Its sunny, so is it QLD?

It’s sunny, so it must be QLD.

We were a day late getting out of Yamba on account of the weather. The trip to Southport turned into another long leg as we couldn’t get into Ballina as the entry was closed due to the swell, and the swell didn’t allow us to anchor at Byron, so we kept going and arrived at Southport about 10.30pm, anchoring just up from Seaworld and in the morning we went down to the Southport Yacht Club and grabbed a berth for the night.

We’ve had the opportunity to compare a few of the different marinas that we’ve stayed at and they all have their good points, but Southport is the best to date. The diesel is a lot cheaper than anywhere we have been and it’s easy to get to the pump. The staff are very friendly and helpful and the location is great - only 300 mtrs from the beach and a short walk to the shops.

The boat is going well and should go better now, as we’ve rejuvenated the power to the bow thruster (which stopped on us while trying to back into a parking spot); new battery, terminal and a massage of the solenoid which was done by an eleco who was working on the boat -2 thredbo 5’s later we were fixed. The thought of reversing into a spot without this gizmo would have been unthinkable a month ago, so we’ve come a fair way in boat handling (or so we thought at the time).

We decided to take the inland waterway route to Moreton Bay, which is about 25 miles of bobbing and weaving on a river system that is not very deep. We asked for advice at Southport and then from the Jacob’s Well marine rescue unit and were prepared for the worst bit just east of Jacob’s Well, which requires a reasonable high tide for us to get over it with our draft of 7ft. The high tide at lunch time wasn’t all that high and we figured we would get there and have a look, expecting to wait ‘til midnight to have enough water underneath us. The river system gradually devolves itself of canal developments and turns into mangroves and the channel markings are good, but can be confusing at river junctions, which is where we came to grief…although inside the port marker, we found a mud shoal at about 5 kts and couldn’t get off. A lovely couple in an outboard tried to tow us off backwards (the theory being deep water is behind you), but to no avail. We had another 40 mins before the tide turned and unless we got off “now” we would be there until midnight, when the next high tide occurred. A mid size cruiser came past and graciously agreed to have a go, but his idea was to pull our bow around into the deeper water which apparently was about 2 meters to our right (local knowledge is a wonderful thing). This was successful (praise the lord), and we were on our way to the next challenge.

As we approached Jacob’s Well, the Captain called the marine rescue unit and asked for some specific advice. We sited a deep keel yacht (“Balour”) ahead ,who had been trying to get through the shallow part and was having no luck. As we approached them, their crew called out that they had bottomed 5 times and were about to retreat. The technique we used was to go slow and move the bow around to allow the depth sounder to tell you where the deeper water is and slowly go there until it indicates shallow water and repeat the process. The sea gods must have taken pity on us after having earlier having brought us to our knees, because we arrived at the worst spot right on high tide and jagged the right path, slowly working our way through the channel (you could have swam faster). The other boat watched us go past, gave us about 200 meters start and then followed our path. We didn’t celebrate our success for another 2 hours as the river kept shoaling - it felt a bit like the African Queen, except I knew the crew wouldn’t get out and pull this boat.

We spent the night still in the river at the southern end of Moreton Bay and the next day, in what started out as light showers and low gray clouds, headed off to complete the trip through the river system. The showers turned to heavy rain and the crew wanted a transfer, but it eventually passed as we left the channels and we had a good sail up to the northern part of the bay - which is a bit boring except for the variable depths around the place and the industrial pollution that was deposited over the front of the boat (more work for the crew).

The boat is heading for Mooloolaba this morning and hopefully some more sun. We'll pick up a new crew member (Craig one of our neighbours) for the trip to Hervey Bay.