On Thursday, September 11, Jeff and I motored to Whitehaven Bay on the west side of Whitsunday Island. It is well known for its long white sand beach, very picturesque. It was still windy and we weren’t that motivated to put the dinghy in the water and go to shore. We scrubbed the boat bottom in the cold clear water.
The next day, expecting a wind shift, we moved in the morning across the bay to Haslewood Island and picked up a mooring ball. We took the dinghy to the beach for a walked to a lookout. The anchorage has a strong current running through it, and our mooring ball was pretty exposed. Toward the end of the day, a mooring ball opened up in a better spot, so we started moving over to it. On our way, the engine started overheating. Because of the strong current, we didn’t have much time to maneuver, so we kept the engine on and just barely got to the mooring ball and tied up. Fortunately we were able to change the alternator belt, and the engine was back in service with no issues.
Exploring Haslewood Island
On Saturday, we motored around to Tongue Bay and picked up a mooring ball. After lunch, we took the dinghy to shore and hiked along the ridge, with beautiful views of Whitsunday and Haslewood Islands. That night was windy and rolly. On Sunday, we moved to a different mooring ball that seemed less exposed, but we had a miserable day with wind, rain and gloom. The night was even worse and we got very little sleep due to big wind and waves.
From the lookout above Tongue Bay, Looking at Whitsunday and Haslewood Island
On Monday, September 15, we left the anchorage early and sailed downwind with the jib around to Sawmill Bay again. It took three hours in winds in the twenties. When we arrived in the anchorage, the water was flat but we still had wind. It was a decent night.
Having visited some of the highlights of the Whitsunday Islands (even though the conditions were not ideal) it was time to start our journey south, down the east coast of Australia. We had a deadline of November 1, but we didn’t know what to expect or how long it would take us. On Tuesday, September 16, we pulled up the anchor at 6:30 a.m. and motored south for seven hours against the wind and currents to Goldsmith Island. We anchored in Roylen Bay with three other boats. It was a quiet night with just a bit of wind.
The next day, we again pulled up anchor at 6:30 a.m. (I should mention here that departure timing was based on what we expected each day with regard to the strength and direction of both currents and wind, which fluctuated by time and location.) We motored for four and a half hours in less than ten knot of wind and flat seas to Keswick Island. We took a mooring ball in Homestead Bay off of St. Bees Island. We were the only boat. The winds were light but the current was strong. We had a calm night.
On Thursday, we left at 6:30 a.m. and sailed on a beam reach back to MacKay Harbor. We arrived about 10:00 a.m. and went directly to our assigned berth. We immediately dropped the dinghy and took our jerry cans over to the fuel dock to fill them up with diesel. Jeff then washed the boat while I went to do laundry, which provided a good opportunity to meet people and get advice.
The next day, we got a rental car and went to the local Cole’s supermarket for provisions. After putting the groceries away, we walked on the breakwater and cooked a bit. On Saturday, we left our berth at 6:00 a.m. in very light wind. We motored toward Curlew Island and arrived at 2:00 p.m. We had a quiet night. The next day, we left at 6:15 a.m. and motored with no wind to Hunter Island. We anchored in the south anchorage with three other boats. We took the dinghy to shore and walked along the beach. It’s a private island, so we couldn’t go inland past the high-tide mark. The island had huge tidal variations, five meters. We had a quiet night.
On Monday, we pulled the anchor up at 2:00 a.m. and motored to Island Head Creek on the Australian mainland. At times we had a favorable current and at times it was against us. We entered the mouth of the creek and were anchored by 10:15 a.m. High tide was at 10:30 a.m. Because the tidal shifts are so significant, you have to navigate these inland waterways during high tide and make sure you anchor in a spot that will have enough water under you during low tide. We had a lazy afternoon.
We were in this location for protection against a blow that we were expecting. On Tuesday, we hung out on the boat and fixed things. Gnats were a problem. The expected blow came on Wednesday and continued all day. At least the gnats weren’t as bad.
On Thursday, at 11:00 a.m., it was high tide so we could go back out into the ocean from Island Head Creek. We motored twenty miles to Freshwater Bay. We arrived at 3:00 p.m. and had a rolly night. On Friday, we left at 6:00 a.m. and motored farther south to Great Keppel Island. We anchored on the west side among a lot of boats. It’s a very touristy island and loud music blasted from the Hideaway Café until very late. On Saturday we started getting ready to go ashore about 9:00 a.m. The dinghy throttle got stuck and there wasn’t much we could do about it so we blew up the kayaks and went to shore. We took a four-hour hike on the island, going up to Mt. Wyndon and around and ending up back on the beach with the kayaks. We had lunch at the Hideaway before going back to the boat.
Sunday was a lazy day on the boat after Jeff looked more closely at the dinghy throttle. On Monday, we took the kayaks on a paddle to several nearby bays. The water was beautiful and many people did not let the cold deter them from swimming. Tuesday was a windy day and we stayed on the boat.
On Wednesday, October 1st, we left early and motored to Gladstone, back on the coast. We went through the north passage, which is marked, but it is still nerve wracking to wind your way through several miles of shallow water with sand bars on either side of you. We got to the marina about 3:00 p.m. After checking in and getting showers, we walked to town for dinner.
Sailing south along the coast toward Gladstone
On Thursday, we took the dinghy to a nearby ramp and hauled it to Ship and Sail, which is a combination chandlery and motor service shop. We had made arrangements with them in advance. They agreed to look at the throttle and do a full service on the dinghy motor.
For the next week, we were stuck in Gladstone, waiting on parts for the dinghy motor. (In the end, one part never arrived and I convinced them to make a gasket out of some material I had on the boat. It is still in use.) During our week in Gladstone, we worked on the boat, met people who gave us advice, walked, and had dinners out.
When we finally got the dinghy back on Thursday, October 9th, we left the marina at noon and motored through thirty miles of shallow, narrow channels to Pancake Creek. We arrived at 5:00 p.m. and anchored for the night, positioning ourselves to go offshore the next morning.
The next day we left at 3:00 a.m. and motor sailed out to Lady Musgrave Island by way of a shipping channel, arriving at high tide at 11:00 a.m. Somewhat like Minerva Reef, it is a mostly submerged atoll with one passage through the reef. I was really nervous about this little expedition, but we managed to get through the passage without incident, and traveling across the lagoon to anchor was not as dicey as it seemed. We got a mooring ball and then went to a small interior island for a walk before returning to the boat to work on the watermaker, which had been underperforming.
On Saturday, we did some weather and route planning for the next week, and then took the dinghy out to the pass to snorkel. It was cold and the current was strong. And we had to avoid power boats speeding through the pass. But it was beautiful. We then went to another spot on the reef and did some more snorkeling, followed by a quiet afternoon on the boat.
On Sunday, we left Lady Musgrave around noon, successfully navigating the passage once again. This was an overnight sail as we headed to Hervey Bay on the mainland. Arriving on Monday during a northerly, we couldn’t find any good anchorages on Frazer Island so we kept moving south inside the bay and anchored in front of Little Woody Island. It was in the middle of nowhere but it was flat and we had a good night.
On Tuesday, we left at noon to go through the shallow part of Great Sandy Straight (an inland waterway) during peak high tide. It was long and tedious but we got through without hitting the bottom. After we got through the shallow part, we anchored at Gary’s anchorage. It was confusing and dicey getting in, and the current was strong, and we had bugs. But it was otherwise fine.
We left the anchorage the next morning at 5:45 a.m. and inched our way out in to the main channel. It was still dicey but we made it without touching bottom. Then we motored south toward Wide Bay and anchored nearby in Pelican Bay. We stayed there until 3:00 p.m., unsure about whether we would be able to navigate through the Wide Bay passage out into the ocean. If we didn’t go that day, we might have had to wait for two weeks for the right conditions. At 3:00 p.m., we made the decision to go and followed another boat out. We had 12-16 knots of wind on the nose and the tide was still coming in even though it was supposed to be slack tide. The seas were about a meter and a half. It was slow going but otherwise uneventful, taking a couple of hours to get past the bar. Once we did, we turned south and headed toward Moreton Bay. We had the wind aft of the beam and seas between one and two meters. The current was in our favor and we went along at 7+ knots with a double-reefed main.
As we approached Moreton Bay in the early hours of Thursday morning, the winds got lighter and we slowed down. We had to dodge cargo ships as we got near the shipping channel. Once we got to the channel, and it started getting light enough to see what was going on, we sailed on the edges of the channel to Moreton Island. We arrived at about 10:00 a.m. and spent the day and night on the boat, catching up on sleep.
On Friday morning, we put the dinghy in the water and went over to snorkel on a popular wreck. We were once again in a very touristy spot but the water was beautiful and there were a lot of fish to see at the wreck. Afterward, we went back to the boat, put the dinghy back up on the davits and sailed downwind for four hours to St. Helena Island, which is a stone’s throw from the city of Brisbane. We anchored on the south side in preparation for a northerly that was starting to build. We stayed on the boat all day Friday and Saturday as the northerly blew. We expected a wind shift on Saturday night, which would move the boat onto a shallow reef, so at 4:30 p.m., we pulled up the anchor and went around to the western side of the island. The wind was still building out of the northwest. After we anchored, we were subjected to an intense lightning, wind and rain storm, which moved through without striking the boat. The wind shifted as expected at 10:30 p.m.
St. Helena Island is a national park that was once a prison. On Sunday, we took the dinghy ashore and hiked on the island. A lot of it is off-limits but it was a nice place to walk and we picked wild cherry tomatoes.
Walking around St. Helena Island
On Monday, we motored to Horseshoe Bay on the south end of Peel Island. It took three hours to get there at 4 knots. Winds were out of the northwest and it was a bit lumpy in the anchorage, which gets very crowded. On Tuesday, we took the dinghy ashore and went for a nice long walk. Still in Horseshoe Bay we stayed on the boat on Wednesday. On Thursday, in the late morning, we went north a bit to the Myora anchorage in preparation for expected high winds. They continued out of the north until early afternoon and then came on strong from the southeast, which is what we had expected. The winds were in the thirties all evening, calming to nothing in the middle of the night.
With the wind event over on Friday morning, we motored south to the north end of Russell Island. We found a very iffy place to anchor among a bunch of moored boats. We put the dinghy in the water and found a dock to tie up to. We went ashore and filled up a couple of diesel cans and then went to a store and bought groceries. Then we went back to the boat, pulled up the anchor and went around to the west side of Russell Island and anchored in Brown’s Bay. We had some wind but it was a comfortable night.
In an inland waterway again, managing through big tidal swings, we pulled up anchor at 10:45 a.m. and motored to Cabbage Point, then Jacobs Well and Talleen Island. It was shallow so we had to move through at high tide. We had intended to anchor a Jacobs Well but it was quite busy and I didn’t see an obvious spot. Tulleen seemed too shallow. So we continued up to Millionaire Row, which is on the west coast of South Stradbroke Island, and anchored among the power boats. It didn’t seem like they were used to seeing a deep-draft monohull. The wind died to nothing during the night.
On Sunday, we took the dinghy ashore to the spit and then went on a hike over to the ocean side of the island. We couldn’t find the trail so we bushwacked our way across lowlands and dunes before arriving at a beautiful long ocean beach. We walked along the beach and then followed some other people back over to the other side, arriving near where we had left the dinghy.
Walking the ocean side of South Stradbroke Island
After we got back to the boat, we decided to try going around to another anchorage to wait out another blow that we were expecting. The channel was marked and deep enough for us to get around to Perry’s. There was one trawler there. Toward the end of the day, we had an intense lightning, wind and rain storm, with the lightning sometimes striking very near the boat. The storm passed before dark and then we got mosquitoes.
It would have been nice to stay in this anchorage but we decided to keep moving. We left before noon, during high tide, and got through the shallows and near the mouth of the Coomera River that afternoon. We anchored in a place that was kind of exposed but the protected area was too shallow to enter. We had a very windy night.
We stayed in that anchor spot all day on Tuesday, a very rainy day. Then on Wednesday, we moved the boat down to the Curigee campground on South Stradbroke Island. It was more scenic and we could get off the boat. We walked over to the ocean side of the island and walked down to the Gold Coast Seaway. That evening, we watched some Wednesday night sailboat races as we sat on the boat. On Thursday, we did some chores and watched more racing.
Walking toward the Gold Coast Seaway
On Friday, October 31, we pulled up anchor and during high tide, motored six miles up the Coomera River to The Boat Works, our marina for the next 6 months. It was a bit nerve wracking because even at high tide, it was shallow in places. And we had to keep clear of other boats speeding up and down the narrow river. But we made it. We checked in and got showers and a good night’s sleep.
On Saturday, November 1, we began the process of decommissioning the boat for cyclone season. We pickled the watermaker, did laundry, and cleaned the boat inside and out, sorting things and stowing things. We met with the man who would be looking after the boat for six months. And we met with people who could help get things done on the boat before the next sailing season begins. We met with a diver who could keep the bottom clean. We met with windows specialists who could replace two leaky windows. And we met with an all-around specialist who could help fix an issue with the rudder along with welding the stanchion and getting the boat bottom painted.
Among our other chores, Jeff changed the oil in the motor and I took the top piece off the slider for the companionway, cleaned off all the silicon and re-calked it. It had started leaking and I had had enough of it. Then we put sails and canvas away, put the dinghy upside down on the deck, took hardware off the deck and stowed it down below. We closed thru hulls, turned everything off except a couple of cabin fans, installed the de-humidified, tossed food.
Finally, on November 10, we were done putting the boat away. It was raining quite a bit but we took an Uber to the Coomera train station and took a train to downtown Brisbane. We stayed the night in a nice apartment and had dinner in town. The next day, Jeff got an early flight to New Zealand for a few weeks of hiking. I got as far as halfway down the runway before the mid-morning flight was aborted. Because the plane had to be thoroughly checked out, they put us up in hotels that night and we successfully flew to San Francisco the next day. I then caught a flight to San Diego, in time for Thanksgiving and winter holidays with family.
