Once ashore, this was the scene back out to SeeBeeZee at anchor
We woke early at Moon Point at the northern end of the Great Sandy Straits, and headed out into Hervey Bay. Wathumba Creek was to be our destination for the day and it is only a short distance along the western shore of K’gari, but we were on a schedule as the plan was to arrive at low tide. The lagoon at Wathumba dries to an extensive sand patch at low tide, and the deep channel which we need to use is constantly shifting with tides and storms, making any historic navigation information useless. I had no intention of using our previous track as I knew that the channel would have moved since we were last there.
Conditions were lighter than forecast, and we had to make the most of the conditions to get along the coast of K’gari. As K’gari runs north, this western shore has a large bight in the eastern end of Hervey Bay, and forms a corner known as Platypus Bay, into which Wathumba Creek drains. The turquoise colours of the coral water over white sand welcome us to the entrance, where we anchored off and went exploring by dinghy.
The creek was too shallow to enter, even with the dinghy, but we were intending to walk along the edge of the deep channel with the Navionics app running on our mobile phone, recording our path as a track for us to later follow in the yacht at high tide. We had to be careful walking through the pools of water that were left marooned as the tide ebbed away. Each of the pools contained a large number of large stingrays that had buried their bodies in the sand, leaving only their tail protruding.
We continued around the meandering channel to the area where we like to set up camp in the lagoon, with just a thin spit of sand protecting the lagoon from the bay outside. The spit has been badly eroded since we were last here, on both sides, and the thin strip of vegetation is now even thinner. If this erosion continues, this beautiful lagoon will soon be lost to the sea. The short walk over the spit reveals what we regard as the best beach in Queensland.
With our entrance track recorded, we return to find the dinghy floating in deep water with the tide flooding back in. I had to swim out to recover it, and come back to pick up Birgit. Back on SeeBeeZee we had lunch while waiting for the tide to fill, and had tide to prepare our two spare anchors so that we can securely hold a position as the tidal stream runs past the spot we have chosen to dry out. Once the tide was high enough, we motored slowly along our recorded track, and anchored up with the three anchors out.
Once all set, all there was to do was enjoy the sunset over the water.
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