We came north to Townsville
to find our friends on ZENITUDE and go exploring the Barrier Reef. We thought there would be more time to spend
here and more calmer days to anchor out at the reef but the wind was blowing
strong. Oscar had water pump problems
with his dinghy engine so we fixed that but he had to take the ferry to Townsville
twice to get parts. This delayed us to
the point that if we took the next calm period, we would not be able to head
back to the Whitsundays for at least 2 more weeks.
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| Booker, Jane, and Phil |
We went in to the Nelly Bay Marina for 5 days
to get away from the rolling swell in Horseshoe. The days were spent hauling diesel from the
petrol station, grocery shopping, washing the boat, and doing preventative
maintenance. We met some backpackers,
Phil and Jane, partied, and spent some time walking about.
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| The top of a Stepping Stone |
We used the north wind and
had a nice 24 hour trip down to Bait Reef.
We sailed the entire time except for 5 hours when it got calm.
The reef was really
nice. The Stepping Stones are a row of maybe
10 giant flat topped coral heads about 50 feet high and 20 feet in
diameter. The coral was beautiful, the water
crystal clear, and heaps of fish. We
were using a Marine Park mooring so as to not destroy the coral. One sweep of our anchor chain across the
bottom can wipe out a thousand years of coral growth in a minute.
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| Our fish friend. He let us touch him. No worries. |
We left the following day and
went to Whitehaven Bay. The last
place on our checklist of anchorages in the Whitsundays. The beach was beautiful white sand but very
crowded with tourist boats during the day.
The plan was to start south
when the winds would allow. The normal
wind pattern has been to have 3-4 hours of calm in the morning that we could
use to motor to the next place. We were
passing Burning Point on Shaw Island and got a call on the radio from our friends, Terry
and Elaine, on Virgos Child. They were
anchored there with Colin and Sjani on Shikama.
We dropped anchor next to them and ended up spending the next 2 weeks
with them there and in the Mackay Marina.
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| Booker on Whitehaven Beach |
We waited 10 days in Mackay
paying $75/day for the berth. Ouch. Finally things looked good and we headed out
only to find the winds on our nose. We
turned northeast and went to anchor at Scawfell Island. We saw some
incredibly large sea turtles in the anchorages.
The 100 mile stretch of coast
south of Mackay is a difficult passage.
The 20+ foot tides cause strong currents that run counter to the winds,
at least twice a day. Cape Townshend, is not quite like Cape Hatteras but is nothing to mess around with. The currents whip around the Cape
and there are always steep short period waves that are called 'overfalls'. You need to time the tides for your passage
around the cape.
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| Whitehaven Beach |
We left Scawfell and were
able to sail for most of the day. We
were doing well until passing the Percy Islands at sunset and had an unexpected 2 knot current
reversal. We went from 8 to 4 knots. We wanted to pass Cape Townshend at midnight for the tides so we fired up the diesels to keep our speed at 8
knots. At 11PM we heard on the radio a very worried 'bloke' on QUE
SERA calling for help. Nobody was
answering so we called him back to see what was going on. He had lost his engine and couldn't sail
faster than the current. His position was 5 miles from us, closer to
the land, about 1 mile from the rocks and being pulled into 'Thirsty
Sound'. We diverted to his position,
dropped our sails, and stood by in case he was grounded. When the tide changed at midnight he was able to make headway and headed south along
with us and another boat, ANDIAMO.
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| Mackay Marina... notice the height of the pilings... huge tides. |
After Cape Townshend we saw no reason to stop anywhere so we continued for
another day and arrived at Bundaberg just in time for thunderstorms to dump
rain and wind on us when trying to get docked.
We stayed at the Bundaberg Marina, $65/day, for 2 days and headed to the
Great Sandy Straits between Fraser Island and the mainland.
We anchored at Moon Point, were greeted by more sea turtles, and had a
nice night.
It takes a full day to make
it down the Straits to Wide Bay where we once again enter the ocean. A high pressure over the Tasman Sea is reinforcing the tradewinds and are forecast to blow hard from the
southeast for 5-6 days.
Our options are to go hide
behind an islet for that time or head 16 miles up the Mary River to historic Maryborough and explore. We chose Maryborough.
The trip up the river took 4
hours from the Sandy Straits. We ran
aground once and almost hit 2 other times.
The river has silted in from the agricultural runoff and major floods
over the past 3 years. There is almost
no visibility due to the muddiness. It
is impossible to see the shifting uncharted sandbars. Even when you are stuck on one. Fortunately the diesel engines were able to
back us off against the current. I would
much rather hit a mud bank than a coral head.
The Mary River has had some huge summer floods that put most of the
waterfront underwater. There were 2 in
2012 that were around 35 feet above normal river level which wreaked havoc on
the marina. The boats in the boatyards
all floated away and the floating docks went higher than the pilings and were
washed away. The residents seem to take
it all in stride and the boaters all keep a good eye on the weather when it
starts to rain.
