Fraser Island

It’s now more than a week since our last entry and quite a lot has happened (or not happened as the case may be!!).

Our attempt to leave Mooloolaba was aborted at the eleventh hour due mainly to the fact that the swells were over two meters high and forecast to continue throughout the night and next day. This meant potentially a very lumpy sail to the much feared Wide Bay Bar then an impossible crossing once there. The forecast for the rest of the week didn’t look any more promising, so it was a ‘wait and see’ situation - which we are now quite used to and not at all perturbed by.

Mike suggested I go back to Melbourne and spend time giving Adam and Emma a hand for a few days. He didn’t need to say it twice, I was on the net, had booked a flight and was at the airport all within a few hours of him making the suggestion. Mike spent the time I was away chatting to people around the marina and getting lots of tips from the more experienced cruisers. He also bought a bicycle (a K-Mart special) and in between torrential downpours he went cycling around the town and, of course, visited Andrew and Marie.

After a very very busy week in Melbourne I arrived back in Mooloolaba on Monday evening to be told that we were to set sail at 0500hrs the next morning - destination, the dreaded Wide Bay Bar, gateway to the inner passage past Fraser Island.

Mike had arranged to sail in company with another couple who have a lovely old (33 years old to be exact) 52 foot Ketch ( ok Ben what’s a Ketch? If you get it wrong it’s brussel sprouts for dinner next time you come on board) which they have sailed all around the world for 16 years. They are heading to Bundaberg then across to Solomon Islands (as you do), so we arranged to go as far as Bundaberg together.

The technical term for the state of the seas coming up from Mooloolaba to Double Island Point, just south of the Bar, was ‘sloppy’ – this meant that the boat was rolling about in a succession of short 1.5 meter waves, making it quite impossible to relax. What was good about the trip, however, was that the wind was coming from behind, so we sailed (yes, sailed!) for the entire day with only the foresail up, making well over seven knots!

Once we passed Double Island Point and turned into Wide Bay the seas calmed down considerably, and our sailing became much more sedate..

Mike put the two Wide Bay Bar waypoints into the chart plotter. These are the GPS co- ordinates that tell you where you should start your transit of the bar and where to turn once you have crossed it. We reached our first waypoint, informed the Coastguard we were crossing (very dramatic), and then headed cautiously for the infamous breakers and the second waypoint, where we were to make a left turn. However, by this time the sea had become so calm that the breakers were nowhere to be seen. We only realised we had gone across the bar when Mike noticed that we had passed the second waypoint and were heading for the beach!

A few swift changes of course, and we were all clear, heading up the channel to Tin Can Bay, making for Gary’s anchorage, where we spent a very calm night.

We planned to leave early next morning to arrive at a very shallow part of the channel just before high tide. It was a long slow motor with Mike downstairs at the computer and me upstairs at the helm following his directions, but we managed to navigate through the sand banks without incident.

A new way to
give the
helmsman
directions!

We got through the shallowest part using not only the GPS and all of our relevant available printed matter including Alan Lucas’s Cruising the Queensland Coast book to aid us. Imagine our surprise, when, right in the midst of these shallows, we passed a familiar-looking yacht coming the other way - there on board waving vigorously at us was none other than the Man himself, Alan Lucas, aboard his yacht Soleares. Mike said it was a bit like meeting God!! (how blasphemous).

The Fraser Island
shoreline

Tonight we sit at anchor off Big Woody Island, waiting to brave the open spaces of Hervey Bay, on the way to Bundaberg, forty miles distant. More later…