Back from Europe, back from some time at home, and we’re heading north again in SeeBeeZee. At the moment, we are in the Great Sandy Straits, the body of water that separates Australia from K’gari (what was once known as Fraser Island).
After returning to the boat from our road trip to NSW, we spent some time getting our new solar panels installed on the boat, and re-provisioning while we had the car to lug our load from the supermarket.
Finally, with all prepared, we slipped off the dock on the afternoon of June 6, and spent the night anchored at Raby Bay, in Moreton Bay Brisbane. Since then, we travelled each day with light offshore westerly breezes. Offshore breezes keep the ocean flat, especially if you hug the coast, but the air coming off the land tends to be more turbulent than a sea breeze.
The next day, we used the ebb tide to flush us out the north end of Moreton Bay to get to Mooloolaba, where we anchored at sea, off the beach in the bay. On the 8th, the wind was even lighter, struggling to gust to 10 knots all day, and we averaged only 2.7 knots on the short hop to Noosa, where we anchored offshore again. Our early morning departure the next day was captured by the Fishing Noosa Youtube channel, where we feature in the opening moments of their video for the day. We stayed the night at Double Island Point, and crossed a very flat Wide Bay Bar the next morning. With no wind at all, we motored in to Kauri Creek. Next morning, a light southerly gave us hope of sailing through the Great Sandy Straits, but once clear of Kauri Creek, the breeze dropped away to nothing, and by the time the tide had turned, we were only just at Moonboom Island in the straits, so stopped there for the night. The following morning high tide coincided with a light westerly, so with just the genoa unfurled, we sailed very slowly over the shallows at Sheridan Flats, and anchored up on the sandbank out from the mouth of Yankee Jack Creek.
We’ve come some distance already, and missed out on seeing some of our friends along the way, but we need to get north quickly now if we are going to achieve our goal for this year.
With no wind on the forecast for a few days, we were looking forward to getting a look at SeeBeeZee’s hulls, which hadn’t been out of the water for nearly six months. There was nowhere for us to go, with no wind, and it was a good opportunity to clean the mud and algae that had accumulated around the waterline and topsides.
From here, we’re planning to head for Pancake Creek, stopping a couple of places in between. The forecast is for fresh SW winds early this week, so it should be a good run.
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