming pools and the entire shoreline of town a series of parks, with free electrical BBQ and clean beaches. While we were there the wind kicked up pretty good causing a few boats to drag anchor and "go walkabout", Arete held tight.... I made a few new friends in the "duck pond" and enjoyed a few sundowners on other yachts, sharing some Arete Super #1 Lager Beer...
We made plans to buddy sail to Zoe Bay a couple days before the full moon, at 10:oo pm the night before we were to leave, the toilet stopped flushing...I spent the next two days learning a great deal more about marine toilets in the process of replacing mine...$300 later we have a new electric toilet and the winds had changed to a Nor'easter...We missed our chance at Zoe Bay but sailed around Magnetic Island and through Halifax Bay back to Horseshoe Bay to meet up with Matt on Aventure. Matt sailed out from Seattle, we know each other from Brisbane and he's also lived in Japan for many years...The day after the full moon party on Arete we weighed anchor and pointed our catamaran south, heading back to Brisbane...We are now in Airlie Beach after a nights at Cape Bowling Green, Cape Upstart and Bowen...
Sailing south in the Nor'easterly winds is a lot different than going the other way in the SE trade winds, first of all they are lighter winds and they blow you onto the lee shore, so you are constantly tacking out around headlands...It makes 40 miles into a long, tiring day...One morning just an hour after sunrise, just coming out around the headland of Cape Upstart, with an incoming tide,...I had the main sail up and the motors running, sailing just off the wind trying to put some blue water between us and the giant rocky shore of Cape Upstart before turning the boat down wind for a broad reach south to Bowen.....Bang...ZZZZZZzzzzzz the Penn reel was screaming...I knew it was a good fish from the power it had in it's first run of the line....After a long fight I got the fish to the back steps of my catamaran and he spit the hook and swam away.....I was crushed, losing a fish like that, so close but no cigar....I put the lure back in and secured the rod and just as I walked away Bang again...This time I brought him aboard....It was 142 cm long or 4 feet 7 inches... Wahoo is a good eating game fish...That night anchored near the town of Bowen Triple J FM played the John Butler Trio concert live as we ate Wahoo cooked with garlic and butter. I really like his music, a bit like Jack Johnson with some hot guitar work...
Not a lot of other excitement, we did see another huge sea snake in Abbot's Bay, way offshore in just about the exact same place I saw one on the way North( the only ones I've seen , ever!)...We had a brown Boobie bird that would not leave us alone, he landed on Arete about ten times....as we sailed along 4 or 5 miles offshore. That is a big sea bird with a three foot wingspan and a powerful bill, I was not real crazy about cleaning up after that big beast and he was not wanting to leave the friendly confines of Arete so I'd shooo him off one side and he'd fly around to the other side...It was like a comedy routine...
Funny how things go... I don't troll lures when we have fish in the fridge and as soon as I caught that big Wahoo, I had yellowtail Tuna jumping next to Arete all day... just like seeing deer out of season....
The winds are forecast to change in a couple days and then we'll cruise through the Whitsunday Islands...
We made plans to buddy sail to Zoe Bay a couple days before the full moon, at 10:oo pm the night before we were to leave, the toilet stopped flushing...I spent the next two days learning a great deal more about marine toilets in the process of replacing mine...$300 later we have a new electric toilet and the winds had changed to a Nor'easter...We missed our chance at Zoe Bay but sailed around Magnetic Island and through Halifax Bay back to Horseshoe Bay to meet up with Matt on Aventure. Matt sailed out from Seattle, we know each other from Brisbane and he's also lived in Japan for many years...The day after the full moon party on Arete we weighed anchor and pointed our catamaran south, heading back to Brisbane...We are now in Airlie Beach after a nights at Cape Bowling Green, Cape Upstart and Bowen...
Sailing south in the Nor'easterly winds is a lot different than going the other way in the SE trade winds, first of all they are lighter winds and they blow you onto the lee shore, so you are constantly tacking out around headlands...It makes 40 miles into a long, tiring day...One morning just an hour after sunrise, just coming out around the headland of Cape Upstart, with an incoming tide,...I had the main sail up and the motors running, sailing just off the wind trying to put some blue water between us and the giant rocky shore of Cape Upstart before turning the boat down wind for a broad reach south to Bowen.....Bang...ZZZZZZzzzzzz the Penn reel was screaming...I knew it was a good fish from the power it had in it's first run of the line....After a long fight I got the fish to the back steps of my catamaran and he spit the hook and swam away.....I was crushed, losing a fish like that, so close but no cigar....I put the lure back in and secured the rod and just as I walked away Bang again...This time I brought him aboard....It was 142 cm long or 4 feet 7 inches... Wahoo is a good eating game fish...That night anchored near the town of Bowen Triple J FM played the John Butler Trio concert live as we ate Wahoo cooked with garlic and butter. I really like his music, a bit like Jack Johnson with some hot guitar work...
Not a lot of other excitement, we did see another huge sea snake in Abbot's Bay, way offshore in just about the exact same place I saw one on the way North( the only ones I've seen , ever!)...We had a brown Boobie bird that would not leave us alone, he landed on Arete about ten times....as we sailed along 4 or 5 miles offshore. That is a big sea bird with a three foot wingspan and a powerful bill, I was not real crazy about cleaning up after that big beast and he was not wanting to leave the friendly confines of Arete so I'd shooo him off one side and he'd fly around to the other side...It was like a comedy routine...
Funny how things go... I don't troll lures when we have fish in the fridge and as soon as I caught that big Wahoo, I had yellowtail Tuna jumping next to Arete all day... just like seeing deer out of season....
The winds are forecast to change in a couple days and then we'll cruise through the Whitsunday Islands...
Monday, October 8, 2007
Magical Magnetic Island & Terrific Townsville…
What is the perfect size town or city to live in??? I’d think it would need to be big enough to have pro sports teams, get good concerts but still have a small town feel and be a safe community. I think Townsville rocks !!! Home of The Cowboys a Rugby League team that was one win away from another Grand Final berth again this year.( For those of you in the USA not knowing what Rugby League is…try to imagine NFL football without any pads, no stops in play, and a tackling style that remind me of steer-wrestling) Also home of The Croc’s a professional Basketball team in the NBL, of course it’s not the NBA level but “I wouldn’t live in Cleveland just to watch Labron play anyways”.
Jupiters Casino is next to the Townsville Entertainment Center right in front of the “duck pond” a free anchorage right outside the marina breakwater in the center of town…”gotta love it"…(see photo)
Magnetic Island is about 8 miles offshore from Townsville, we spent a week in Horseshoe Bay, I’d say it is almost a perfect anchorage. We were able to get wireless internet in the bay though no cell phone reception. We were lucky enough to catch the “Bay Day” a jazz festival, a great day of live jazz on the beach. One afternoon we went out for a day sail, just put the sails up and tacked straight out towards the GBR ahhhh…perfect… I had the lures trolling behind and bang !!!! Fish on !!! It didn’t feel like a Tuna they have their own feel, as I brought the fish closer to the back step I saw it was a shark, yuck!!!
It was a pretty damn big shark too with one of my best lures in his mouth. I live on the water and spend a lot of time in it too, so have come up with a theory that if I don’t kill or eat sharks they will show me the same respect. Now how can I get my lure back safely? Well getting a treble hook with barbs dislodged from a swimming shark on a boat sailing 5~6 knots ain’t easy…A new Repella rattler lure is about $25. and I’m not going to give one of my best lures to a damn shark!!! End of story…
Another beautiful afternoon we hiked up to the Forts, these forts were built to defend Townsville from the Japanese in WW2. On the hike we saw a couple Koala bears sleeping in the trees. It was our first experience to see Koalas in the wild;( see photo) they are surprisingly cute and have great expressions on their faces. On the way down we saw some Wallabies bouncing along the path and as we walked back towards Horseshoe Bay the full moon rose giving Magnetic Island a truly magical feel.
As for us right now we have a few things to sort out here in port, a small tear in the mainsail, leaky pump in the head, a few new books to read, re-stocking of fishing supplies and of course a chance to try my luck at the tables at Jupiters Casino coinciding with the happy hour drink prices…
What is the perfect size town or city to live in??? I’d think it would need to be big enough to have pro sports teams, get good concerts but still have a small town feel and be a safe community. I think Townsville rocks !!! Home of The Cowboys a Rugby League team that was one win away from another Grand Final berth again this year.( For those of you in the USA not knowing what Rugby League is…try to imagine NFL football without any pads, no stops in play, and a tackling style that remind me of steer-wrestling) Also home of The Croc’s a professional Basketball team in the NBL, of course it’s not the NBA level but “I wouldn’t live in Cleveland just to watch Labron play anyways”.
Jupiters Casino is next to the Townsville Entertainment Center right in front of the “duck pond” a free anchorage right outside the marina breakwater in the center of town…”gotta love it"…(see photo)
Magnetic Island is about 8 miles offshore from Townsville, we spent a week in Horseshoe Bay, I’d say it is almost a perfect anchorage. We were able to get wireless internet in the bay though no cell phone reception. We were lucky enough to catch the “Bay Day” a jazz festival, a great day of live jazz on the beach. One afternoon we went out for a day sail, just put the sails up and tacked straight out towards the GBR ahhhh…perfect… I had the lures trolling behind and bang !!!! Fish on !!! It didn’t feel like a Tuna they have their own feel, as I brought the fish closer to the back step I saw it was a shark, yuck!!!
It was a pretty damn big shark too with one of my best lures in his mouth. I live on the water and spend a lot of time in it too, so have come up with a theory that if I don’t kill or eat sharks they will show me the same respect. Now how can I get my lure back safely? Well getting a treble hook with barbs dislodged from a swimming shark on a boat sailing 5~6 knots ain’t easy…A new Repella rattler lure is about $25. and I’m not going to give one of my best lures to a damn shark!!! End of story…
Another beautiful afternoon we hiked up to the Forts, these forts were built to defend Townsville from the Japanese in WW2. On the hike we saw a couple Koala bears sleeping in the trees. It was our first experience to see Koalas in the wild;( see photo) they are surprisingly cute and have great expressions on their faces. On the way down we saw some Wallabies bouncing along the path and as we walked back towards Horseshoe Bay the full moon rose giving Magnetic Island a truly magical feel.
As for us right now we have a few things to sort out here in port, a small tear in the mainsail, leaky pump in the head, a few new books to read, re-stocking of fishing supplies and of course a chance to try my luck at the tables at Jupiters Casino coinciding with the happy hour drink prices…
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Tropical North Queensland
Tropical North Queensland, (Airlie Beach to Magnetic Island…)
After just two days in Airlie Beach we got a Sou’easterly breeze and it was anchors aweigh, out across Pioneer Bay between Double Cone Island and Armit Island sailing on a broad reach, turning to the west running with the wind we put up the spinnaker sail and headed for Gloucester Passage “Full Sail” !!!. Destination tropical Bowen “The Big Mango” if you’ve seen the Bruce Brown’s surf movie Endless Summer you’ll know what I’m talking about. Bowen is just 39 nautical miles from Airlie Beach but a different world. Arriving late afternoon, we tied off between two floating cans, (secure moorings) provided by Queensland Transport for $9.50 a night in the Bowen Boat Harbor. It was couple days before the Bowen Fishing Derby so the harbor was full of activity. Hiroko and I spent a few days here on our trip North two years ago, we both love this town of 8000 people, great beaches, fantastic fishing and no Seven/Elevens or corporate fast food outlets. Our last night in town we had to check out the North Queensland Cruising Yacht Club for sundowners.
Bowen to Cape Upstart is 45 nautical miles; Sailing around the headland along Kings Beach schools of fish were jumping and dolphins chasing baitfish….I had two pink squids and a silver spoon trolling behind Areté at 6~7 knots feeling lucky…It was a great day on the water, calm seas and just enough wind for a comfortable sail North. About mid~day crossing Abbot Bay, 8 miles offshore I had a huge strike that hit my lure like a freight train, took the pink squid, wire leader and didn’t even slow down…As I was reeling in my line I saw a sea snake coming right at us…It was at least 8 feet long, two tones of brown and absolutely no fear...He was awesome, I’ve heard they are either curious or aggressive, he sure looked like he was on the attack, but attacking a 11 meter catamaran ? This encouraged me to investigate (I’ve got lots of books on board) = There are 32 reported species of sea snakes here in Northern Queensland, all poisonous. As I researched further I found out Australia has more things that will kill you than anywhere else….
Of the worlds 10 most poisonous snakes, all are Australian!
We have five creatures; the funnel-web spider, box jellyfish, blue ringed octopus, paralysis tick and stonefish are all most lethal of their type on the planet.
80% of all that lives here; plant & animals exists nowhere else on earth.
I’m not even going to talk about sharks or salt water crocidiles…
Cape Upstart to Cape Bowling Green 39 nautical miles,
The Nor’easterly wind caused us to anchor tucked way back in Upstart Bay trying to get some protection. A nice rain in the middle of the night gave Areté a nice bath and made for good sleeping. The following morning was grey, cloudy and breezy, but that’s what makes the boat go, so we did and it was truly a great sail! I lost another lure early in the day and later sighted a couple big sharks swimming along the surface, before landing a nice School Mackerel (between 2 and 3 feet long). It was one of those near perfect days sailing, one of my best days!!!!
Cape Bowling Green is like a long sandy finger that sticks out into the Coral Seas it’s the lowest cape on the coast. By the time we got around it and got the anchor down the wind was blowing pretty hard (a solid 15~20 knots, gusting higher). The Townsville weather forecast at 5:15pm said we could expect a couple days with 20 knot winds so we let out a bunch of anchor chain and settled in for some down time….There is always something to do on this boat, Areté is a great boat but you can’t just expect perfection without putting in lots of TLC. It kind of fun and when you fix something it feels good, makes ya feel intelligent, also that pride of ownership is a great feeling.
A couple days of beachcombing, as this is a long way from anywhere and except for cruising yachties Cape Bowling Green gets no footprints on it’s beach. This leaves lots to see and shell collecting is excellent here.
The following day Tuesday Sept.25th in light winds, we sailed around Cape Cleveland into Horseshoe Bay at Magnetic Island 39 nautical miles. No fish but another huge strike and lost my favorite lure...O~well that's what it's called fishing not catching I guess....
Captain Cook named this island when he visited in1770 thinking it had magnetic powers as it effected his ships compass.
After just two days in Airlie Beach we got a Sou’easterly breeze and it was anchors aweigh, out across Pioneer Bay between Double Cone Island and Armit Island sailing on a broad reach, turning to the west running with the wind we put up the spinnaker sail and headed for Gloucester Passage “Full Sail” !!!. Destination tropical Bowen “The Big Mango” if you’ve seen the Bruce Brown’s surf movie Endless Summer you’ll know what I’m talking about. Bowen is just 39 nautical miles from Airlie Beach but a different world. Arriving late afternoon, we tied off between two floating cans, (secure moorings) provided by Queensland Transport for $9.50 a night in the Bowen Boat Harbor. It was couple days before the Bowen Fishing Derby so the harbor was full of activity. Hiroko and I spent a few days here on our trip North two years ago, we both love this town of 8000 people, great beaches, fantastic fishing and no Seven/Elevens or corporate fast food outlets. Our last night in town we had to check out the North Queensland Cruising Yacht Club for sundowners.
Bowen to Cape Upstart is 45 nautical miles; Sailing around the headland along Kings Beach schools of fish were jumping and dolphins chasing baitfish….I had two pink squids and a silver spoon trolling behind Areté at 6~7 knots feeling lucky…It was a great day on the water, calm seas and just enough wind for a comfortable sail North. About mid~day crossing Abbot Bay, 8 miles offshore I had a huge strike that hit my lure like a freight train, took the pink squid, wire leader and didn’t even slow down…As I was reeling in my line I saw a sea snake coming right at us…It was at least 8 feet long, two tones of brown and absolutely no fear...He was awesome, I’ve heard they are either curious or aggressive, he sure looked like he was on the attack, but attacking a 11 meter catamaran ? This encouraged me to investigate (I’ve got lots of books on board) = There are 32 reported species of sea snakes here in Northern Queensland, all poisonous. As I researched further I found out Australia has more things that will kill you than anywhere else….
Of the worlds 10 most poisonous snakes, all are Australian!
We have five creatures; the funnel-web spider, box jellyfish, blue ringed octopus, paralysis tick and stonefish are all most lethal of their type on the planet.
80% of all that lives here; plant & animals exists nowhere else on earth.
I’m not even going to talk about sharks or salt water crocidiles…
Cape Upstart to Cape Bowling Green 39 nautical miles,
The Nor’easterly wind caused us to anchor tucked way back in Upstart Bay trying to get some protection. A nice rain in the middle of the night gave Areté a nice bath and made for good sleeping. The following morning was grey, cloudy and breezy, but that’s what makes the boat go, so we did and it was truly a great sail! I lost another lure early in the day and later sighted a couple big sharks swimming along the surface, before landing a nice School Mackerel (between 2 and 3 feet long). It was one of those near perfect days sailing, one of my best days!!!!
Cape Bowling Green is like a long sandy finger that sticks out into the Coral Seas it’s the lowest cape on the coast. By the time we got around it and got the anchor down the wind was blowing pretty hard (a solid 15~20 knots, gusting higher). The Townsville weather forecast at 5:15pm said we could expect a couple days with 20 knot winds so we let out a bunch of anchor chain and settled in for some down time….There is always something to do on this boat, Areté is a great boat but you can’t just expect perfection without putting in lots of TLC. It kind of fun and when you fix something it feels good, makes ya feel intelligent, also that pride of ownership is a great feeling.
A couple days of beachcombing, as this is a long way from anywhere and except for cruising yachties Cape Bowling Green gets no footprints on it’s beach. This leaves lots to see and shell collecting is excellent here.
The following day Tuesday Sept.25th in light winds, we sailed around Cape Cleveland into Horseshoe Bay at Magnetic Island 39 nautical miles. No fish but another huge strike and lost my favorite lure...O~well that's what it's called fishing not catching I guess....
Captain Cook named this island when he visited in1770 thinking it had magnetic powers as it effected his ships compass.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
September in the Whitsunday Islands..
Leaving Areté in the Mackay Marina while we returned to Tokyo for Michiko’s wedding gave us a break from the sailing and the opportunity to catch up with some family and friends. Our flights went through Sydney and Brisbane so we had the views of the Great Barrier Reef both coming and going. On our return flight September 5th as we were approaching Mackay airport the clouds opened up with a clear view of the marina and Areté tied off in berth # T-43. The wedding was maybe the best ever and the hospitality at Funi-san house is always world class but it’s truly a great feeling to be back aboard..”home is where the boat is”…that’s what our card says and everyone knows the feelings of being home….I’d hoped to sail out the following day, the Mackay Marina is not cheap, but I am. We arrived to the same winds we left a week before 25~30 knots from the SouthEast. Weather Mackay forecasted lighter winds in a couple days…Hiroko hit the Caneland Shopping Center for serious victualling. I bought 40 liters ( two 5 Galllon jerry cans) of unleaded fuel and borrowed a garden hose from on of my yachtie neighbors to fill my water tanks….Later when I returned the hose I found out they were also from the USA and invited them to join me for happy hour at the yacht club for the $1.50 pots of beer… Three interesting people from San Francisco one was a political activist, one was a vet tech and one was a lawyer who worked to make sure developers and city planners provide for affordable housing. They took six months off and came to OZ bought a boat and had planned to sail it to New Caledonia, Vanuatu, PNG and back to Australia put the boat up for sail and head back to the states…They had many a run around with the bureaucracy and needed to Australian register the boat, they opted to sail North from Brisbane to the Whitsunday Islands and put the boat up for sale with the brokerage at the Mackay Marina.
We had planned to sail out the following day, though it was blowing 30 knots in the morning and next to Areté was one of those 1 million dollar catamarans, on our lee side I might add…This also being a Friday, it didn’t take much to convince Hiroko to stay in the fancy marina one more night….It’s a sailing superstition is never to start a voyage on Friday ( though we were technically just continuing our trip North after a break) The British Navy back a couple hundred years ago built a ship of the line (a sailing battleship ) Named it “Friday”, they hung the keel on a Friday, launched it on a Friday and it left port on it’s maiden voyage on a Friday….It was never seen again..
Saturday September 8th; I’d hoped to get away about sunrise as the wind comes up soon after sunrise. I’d explained to Hiroko just how we’d get Areté out of the berth without bumping anything especially not the French fancy Catamaran next to me…We removed all the mooring lines leaving a stern line and bow line, I was to drop the stern line, jump aboard and pop the motors into reverse and Hiroko was to walk the boat along the finger using the bow line and the cleats to keep the boat from drifting downwind into the Frenchman’s catamaran. The wind was side on and blowing pretty hard, somehow I got out without a bump and I looked at the dock and there is Hiroko standing there not onboard. I guess I’d forgotten to explain when to step aboard…Either way we were away and back in the wind, sailing downhill to Brampton Island. There is something special about the Whitsunday Islands kind of like the feeling I had when I first visited Yosemite, majestic or whatever it sure ain’t just another place…The anchorage at Brampton has a fringing coral reef like most anchorages here in the Whitsunday’s. We has an Angle fish of some type swimming around us at sundown that was 2~3 feet, top to bottom…The weather forecast said Northerly winds and that was not what I wanted to hear….The following day we motor sailed about 20 nautical miles to Thomas Island we had whales swimming past us headed South and I started to realize that maybe we are too late in the season…?
Thomas Island is quite a magic spot itself…Three white sand beaches, rocks with oysters at low tide for Hiroko, tropical fish swimming around Areté and turtles popping up every few minutes. It was not difficult or dull spending the next three days on the hook in light winds, sunshine, and views of a half dozen islands in the distance. One evening about sunset I spotted a group of whales breeching a few miles away with the sun setting behind them it silhouetted them and their huge splashes in peachy colored shades…
Every morning I turn on the VHF radio at 6:15am to listen to the weather forecast and everyday it was “North by Northeasterly winds 10~15 knots with afternoon sea breezes”.
September 12th we weighed anchor and sailed slowly again the whales we saw were waving to us with their tails as they headed South and we tacking trying to get North…
We anchored in Chance Bay on Whitsunday Island with lots of the fancy charter barebaots they rent here in the Whitsundays. A huge flock of Cockatoos in the trees ashore about sunset, not a bad place at all…With the light winds and sunshine we decided to head for Whitehaven Beach the following morning on the North side of Whitsunday Island. This is the beach you see on all the travel brochures as it’s one of the prettiest beaches on the planet.
In light winds it’s quite the spot too….we dropped the pick, anchored off the white silica sand beach 30 meters offshore in about 20 feet of crystal clear blue water. Water temperature was 22 degrees, (that’s about 72 degrees in the old way of counting)…We enjoyed the next 4 days in swimsuits or less, swimming off the back steps, paddling the kayak and playing on the beach. Hiroko does yoga and I tinker with my boat, we had a large squid that seemed to be guarding the anchor chain and a huge Stingray seemed to like the shade Areté provided. There were helicopters and sea planes landing right off our port side. I guess at the exclusive 5 star resorts they fly honeymoon couples out to Whitehaven to sip champagne….one of the gals wore her wedding dress ( I hope it was a rental). There are lots of backpacker tourist boats and bareboat charter boats and they all anchor down at the end of the beach opening up miles of space between Areté and the rest of the pack, just the way I like it too! One day we went up into Hill Inlet with the tide. Now we are 11 days out of Mackay Marina the food stock is in need of a few things and no change in the weather so we decided to motor sail up and around Whitsunday Island stopping in at Macona Inlet for the night before crossing the Whitsunday Passage and into Airlie Beach.
Being unemployed for the past three years and living on a yacht without TV I’ve had the opportunity to read a few hundred books, some of them a couple times…I often write down things I like from these books and one that comes to mind is what Ernest Hemmingway said; “ Never forget the weather” as I look back and proof read this blog I think he would see I took that to heart. Living on a cruising catamaran weather is top priority. I talk a lot about anchorages and location because “without geography you’re nowhere”…Mark Twain said “Write what you know about”. So I guess I should talk a bit more about the fine home brew beer I brew onboard. O~well maybe next time….
Leaving Areté in the Mackay Marina while we returned to Tokyo for Michiko’s wedding gave us a break from the sailing and the opportunity to catch up with some family and friends. Our flights went through Sydney and Brisbane so we had the views of the Great Barrier Reef both coming and going. On our return flight September 5th as we were approaching Mackay airport the clouds opened up with a clear view of the marina and Areté tied off in berth # T-43. The wedding was maybe the best ever and the hospitality at Funi-san house is always world class but it’s truly a great feeling to be back aboard..”home is where the boat is”…that’s what our card says and everyone knows the feelings of being home….I’d hoped to sail out the following day, the Mackay Marina is not cheap, but I am. We arrived to the same winds we left a week before 25~30 knots from the SouthEast. Weather Mackay forecasted lighter winds in a couple days…Hiroko hit the Caneland Shopping Center for serious victualling. I bought 40 liters ( two 5 Galllon jerry cans) of unleaded fuel and borrowed a garden hose from on of my yachtie neighbors to fill my water tanks….Later when I returned the hose I found out they were also from the USA and invited them to join me for happy hour at the yacht club for the $1.50 pots of beer… Three interesting people from San Francisco one was a political activist, one was a vet tech and one was a lawyer who worked to make sure developers and city planners provide for affordable housing. They took six months off and came to OZ bought a boat and had planned to sail it to New Caledonia, Vanuatu, PNG and back to Australia put the boat up for sail and head back to the states…They had many a run around with the bureaucracy and needed to Australian register the boat, they opted to sail North from Brisbane to the Whitsunday Islands and put the boat up for sale with the brokerage at the Mackay Marina.
We had planned to sail out the following day, though it was blowing 30 knots in the morning and next to Areté was one of those 1 million dollar catamarans, on our lee side I might add…This also being a Friday, it didn’t take much to convince Hiroko to stay in the fancy marina one more night….It’s a sailing superstition is never to start a voyage on Friday ( though we were technically just continuing our trip North after a break) The British Navy back a couple hundred years ago built a ship of the line (a sailing battleship ) Named it “Friday”, they hung the keel on a Friday, launched it on a Friday and it left port on it’s maiden voyage on a Friday….It was never seen again..
Saturday September 8th; I’d hoped to get away about sunrise as the wind comes up soon after sunrise. I’d explained to Hiroko just how we’d get Areté out of the berth without bumping anything especially not the French fancy Catamaran next to me…We removed all the mooring lines leaving a stern line and bow line, I was to drop the stern line, jump aboard and pop the motors into reverse and Hiroko was to walk the boat along the finger using the bow line and the cleats to keep the boat from drifting downwind into the Frenchman’s catamaran. The wind was side on and blowing pretty hard, somehow I got out without a bump and I looked at the dock and there is Hiroko standing there not onboard. I guess I’d forgotten to explain when to step aboard…Either way we were away and back in the wind, sailing downhill to Brampton Island. There is something special about the Whitsunday Islands kind of like the feeling I had when I first visited Yosemite, majestic or whatever it sure ain’t just another place…The anchorage at Brampton has a fringing coral reef like most anchorages here in the Whitsunday’s. We has an Angle fish of some type swimming around us at sundown that was 2~3 feet, top to bottom…The weather forecast said Northerly winds and that was not what I wanted to hear….The following day we motor sailed about 20 nautical miles to Thomas Island we had whales swimming past us headed South and I started to realize that maybe we are too late in the season…?
Thomas Island is quite a magic spot itself…Three white sand beaches, rocks with oysters at low tide for Hiroko, tropical fish swimming around Areté and turtles popping up every few minutes. It was not difficult or dull spending the next three days on the hook in light winds, sunshine, and views of a half dozen islands in the distance. One evening about sunset I spotted a group of whales breeching a few miles away with the sun setting behind them it silhouetted them and their huge splashes in peachy colored shades…
Every morning I turn on the VHF radio at 6:15am to listen to the weather forecast and everyday it was “North by Northeasterly winds 10~15 knots with afternoon sea breezes”.
September 12th we weighed anchor and sailed slowly again the whales we saw were waving to us with their tails as they headed South and we tacking trying to get North…
We anchored in Chance Bay on Whitsunday Island with lots of the fancy charter barebaots they rent here in the Whitsundays. A huge flock of Cockatoos in the trees ashore about sunset, not a bad place at all…With the light winds and sunshine we decided to head for Whitehaven Beach the following morning on the North side of Whitsunday Island. This is the beach you see on all the travel brochures as it’s one of the prettiest beaches on the planet.
In light winds it’s quite the spot too….we dropped the pick, anchored off the white silica sand beach 30 meters offshore in about 20 feet of crystal clear blue water. Water temperature was 22 degrees, (that’s about 72 degrees in the old way of counting)…We enjoyed the next 4 days in swimsuits or less, swimming off the back steps, paddling the kayak and playing on the beach. Hiroko does yoga and I tinker with my boat, we had a large squid that seemed to be guarding the anchor chain and a huge Stingray seemed to like the shade Areté provided. There were helicopters and sea planes landing right off our port side. I guess at the exclusive 5 star resorts they fly honeymoon couples out to Whitehaven to sip champagne….one of the gals wore her wedding dress ( I hope it was a rental). There are lots of backpacker tourist boats and bareboat charter boats and they all anchor down at the end of the beach opening up miles of space between Areté and the rest of the pack, just the way I like it too! One day we went up into Hill Inlet with the tide. Now we are 11 days out of Mackay Marina the food stock is in need of a few things and no change in the weather so we decided to motor sail up and around Whitsunday Island stopping in at Macona Inlet for the night before crossing the Whitsunday Passage and into Airlie Beach.
Being unemployed for the past three years and living on a yacht without TV I’ve had the opportunity to read a few hundred books, some of them a couple times…I often write down things I like from these books and one that comes to mind is what Ernest Hemmingway said; “ Never forget the weather” as I look back and proof read this blog I think he would see I took that to heart. Living on a cruising catamaran weather is top priority. I talk a lot about anchorages and location because “without geography you’re nowhere”…Mark Twain said “Write what you know about”. So I guess I should talk a bit more about the fine home brew beer I brew onboard. O~well maybe next time….
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Hanging with the Humpbacks/The Bunker Group of the G.B.R.
Hanging with the Humpbacks / The Bunker Group of The Great Barrier Reef.
An inconvenient truth, or is it a climate change?…. Light Westerly winds are strange for this time of year in Queensland…we made use of them to enjoy three days out in Platypus Bay; August 2,3,4th . This is a hangout to many migrating Humpback Whales…Hervey Bay has a huge whale watching industry taking tourists out on tours…We had Whales, Whales, Whales…
They seem to take an interest in The Areté though it is much less interest than we had in them, they did come over and check us out and gave us a chance to do the same to them….Three different anchorages along Fraser Island watching whales, and waiting on a favorable wind to blow us up to Bundaberg 47 nautical miles to the North…
Sunday August 5th;
The winds finally increased, mostly from the West so we enjoyed a great sail a bit bumpy and lots of spray as we were sailing slightly into the wind on a broad reach…
A night in the Port of Bundaberg Marina gave us a chance to wash clothes and a hot land shower...(Very Important to Hiroko!) We’ve been in touch with Ian on Mingles (his first trip sailing North, single~handing a 32ft monohull he bought at the Garden Point Moorings in Brisbane earlier this year..) We were going to meet up at The Tree Bar in the Town of 1770…
Monday August 6th. Leaving Bundaberg at first light we finally got the good wind and Areté was running downwind, wind coming over the rear quarter, just what we wanted…7~ 8 knots, a nice easy motion, you need about this speed to catch Tuna… trolling the pink squid….My phone rings it’s Ian and he’s in Bundaberg Marina. (where we just left and I’m not turning around into this wind for nothing…) He’s had enough of sailing by himself and decided to head back to Brisbane…soon after the phone call….Bang ! ZZZiiiiiinnnngggggg, the Penn Reel on the port side screamed out “FISH ON” !!! On goes the gimble belt and the fight is on…I start to tell Hiroko to dump off some of the main sail or bear away from the wind to slow the boat down a bit or I have no chance of bringing this fish in at 8 knots…Bang!!! Zzzziiiinnnnngggg the other reel is screaming now….Hiroko grabs the rod and tries to adjust the drag…. “tighten up that big star by the handle… No not the free spool lever” !!! O~shit !!!
….Now I’ve nearly got my fish to the Port swim step and Hiroko has a birds nest, backlashed, mess on the other Penn Reel with a Tuna on…???
Soon my fish was aboard, my arms were burning so I put the gimbal belt on Hiroko got rid of some of the backlash mess on the reel as best I could, just started rolling the line over the top of it, I’ll deal with that later…
Handed off the rod to Hiroko and she brought in her first fish ever…Then with a beautiful Tuna at the back of the boat she learned a classic lesson about “just a bit of slack in the line and he spit the hook and swam free” O~well we’ll still have the freshest sushi ever tonight…one fish is more than enough for the two of us.
The boat still screaming along at 8+ knots, about 8:00am Hiroko on the foredeck with the Houcho (special Japanese knife) cleaning Tuna….Who knows the future... a few hours later it was sunny much warmer and the wind came down so Areté was cruising along at 5 knots and slicing up the Tuna would have been easy like Sunday morning…around lunch time we put up the Spinnaker Sail in light winds. Up and around Round Hill into the Town of 1770…The place where Captain Cook first came ashore in Queensland (Not sure when?)… Now home of the Tree Bar…a caravan park, and small store that has a gas pump… 40 liters of unleaded gas and 60 liters of water and we were ready to cruise out to the Bunker Group of The Great Barrier Reef first thing in the morning.
Tuesday August 7th. The weather forecast was 20 knots out of the South/West followed by three days of calm weather (all weather forecasts are 4 days only). I thought we’d have plenty of wind to get us out to Lady Musgrave Island 36 miles offshore and a couple days of light winds to enjoy the perfect coral lagoon, coral cay (island) and the Great Barrier Reef…We had at least 20 knots of breeze, lots of spray and cloudy but “ a great sail out to the reef, and that’s what it’s all about!” I didn’t even put the line out as we had fish aboard already…
We had the anchor down in sand, 27 feet below Areté in crystal clear water, by 1:00pm…YaaaHoooo!!!! Hiroko had a fever, she thought it might be the flu as it is the winter flu season here in OZ and we’ve just had three days of sailing hard, fast and most of it in wet & windy conditions… About sunset, at high tide, now the reef is underwater and you are 36 miles offshore, Areté is tugging hard on its anchor chain, wind whipping through the rigging, halyards clanging against the mast. I’ve got all the chain out hoping nothing drags or wraps around a coral head, moving after dark is not anything I want to be a part of…It’s hard enough to navigate around the coral in broad daylight…
In the following two days Hiroko’s health improved and the winds came down. Three days in the lagoon, chilling out reading books and strumming the guitar….
Navigating the Great Barrier Reef with its many dangers; reefs, shoals, coral cays and islands is quite a challenge. I put lots of waypoints into my GPS system and reviewed the cruising guides and nautical charts of the area many times.
Friday August 10th.
Leaving the Lady Musgrave lagoon, out through the red and green beacons heading North by East sailing between Lady Musgrave Island and Fairfax Island’s outer reef. Then North putting Boult Reef and Llewellen Reef on our starboard side, 27 miles past sunken ships who came to grief on the reefs before the days of the GPS we reached the outer most point of Fitzroy Reef. Working our way cautiously along the reef till we found the entry into the lagoon. I’d planned on arriving on an incoming tide as tidal flow on strong ebbing tides cause crazy currents and overfalls making the entrance dangerous. It looked impossible or impassable actually till we got around behind it and then it lined up with the Red and Green cans floating marking the entrance followed by two more Reds and a Green beacons marking a winding narrow channel through the reef into the lagoon. A bit like the lagoon at Lady Musgrave without the island, but anchoring in sand with 25~30 feet of crystal clear blue water. A couple more days waiting on some wind to blow us up to Masthead Island at the Northern end of the Bunker Group.
We’ve had some days without a wisp of wind, the ocean is like glass and the clarity of the water unbelievable, we’ve been the only boat in this lagoon 40+ miles out to sea…Like a huge swimming pool…Taking our showers on the foredeck with the solar bag not another sole within 20 miles or more….With my new fancy radio I can pick up music stations so we’re rocking Triple J ( kind of like KDKB was back in the day, for you from AZ) and the ABC Classic (Australian Broadcasting Corp) classical music, as well as my favorites; Jack, Jimmy and Willy on CDs so life’s pretty damn good here at Fitzroy Reef on the Great Barrier Reef…
After three days of fun at Fitzroy Reef (August 10~11 &12th) we got a Southeasterly breeze and made it out between the reef without losing any fiberglass of our hulls…Sailing North to 23˚30’000; The Tropic of Capricorn.
Straddling the line is One Tree Island (off-limits, set aside for scientific research) Sykes Reef and Heron Island (having a resort and not welcoming visitors from cruising yachts)….Somewhere in the middle of these reefs were a group of Humpback Whales doing some amazing aerial jumps or breeching… Just showing off… We loved it ! We dropped the main sail and sailed on with just the headsail, giving us more maneuverability just a little slower, the only boat we saw the entire day was ours…Around 3:00pm was low tide making it very clear where the reef ends and sandy pockets were, we anchored behind Masthead Island, a typical coral cay with a huge lagoon (see photo). Around sunset I watched some Black Tip Reef Sharks working the incoming tide, an awesome sight to see, nature is cruel but entertaining.
Early the following morning (August 13th.) we had few problems getting our anchor back aboard, and we sailed North by East crossing into the tropics above 23˚30’000, saying goodbye to the Great Barrier Reef for a few weeks. Sailing in 20 knots of wind downwind with just a headsail, listening to the radio real loud, singing along didn’t see another boat till 2:00pm. We anchored behind Hammocky Island a huge rock sticking up out of the sea. Last night was the new moon so we had a big tide of over 4 meters. This leaving a lot of rock exposed at low tide, Hiroko went ashore to collect fresh oysters, she had 13 nice oysters off the rocks and a huge smile when she returned.
The next day (August 15th) we were back in cell phone range anchored right off the beach in front of a resort on Great Keppel Island, they welcome yachties! I bought the newspaper and read of Carl Rove ( “He’s as crooked as a moving snake”) giving up on Bush and the stock market crash. After 9 days offshore we needed to do some grocery shopping so we sailed across Keppel Bay to Yeppon, hoping to anchor off the beach near the center of town but with more East than Southeast in the swell it was too rough to get the inflatable dingy ashore..? Hiroko’s first thoughts were “Yahooo a marina berth tonight”!!! We saw a nice catamaran on anchor behind the wall at Rosslyn Bay Marina, as soon as we’d got the anchor dug in, the guy is on his way over in his dingy….He say’s his name is Hans and he’s going to the supermarket in his car, “Do you need a ride?” Hiroko was off the boat in two minutes flat! Cool guy, great boat, check out his website;
www.funtasticcruises.com She got the food I went to the fuel wharf in the marina; 40 liters of unleaded and 70 liters of water. We should be good till we reach Mackay at the end of the month…? What a lucky day, it was a Thursday of course…
August 17th Friday, after the 6:40am weather report, Rocky Met, Channel 82 VHF we weighed anchor and hoisted the main sail pointed the bow North and unfurled the headsail. The sun was out the wind was coming over the rear quarter a 1~2 meter swell giving Areté a nice run up the coast, up and around Cape Manifold and back around behind some big jagged rocks was our anchorage called Freshwater Bay.(See Photo, “Eagle Rock”) As pretty as a postcard, a nice white sand beach, majestic rock headland with heavily forested mountains, and a couple of islands. The only boat in the bay, dolphins swimming around Areté as I watched the White Breasted Sea Eagles catch dinner. With the binoculars I found the nest atop a jagged peak connecting the mainland to a couple small islands. Later around sunset I also saw two Osprey and a Brahminy Kite circling in the wind… The radio played “Doing The Eagle Rock” and we danced in the cockpit, it was a fine Aloha Friday aboard Areté … Since Hiroko had been shopping the day before I knew we’d be eating well. She made “Oyakao Jaga” the chicken before the egg with potatoes for dinner.
The weather report the following morning explained a front was moving into the Australia bite causing wind to increase to 20~25+ knots from the Southeast so we sailed North 27 nautical miles to Island Head Creek. We arrived at the entrance just as the wind was really starting to howl. White caps with cat’s paws and the spray that stings…. This is a huge estuary system with secure anchorages, just the place to wait out the strong wind warning and catch up on my reading…Sunday August 19th, was drizzly rain, a very windy day but Gary from “Spot On” a powerboat brought over 4 Mackerel filets. He’s got one of those flybridge cruisers, some people call them Marlin Boats I just use the term “stink boat” but fresh fish is fresh fish…There are two other boats anchored in our beautiful cove one is a monohull ketch and “Spot On”. Mackerel is “Saba” in Japanese and Hiroko cooks it very well. I spent most of the day tinkering with Areté and making up some trolling rigs, drinking tea and reading Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim
An inconvenient truth, or is it a climate change?…. Light Westerly winds are strange for this time of year in Queensland…we made use of them to enjoy three days out in Platypus Bay; August 2,3,4th . This is a hangout to many migrating Humpback Whales…Hervey Bay has a huge whale watching industry taking tourists out on tours…We had Whales, Whales, Whales…
They seem to take an interest in The Areté though it is much less interest than we had in them, they did come over and check us out and gave us a chance to do the same to them….Three different anchorages along Fraser Island watching whales, and waiting on a favorable wind to blow us up to Bundaberg 47 nautical miles to the North…
Sunday August 5th;
The winds finally increased, mostly from the West so we enjoyed a great sail a bit bumpy and lots of spray as we were sailing slightly into the wind on a broad reach…
A night in the Port of Bundaberg Marina gave us a chance to wash clothes and a hot land shower...(Very Important to Hiroko!) We’ve been in touch with Ian on Mingles (his first trip sailing North, single~handing a 32ft monohull he bought at the Garden Point Moorings in Brisbane earlier this year..) We were going to meet up at The Tree Bar in the Town of 1770…
Monday August 6th. Leaving Bundaberg at first light we finally got the good wind and Areté was running downwind, wind coming over the rear quarter, just what we wanted…7~ 8 knots, a nice easy motion, you need about this speed to catch Tuna… trolling the pink squid….My phone rings it’s Ian and he’s in Bundaberg Marina. (where we just left and I’m not turning around into this wind for nothing…) He’s had enough of sailing by himself and decided to head back to Brisbane…soon after the phone call….Bang ! ZZZiiiiiinnnngggggg, the Penn Reel on the port side screamed out “FISH ON” !!! On goes the gimble belt and the fight is on…I start to tell Hiroko to dump off some of the main sail or bear away from the wind to slow the boat down a bit or I have no chance of bringing this fish in at 8 knots…Bang!!! Zzzziiiinnnnngggg the other reel is screaming now….Hiroko grabs the rod and tries to adjust the drag…. “tighten up that big star by the handle… No not the free spool lever” !!! O~shit !!!
….Now I’ve nearly got my fish to the Port swim step and Hiroko has a birds nest, backlashed, mess on the other Penn Reel with a Tuna on…???
Soon my fish was aboard, my arms were burning so I put the gimbal belt on Hiroko got rid of some of the backlash mess on the reel as best I could, just started rolling the line over the top of it, I’ll deal with that later…
Handed off the rod to Hiroko and she brought in her first fish ever…Then with a beautiful Tuna at the back of the boat she learned a classic lesson about “just a bit of slack in the line and he spit the hook and swam free” O~well we’ll still have the freshest sushi ever tonight…one fish is more than enough for the two of us.
The boat still screaming along at 8+ knots, about 8:00am Hiroko on the foredeck with the Houcho (special Japanese knife) cleaning Tuna….Who knows the future... a few hours later it was sunny much warmer and the wind came down so Areté was cruising along at 5 knots and slicing up the Tuna would have been easy like Sunday morning…around lunch time we put up the Spinnaker Sail in light winds. Up and around Round Hill into the Town of 1770…The place where Captain Cook first came ashore in Queensland (Not sure when?)… Now home of the Tree Bar…a caravan park, and small store that has a gas pump… 40 liters of unleaded gas and 60 liters of water and we were ready to cruise out to the Bunker Group of The Great Barrier Reef first thing in the morning.
Tuesday August 7th. The weather forecast was 20 knots out of the South/West followed by three days of calm weather (all weather forecasts are 4 days only). I thought we’d have plenty of wind to get us out to Lady Musgrave Island 36 miles offshore and a couple days of light winds to enjoy the perfect coral lagoon, coral cay (island) and the Great Barrier Reef…We had at least 20 knots of breeze, lots of spray and cloudy but “ a great sail out to the reef, and that’s what it’s all about!” I didn’t even put the line out as we had fish aboard already…
We had the anchor down in sand, 27 feet below Areté in crystal clear water, by 1:00pm…YaaaHoooo!!!! Hiroko had a fever, she thought it might be the flu as it is the winter flu season here in OZ and we’ve just had three days of sailing hard, fast and most of it in wet & windy conditions… About sunset, at high tide, now the reef is underwater and you are 36 miles offshore, Areté is tugging hard on its anchor chain, wind whipping through the rigging, halyards clanging against the mast. I’ve got all the chain out hoping nothing drags or wraps around a coral head, moving after dark is not anything I want to be a part of…It’s hard enough to navigate around the coral in broad daylight…
In the following two days Hiroko’s health improved and the winds came down. Three days in the lagoon, chilling out reading books and strumming the guitar….
Navigating the Great Barrier Reef with its many dangers; reefs, shoals, coral cays and islands is quite a challenge. I put lots of waypoints into my GPS system and reviewed the cruising guides and nautical charts of the area many times.
Friday August 10th.
Leaving the Lady Musgrave lagoon, out through the red and green beacons heading North by East sailing between Lady Musgrave Island and Fairfax Island’s outer reef. Then North putting Boult Reef and Llewellen Reef on our starboard side, 27 miles past sunken ships who came to grief on the reefs before the days of the GPS we reached the outer most point of Fitzroy Reef. Working our way cautiously along the reef till we found the entry into the lagoon. I’d planned on arriving on an incoming tide as tidal flow on strong ebbing tides cause crazy currents and overfalls making the entrance dangerous. It looked impossible or impassable actually till we got around behind it and then it lined up with the Red and Green cans floating marking the entrance followed by two more Reds and a Green beacons marking a winding narrow channel through the reef into the lagoon. A bit like the lagoon at Lady Musgrave without the island, but anchoring in sand with 25~30 feet of crystal clear blue water. A couple more days waiting on some wind to blow us up to Masthead Island at the Northern end of the Bunker Group.
We’ve had some days without a wisp of wind, the ocean is like glass and the clarity of the water unbelievable, we’ve been the only boat in this lagoon 40+ miles out to sea…Like a huge swimming pool…Taking our showers on the foredeck with the solar bag not another sole within 20 miles or more….With my new fancy radio I can pick up music stations so we’re rocking Triple J ( kind of like KDKB was back in the day, for you from AZ) and the ABC Classic (Australian Broadcasting Corp) classical music, as well as my favorites; Jack, Jimmy and Willy on CDs so life’s pretty damn good here at Fitzroy Reef on the Great Barrier Reef…
After three days of fun at Fitzroy Reef (August 10~11 &12th) we got a Southeasterly breeze and made it out between the reef without losing any fiberglass of our hulls…Sailing North to 23˚30’000; The Tropic of Capricorn.
Straddling the line is One Tree Island (off-limits, set aside for scientific research) Sykes Reef and Heron Island (having a resort and not welcoming visitors from cruising yachts)….Somewhere in the middle of these reefs were a group of Humpback Whales doing some amazing aerial jumps or breeching… Just showing off… We loved it ! We dropped the main sail and sailed on with just the headsail, giving us more maneuverability just a little slower, the only boat we saw the entire day was ours…Around 3:00pm was low tide making it very clear where the reef ends and sandy pockets were, we anchored behind Masthead Island, a typical coral cay with a huge lagoon (see photo). Around sunset I watched some Black Tip Reef Sharks working the incoming tide, an awesome sight to see, nature is cruel but entertaining.
Early the following morning (August 13th.) we had few problems getting our anchor back aboard, and we sailed North by East crossing into the tropics above 23˚30’000, saying goodbye to the Great Barrier Reef for a few weeks. Sailing in 20 knots of wind downwind with just a headsail, listening to the radio real loud, singing along didn’t see another boat till 2:00pm. We anchored behind Hammocky Island a huge rock sticking up out of the sea. Last night was the new moon so we had a big tide of over 4 meters. This leaving a lot of rock exposed at low tide, Hiroko went ashore to collect fresh oysters, she had 13 nice oysters off the rocks and a huge smile when she returned.
The next day (August 15th) we were back in cell phone range anchored right off the beach in front of a resort on Great Keppel Island, they welcome yachties! I bought the newspaper and read of Carl Rove ( “He’s as crooked as a moving snake”) giving up on Bush and the stock market crash. After 9 days offshore we needed to do some grocery shopping so we sailed across Keppel Bay to Yeppon, hoping to anchor off the beach near the center of town but with more East than Southeast in the swell it was too rough to get the inflatable dingy ashore..? Hiroko’s first thoughts were “Yahooo a marina berth tonight”!!! We saw a nice catamaran on anchor behind the wall at Rosslyn Bay Marina, as soon as we’d got the anchor dug in, the guy is on his way over in his dingy….He say’s his name is Hans and he’s going to the supermarket in his car, “Do you need a ride?” Hiroko was off the boat in two minutes flat! Cool guy, great boat, check out his website;
www.funtasticcruises.com She got the food I went to the fuel wharf in the marina; 40 liters of unleaded and 70 liters of water. We should be good till we reach Mackay at the end of the month…? What a lucky day, it was a Thursday of course…
August 17th Friday, after the 6:40am weather report, Rocky Met, Channel 82 VHF we weighed anchor and hoisted the main sail pointed the bow North and unfurled the headsail. The sun was out the wind was coming over the rear quarter a 1~2 meter swell giving Areté a nice run up the coast, up and around Cape Manifold and back around behind some big jagged rocks was our anchorage called Freshwater Bay.(See Photo, “Eagle Rock”) As pretty as a postcard, a nice white sand beach, majestic rock headland with heavily forested mountains, and a couple of islands. The only boat in the bay, dolphins swimming around Areté as I watched the White Breasted Sea Eagles catch dinner. With the binoculars I found the nest atop a jagged peak connecting the mainland to a couple small islands. Later around sunset I also saw two Osprey and a Brahminy Kite circling in the wind… The radio played “Doing The Eagle Rock” and we danced in the cockpit, it was a fine Aloha Friday aboard Areté … Since Hiroko had been shopping the day before I knew we’d be eating well. She made “Oyakao Jaga” the chicken before the egg with potatoes for dinner.
The weather report the following morning explained a front was moving into the Australia bite causing wind to increase to 20~25+ knots from the Southeast so we sailed North 27 nautical miles to Island Head Creek. We arrived at the entrance just as the wind was really starting to howl. White caps with cat’s paws and the spray that stings…. This is a huge estuary system with secure anchorages, just the place to wait out the strong wind warning and catch up on my reading…Sunday August 19th, was drizzly rain, a very windy day but Gary from “Spot On” a powerboat brought over 4 Mackerel filets. He’s got one of those flybridge cruisers, some people call them Marlin Boats I just use the term “stink boat” but fresh fish is fresh fish…There are two other boats anchored in our beautiful cove one is a monohull ketch and “Spot On”. Mackerel is “Saba” in Japanese and Hiroko cooks it very well. I spent most of the day tinkering with Areté and making up some trolling rigs, drinking tea and reading Joseph Conrad’s Lord Jim
Island Head Creek~Middle Percy Island~Mackay Marina
Island Head Creek ~ Digby Island; The Beverly Group ~ Mackay Marina
Three days of heavy clouds, winds gusting at 30 knots and an off and on drizzle can wear on ya a bit. I’d been crabbing on the incoming tides, trolling for fish with the hand-line behind the dingy and using my catch for crab bait…No luck again with the elusive but very tasty Mud Crabs…Good fun though, going out in the dingy getting soaked with spray when the wind kicked up, checking the crab pots and trolling a grey squid…The weather broadcasts on VHF were so broken up we’d hear about half what was said leaving us with more questions after the broadcast than not knowing. There was talk of gale force winds and 3+ meter swells in the Capricorn Channel, but where and when???
Tuesday the 21st of August after listening to Katie on Rocky Met Channel #21VHF but again more missed than heard we decided to head out of the secure anchorage and sail the 30 miles North to Hexham Island. The 10:10 weather forecast said 20 to 25 knots South by Southwest though we never saw it much above 15 knots? Our wind was very much out of the West making bumpy seas and keeping our speed about 5 knots over the water. No fish at that speed, I’ve learned from experience I need about 7 knots of boat speed to catch Tuna on Pink Squid, a little slower for the Mackerel with the big spoons on the hand-lines but that’s not nearly as much fun. As we approached the pass between Alnwick and Hexham Islands we had another whale show with some jumps and tail (fluke) waves, of course none of these were caught on film…The anchor was down mid afternoon as we had the anchorage all to ourselves sharing it with schools of fish jumping, about sunset as I tossed lures at them and drank home brews. A waxing gibbous moon lit up the bay making the white sand on the beach almost glow as it reflected the light, yes this is why I wanted to sail North….
Wednesday August 22 was perfect weather wise, minus the wind…sailing downwind with all the sails up barely making 3 knots, tried the spinnaker sail again and when we were putting it up we got buzzed by the Australian Coastwatch Customs airplane.. He called on the VHF radio and wanted my rego # , last port of call, etc…
With the lack of wind it makes for a calm sea meaning we could anchor in West Bay of the Middle Percy Island. This anchorage is famous for the A-frame hut build on the beach many years ago that cruising boats have been hanging signs or memorabilia from their boats for decades.
We visited on our way North in 2005 but didn’t know about the tradition, later at the most Northern point of our voyage I found a perfect piece of driftwood for our sign, to be hung the next visit to the Percy Islands…We arrived to find one other catamaran in West Bay, dropped the dingy into the water and went ashore to hang our sign. Walking past a coconut tree a coconut fell; Bang! That sure seemed like an omen for Hiroko to have fresh coconut. As I fought with the husk the miggie flies found Hiroko ( as they always do…) After seeing many signs from yachts and yachties we’ve met, we returned to Areté for sundowners and Hiroko applied some Japanese cream to her multiple bug bites…I escaped un scathed…I played Jackson Brown CD and dolphins appeared chasing schools of baitfish around the bay.
The other thing West Bay is famous for is being a uncomfortable anchorage in developed wind or swell. Well the following afternoon the wind did develop and brought with it a 1.5 ~ 2 meter swell …Now it’s too late in the day to sail for Digby Island 22 nautical miles away so we’ll just roll out a bit more anchor chain and hunker down till first light tomorrow. Wow what a wild night. wind whipping up a frothy sea, Areté was as uncomfortable as I’ve experienced in the three years of living onboard. She held tight and it didn’t take any persuasion at all to convince my wife to sail out of there the next morning…
Friday August 24th was not a day you’d want to be on the ocean, but just about anywhere was better than staying there…We furled out just a little bit of headsail and motor-sailed into a rough, sloppy sea…Overcast with clouds sailing buy, going every which way and the wind coming from just the direction we wanted to go….Slogging along, waves crashing under and alongside the boat, even with the motors I couldn’t get more than 4 knots of speed so the 24 mile trip took all day. Digby Island is part of the Beverly Group of the Northumberland Islands. Nice anchorage, tucked in behind three other islands and a few huge rocks which you could also count as an islands, gives it almost a lagoon setting. As the full moon is three days away on the 28th and this section of the coast having the biggest tides of all Queensland, we’ve got 5 meter tides now and at low tide lots of rocks are exposed so Hiroko can get fresh oysters again….If we can get the dingy ashore with that swell breaking on the beach? The wind was continuing to blow and blow and blow…
”It was so windy it would blow a dog off his chain” Weather Mackay was consistent with the forecast 20~25 knot wind with a 2~3 meter SE swell Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues…
We enjoyed three days relaxing onboard, I’d take the dingy out cruising around the bay but never got it ashore the shorebreak making landing nearly impossible…
Sunday August 26th we had a Humpback Whale and her calf spend four hours near us at our anchorage. They were mostly just floating side by side, my guess is that the mother was breast feeding which probably takes a few hours for that size animal? They left a little before sunset and were last seen splashing and waving with their tails, goodbye…
Monday the 27th with the weather forecast stuck like Groundhogs Day at 20~25 knots till whenever? We decided to sail for Mackay 46 miles away. As I’ve said nearing the full moon the tides were over 5 meters twice a day …this means strong currents between and around islands, causing overfalls, eddies and strange seas, add to that huge swells, whitecaps on every wave and O`ya the wind gusting and then a little bit of consistency before the next gust…Whoooosshhh …we sailed with just a little headsail furled out, I’d noticed a few of the days out at Digby Island the wind started off blowing hard in the morning and then picked up in the afternoon. Not knowing how much worse it might get sure keeps ya on your toes watching the clouds and hoping and praying it will calm down a bit…It did calm down a bit about lunchtime and I got out my fishing gear , put a bit more sail up and Bang! Caught another Tuna !!!! Hiroko went to work on it with the Japanese Houcho and soon it was just some perfect dark red filets that would cost an absolute fortune in Tokyo.
We arrived in Mackay Marina about 4:30pm wound our way through a maze of pontoons and fingers to find T-43 our allocated berth; a portside tie up, bow in. Damn, seeing so many million dollar boats made Areté feel small. We weren’t even tied up properly before a guy with an Easy Catamaran like mine came over to say G~day, and invited us over to see his cat Bad Habits, a fine vessel with every accessory imaginable. Hiroko is always impressed with boats with watermakers, washing machines, and large freezers. I was just tired after 10 hours at sea and the thought of a hot land shower was overwhelming. The marina office was closed but they had left us a key so Hiroko had her first land shower in 22 days and only the third one since leaving Brisbane 37 days and 665 miles ago…Tomorrow we’ll fly to Tokyo for Michiko’s wedding ( Hiroko’s little sister) it should be something special!
A week in Ol’ Edo and returning to sail out of the Mackay Marina and into the Whitsunday Islands.
Three days of heavy clouds, winds gusting at 30 knots and an off and on drizzle can wear on ya a bit. I’d been crabbing on the incoming tides, trolling for fish with the hand-line behind the dingy and using my catch for crab bait…No luck again with the elusive but very tasty Mud Crabs…Good fun though, going out in the dingy getting soaked with spray when the wind kicked up, checking the crab pots and trolling a grey squid…The weather broadcasts on VHF were so broken up we’d hear about half what was said leaving us with more questions after the broadcast than not knowing. There was talk of gale force winds and 3+ meter swells in the Capricorn Channel, but where and when???
Tuesday the 21st of August after listening to Katie on Rocky Met Channel #21VHF but again more missed than heard we decided to head out of the secure anchorage and sail the 30 miles North to Hexham Island. The 10:10 weather forecast said 20 to 25 knots South by Southwest though we never saw it much above 15 knots? Our wind was very much out of the West making bumpy seas and keeping our speed about 5 knots over the water. No fish at that speed, I’ve learned from experience I need about 7 knots of boat speed to catch Tuna on Pink Squid, a little slower for the Mackerel with the big spoons on the hand-lines but that’s not nearly as much fun. As we approached the pass between Alnwick and Hexham Islands we had another whale show with some jumps and tail (fluke) waves, of course none of these were caught on film…The anchor was down mid afternoon as we had the anchorage all to ourselves sharing it with schools of fish jumping, about sunset as I tossed lures at them and drank home brews. A waxing gibbous moon lit up the bay making the white sand on the beach almost glow as it reflected the light, yes this is why I wanted to sail North….
Wednesday August 22 was perfect weather wise, minus the wind…sailing downwind with all the sails up barely making 3 knots, tried the spinnaker sail again and when we were putting it up we got buzzed by the Australian Coastwatch Customs airplane.. He called on the VHF radio and wanted my rego # , last port of call, etc…
With the lack of wind it makes for a calm sea meaning we could anchor in West Bay of the Middle Percy Island. This anchorage is famous for the A-frame hut build on the beach many years ago that cruising boats have been hanging signs or memorabilia from their boats for decades.
We visited on our way North in 2005 but didn’t know about the tradition, later at the most Northern point of our voyage I found a perfect piece of driftwood for our sign, to be hung the next visit to the Percy Islands…We arrived to find one other catamaran in West Bay, dropped the dingy into the water and went ashore to hang our sign. Walking past a coconut tree a coconut fell; Bang! That sure seemed like an omen for Hiroko to have fresh coconut. As I fought with the husk the miggie flies found Hiroko ( as they always do…) After seeing many signs from yachts and yachties we’ve met, we returned to Areté for sundowners and Hiroko applied some Japanese cream to her multiple bug bites…I escaped un scathed…I played Jackson Brown CD and dolphins appeared chasing schools of baitfish around the bay.
The other thing West Bay is famous for is being a uncomfortable anchorage in developed wind or swell. Well the following afternoon the wind did develop and brought with it a 1.5 ~ 2 meter swell …Now it’s too late in the day to sail for Digby Island 22 nautical miles away so we’ll just roll out a bit more anchor chain and hunker down till first light tomorrow. Wow what a wild night. wind whipping up a frothy sea, Areté was as uncomfortable as I’ve experienced in the three years of living onboard. She held tight and it didn’t take any persuasion at all to convince my wife to sail out of there the next morning…
Friday August 24th was not a day you’d want to be on the ocean, but just about anywhere was better than staying there…We furled out just a little bit of headsail and motor-sailed into a rough, sloppy sea…Overcast with clouds sailing buy, going every which way and the wind coming from just the direction we wanted to go….Slogging along, waves crashing under and alongside the boat, even with the motors I couldn’t get more than 4 knots of speed so the 24 mile trip took all day. Digby Island is part of the Beverly Group of the Northumberland Islands. Nice anchorage, tucked in behind three other islands and a few huge rocks which you could also count as an islands, gives it almost a lagoon setting. As the full moon is three days away on the 28th and this section of the coast having the biggest tides of all Queensland, we’ve got 5 meter tides now and at low tide lots of rocks are exposed so Hiroko can get fresh oysters again….If we can get the dingy ashore with that swell breaking on the beach? The wind was continuing to blow and blow and blow…
”It was so windy it would blow a dog off his chain” Weather Mackay was consistent with the forecast 20~25 knot wind with a 2~3 meter SE swell Sat, Sun, Mon, Tues…
We enjoyed three days relaxing onboard, I’d take the dingy out cruising around the bay but never got it ashore the shorebreak making landing nearly impossible…
Sunday August 26th we had a Humpback Whale and her calf spend four hours near us at our anchorage. They were mostly just floating side by side, my guess is that the mother was breast feeding which probably takes a few hours for that size animal? They left a little before sunset and were last seen splashing and waving with their tails, goodbye…
Monday the 27th with the weather forecast stuck like Groundhogs Day at 20~25 knots till whenever? We decided to sail for Mackay 46 miles away. As I’ve said nearing the full moon the tides were over 5 meters twice a day …this means strong currents between and around islands, causing overfalls, eddies and strange seas, add to that huge swells, whitecaps on every wave and O`ya the wind gusting and then a little bit of consistency before the next gust…Whoooosshhh …we sailed with just a little headsail furled out, I’d noticed a few of the days out at Digby Island the wind started off blowing hard in the morning and then picked up in the afternoon. Not knowing how much worse it might get sure keeps ya on your toes watching the clouds and hoping and praying it will calm down a bit…It did calm down a bit about lunchtime and I got out my fishing gear , put a bit more sail up and Bang! Caught another Tuna !!!! Hiroko went to work on it with the Japanese Houcho and soon it was just some perfect dark red filets that would cost an absolute fortune in Tokyo.
We arrived in Mackay Marina about 4:30pm wound our way through a maze of pontoons and fingers to find T-43 our allocated berth; a portside tie up, bow in. Damn, seeing so many million dollar boats made Areté feel small. We weren’t even tied up properly before a guy with an Easy Catamaran like mine came over to say G~day, and invited us over to see his cat Bad Habits, a fine vessel with every accessory imaginable. Hiroko is always impressed with boats with watermakers, washing machines, and large freezers. I was just tired after 10 hours at sea and the thought of a hot land shower was overwhelming. The marina office was closed but they had left us a key so Hiroko had her first land shower in 22 days and only the third one since leaving Brisbane 37 days and 665 miles ago…Tomorrow we’ll fly to Tokyo for Michiko’s wedding ( Hiroko’s little sister) it should be something special!
A week in Ol’ Edo and returning to sail out of the Mackay Marina and into the Whitsunday Islands.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
.JPG)
