A Mooloolaba postscript...

Well, we didn't go. The storm came through and the wind blew, and we went to bed.

The next day, we looked at the weather forecasts, and at the tides on the Wide Bay Bar for the next week, and decided that Jo should go back to Melbourne (my suggestion) to help out with her granddaughter and to celebrate her first brithday (the granddaughter- not Jo!).

As a result, I am sitting here on the boat in the rain, hoping that the weather will be suitable when Jo returns...

More Mooloolaba

We have been here in Mooloolaba for just over a week now. It’s been a fabulous week of sun, laughter (if you knew our friend Marie you’d know what I mean!!), good food and wine. Gary and Loz arrived on Samoya a few days ago too so that added to the social occasion. Our neighbours here at the marina are all very friendly and always ready to have a BBQ and a chat in the evenings. It’s great because we gain so much in the way of local knowledge (and I’m not talking small town gossip here!!) which is invaluable.

We went out for a sail this morning and actually manages to do just that. Marie has her niece Pamela and her friend Christof (sorry if I spelt it wrong!) visiting from down South so we took them out for a quick trip along the coast and back it was lovely.

Our southern
visitors off
Mooloolaba

These stopovers are not just an excuse to let our hair down and get p---ed every night, we do use the time to do the necessary maintenance on board. This current interlude saw us renewing our mattress in the forepeak which had collapsed in the middle (don’t bother with the jokes we’ve heard them all!!) The renewal process entailed Mike and Andrew (who fortunately for us has a car) carting one of the two sections of mattress off to Clarke Rubber and getting the guy to cut two new sections out of high density foam of precisely the right size- and now we sleep like babies. We also repaired the mattress in the aft cabin as it had also succumbed to the collapsed mattress syndrome, which Ben had discovered one time when he stayed on board.

We have been talking about heading further up the coast all week and now today (or I should say tonight) is the night, or so we thought. As I write this, the heavens have opened up and we are experiencing a real tropical downpour with bent over palm trees and all!! We are not due to leave for another 4 hours that is 2200hrs so it could all pass over by then. The reason for the late departure is that we will be crossing the Wide Bay Bar (which is something like 5 miles long) as we enter into The Great Sandy Strait between the mainland and Fraser Island. Now, the Wide Bay Bar apparently needs to be crossed at the right time (which I think is one hour before high tide) as the ocean swells can make getting over the bar quite tricky. Also, it’s better to cross it in the morning as in the afternoon it can be impossible to see the leads that show the way through. The yachties amongst you will know what I mean (or more correctly know that I don’t have a clue what I’m talking about!!) the rest of you will know as much as I do when you have read this (yes,ok, so that’s not a great deal).

Should we stay
or
should we go??

The rain is subsiding it’s now three and a half hours before our ETD. We are leaving in company with two other yachts so we will see what the consensus of opinion is and take it from there.

Jo.

Mooloolaba

As soon as Jo returned from her trip down south, we had intended to head to Mooloolaba, but the winds were in the wrong direction. So instead we decided to enjoy a couple of days at anchor in a couple of sheltered spots in Moreton Bay.

First we headed off to Horseshoe Bay on Peel Island, where we could anchor and shelter from the northerly wind. This was perfect – and the twenty or so boats that followed us across the bay from Manly thought so too. It was lovely to get onto a sandy beach, again - and even to drift across the live coral that we found at the end of the bay.

Peel Island

The next night we dropped anchor off Moreton Island at a spot that offered shelter from north-easterly, and easterly winds. This was perfect in the evening, but as the night went on, the wind went round first to north, then west and finally to south west. As a consequence, we had quite a rough night, during which neither of us got much sleep!

Sunday we left for Mooloolaba, a thirty-odd mile run out of Moreton Bay along the main shipping channel. It’s amazing how fast those big ships come up and then pass by!

A ship passes
us by

Mike tries
another way
to hang the
dinghy

Mooloolaba turned out to be a great place to stay and wait for the right winds and tides for us to head further north to Fraser Island. Here we have met up once again with Andrew and Marie and their boat ‘Sentosa’, who had been our companions on the trip between Wilsons Prom and Sydney. Andrew and Marie have bought a house on one of the canals here in Mooloolaba, while their boat sits near us in the Marina where we are staying.

Meander and
Sentosa in
Mooloolaba

Andrew welcomes
us to his new
home

The sun is shining, the winds are warm, and everyone in the Marina is very friendly. Looks like the week or so here is going to be fun!

Mike

Manly yet again

This has been a pretty quiet week for me, mainly taken up with fixing a number of minor bugs in the boat (such as the engine not starting, and water getting into the bilges…).

The crew

The highlight was a visit yesterday by Melissa (Mick O’Sullivan’s daughter), Randal (her husband), and their two children, Brendan and Mattie. Ben came along too, to provide me with moral support! We went for a bit of a sail in what was very calm conditions, and great fun was had by all. As the photos show, Brendan has the making of a master mariner! What the photos don’t show is that Mattie has the making of a master wombat, as she nested in as many tight spots below as she could find, and then pleaded with Brendan to ‘play wombats’ with her!

A master mariner
at the wheel

5-year-old Mattie took to her life jacket quite happily, and it fitted her well. Jo will be interested to see this picture, as we are as yet uncertain as to what size vest her own granddaughter, Matilda, will require when she comes to visit later this year.

The next
super-model?

We got back to the marina just in time to join a queue of well over 50 yachts, fresh from a race, and all lining up to go down the narrow channel into the harbour. We’d left Melbourne to avoid getting into rush hour traffic, and here we were stuck in more traffic!

Part of the
queue

The boat is now ready to receive Jo fresh from her adventures in Melbourne, and we hope to head off to Mooloolaba towards the end of this week…

Solo in Manly

Sunset over
two of the
three marinas
in the harbour
at Manly



Jo went back to Melbourne last Tuesday for a couple of weeks to catch up with her family and keep her hand in professionally. As I had decided not to go back with her this time, I’ve been left on my own on the boat for a bit…

Hmm.. what does one do in a marina for an extended period of time? Well, let me see… I get up, go and have a shower, stroll into the town for a newspaper and then come back to the boat for a coffee and a read of the national and international news. Then it’s boat stuff - cleaning, repairing and adjusting – all the stuff that one does on any boat (such as trying various ways to hand the dinghy off the back of the boat without having to have davits made).

After that it’s a stroll back to the shops for food and stuff, and then back to the boat to make lunch and watch the other boaties wandering up and down the walkways, watching still other boaties.

Then it’s time to sort out what I’m going to cook for an evening meal, and to make a few phone calls to Jo. More fixing stuff follows and then it’s time to settle down with a drink and a watch of the passing boaties while the sun sets. Once it’s dark it’s meal preparation time and the opportunity for another drink before turning on the TV and settling down for the regular task of surfing the airways for something decent to watch.

Then it’s time for bed.

Sounds boring – but the days rush by and I’m not at all bored the gentle rhythm of my life here.

Today was a day of excitement. I had visitors! Clare, the daughter of my brother-in-law Michael O’Sullivan, and her partner Anthony came for a sail, and so I that was what we did. Getting out of the pen was less of a drama than the last time we did it, despite a 15 knot cross-wind and an audience of anxious boat owners who leapt to the sterns of their boats as we passed, ready to fend us off if we look like crashing into them. In fact we crashed into nobody, and Anthony didn’t fall into the water when he gave the vital push to the boat that sent it into the middle of the narrow freeway between the pontoons.

We had a very nice sail across to Peel Island, in the middle of Moreton Bay, where we dropped anchor and had lunch. Coming back was quite interesting, however, as we had winds up to 27 knots and banks of low threatening clouds gathering above us. Luckily I had already reefed the main and foresail in anticipation of the strong winds, so the boat and my passengers took the conditions in their stride.

Clare at the wheel
on the way out

Note the dinghy
behind her

Anyway, we came back into the marina without incident (apart from a brief pirouette in the bay while the sails were being taken down, in the course of which I lost yet another hat...). In fact we got back into the pen with remarkable ease. I was quite proud of myself!

Clare and Antony
safely back on
terra firma!





So, I'm having a good time here as a solo sailor, but I'm looking forward to having Jo back again!