Crossing "The Bar" in the moonlight...

Two days in Mooloolaba, a town perfectly set up for the cruising yachtie couple, a chandlery shop, hardware store, Tackle World and a gas station all 5 ~10 minutes from where we are anchored in the Mooloolaba River (right in front of million dollar houses)..
Hiroko loves Mooloolaba too as it has Kawana Waters Shopping Center, an Asian food store and The Bridge Seafood…Where else can you order by phone, take the dingy over to the jetty, tie off between the commercial fishing vessels walk through the dinning area pick up a Mochi Kaeri Ika Rings and clam chowder and back aboard Arete for fine dinning.
Ray, Tracy and Harrison joined us for sundowners or last night in port, Ray built "Tiata" at catamaran like Arete and we met them our last trip to the Whitsundays. He’s now building his dream vessel and I’m sure in three + years of hard work he’ll have an amazing catamaran, the last one was perfect but not exactly what he wanted…
The Met bureau forecast 10~15 knots increasing to 15~20 SW. The high tide at the Wide Bay , 60 nautical miles North was just past 7:00pm…We left Mooloolaba, down the river and out through the leads at sunrise..(see photo, a bit distorted ..?)
Put all the rags up and sailed in light winds, a fairly uneventful sail averaging 5~6 knots and trying everything to increase that…it’s over ten hours and there are not any suitable anchorages along that stretch of the coast till you get to Double Island Point and Rainbow Beach tucked back inside the Wide Bay just a few miles before "The Bar".
Later in the day as we were approaching Double Island Point (see photo) the wind picked up; speed is important when trolling for Tuna they hit when you are going over 7 knots, I’d caught a nice Blue Fin Tuna on this same trip last year and was doing everything in my power to repeat that this time.
It was Friday, three days before a full moon so I knew the moon would be up in the East a couple hours before the sun sets behind Fraser Island in the West. We passed between Wolf Rock and Double Island Point watching the sun set. The decision was made to sail on and used the moonlight and the GPS on the computer to go through the three waypoints of the Wide Bay Bar. It was just before the top of the incoming tide, plenty of water over the outer bar and I thought who knows what the conditions would be like tomorrow?.... It was an easy crossing with the moon laying down a golden path off our stern and back lighting the navigational lead lights.( See Photo ) We dropped the pick about 8:00pm behind Inskip Point. No fish but 65 miles of fun! Woke at sunrise the following morning with "that sandbar" a lot closer than I though we were…O~well "no harm no foul"…An early exit and North through the Great Sandy Straights along Fraser Island a world heritage site…and the sights were awesome;
Blue skies, picture postcard sunsets, Dolphins everyday, big Sea Turtles, Pelicans, Egrets, Gulls, Terns, Sea Eagles, a Forest Blue Kookaburra and a Dingo wandering down the beach at low tide….Two more days and we stopped at the Kingfisher Resort on Fraser Island. It is a great place, classy, eco-friendly and they welcome yachties…I had beer by the pool and Hiroko took a land shower, then I had "happy wife" which made it a great stop. Sometimes in Brisbane it took a trip to Hanaichi Sushi Bar or Korean Restaurant for "happy wife" but take them sailing for a few days and a land shower has great pull…
We are now anchored about 350 meters off the beach at Hervey Bay, last night about 9:30pm it was calm like a lake, the moon was up and I was reading a book when something under the boat made a huge splash, a huge splash…I ran up on deck…Hiroko even ran outside so you know it was something strange but I have no idea what it was…? It was too shallow for whales at 1~3 meters depending on the tide, and I didn’t see any dolphins….it was so calm you could see if there was something out there but it was left as a mystery….
I’ll keep ya posted….over and out!