Mackay Harbour

24th to 31st July

Staying at the marina for a while, more bad weather due, not that you could tell from our sail in to the marina, very nice. Caught up with washing, cleaning and sorting photos on my computer.

While we were there this thick fog came in and within an hour it was gone.

Culew Island

23rd July

Sundowners on the beach, meet 2 more boaties who are traveling North for winter

Hunter Island

22nd July

Martin doing a weather report over the radio.

Island Head Creek

16th to 21st July

There is some bad weather coming so we heard this was a good place as it is protected on a lot of sides, a very nice spot but there was no phone or radio service. I was very happy with the radio Amanda and Stephen gave me for my 50th birthday, it takes a USB stick so we had some music to listen to.

Keppel Island

7th to 15th July
Doesn't matter where you live there is always housework, today it's the mainsail that needed cleaning. Also we ran out of bread so time to bake
We were told that there was a lady that lives on the island that will make you a coffee and tell you more about the island. So we went for a walk to find her, one an half hours and 2 hills later we gave up. We turned around to return home to make our own cupper. Still a nice walk which we did with our neighbours Noel and David.
Sundowners on the beach, always a good idea.

Gladstone to Keppel Bay (through The Narrows)

Belinda will pick up the other bit later but I just wanted to get down our trip through the Narrows.  This is the strip of water between the mainland and Curtis Island.

We left Gladstone marina about 0630 yesterday which was just after low tide.  The tidal flow from Boat Creek (in the middle of the Narrows) goes south with the falling tide and also from there (Boat Creek) it goes North with the falling tide.  By that I mean Boat Creek is in the middle where it meets.
We could have left Gladstone later and had more tide assistance but instead we left early when the tide had stopped flowing against us and headed up the channel for a couple of hours.  We stopped around Black Swan Island and anchored for a couple of hours waiting for the tide to rise sufficiently.
Interesting fact, the Narrows aren't really narrow, they are however very shallow and in places dry out to 2.1m above sea level.
The projected high tide was 3.5m which means that in that one spot where it dries to 2.1m we would have a total of 1.4m of water at high tide and we draw 1.2m.  Makes it pretty close.
Anyway, we up anchored at 1030 and started to tiptoe out way through.  On the charts where it dries out it's displayed in green, while the areas that don't dry still stay blue.

 

Pancake Creek

2nd July

We planed to moved further into Pancake Creek after breakfast. Martin did his normal engine checks before turning then on, but found a belt was fraying and losing chunks off it. Not a problem we don't have far to go we will use one motor. Done all is good, we get in there found a nice area to anchor for our stay here. Time to relax and enjoy our next anchorage, after Martin replaced the belt of course.

After lunch we thought we would take the tender and have a look around the area. This sounds easy I know, but the motor wouldn't start, our reliable 2 stroke Yamaha 3HP, so sad. Martin spent the afternoon trying to fix it. In the mean time Col & Molly (they are from one of the boats we traveled with from Bundaberg) came to organize sundowners for 4.30 on the sandbank. We will be there even if we have to paddle the tender there.

At 4 o'clock we were starting to organize what to take to sundowners (Wine or Beer) when we looked up to found our American neighbors boat getting very close to us. Not happy with this anchorage any longer we decided to move our boat before sundowners and dark. Now that we have found a nice area to anchor for our stay here, it's time to relax and enjoy our next anchorage.

Time to paddle to sundowners and meet more of our neighbors. Had a great time. Bonus we found 2 mechanics that are happy to help fix the dinghymotor.

Bundaberg to Pancake Creek

1st July - left Bundaberg at 4.00am, arrival at Pancake Creek 3.30pm.

We left Bundaberg at 4am with 2 other boats, it was nice to have the company for the day. The sea conditions were great, not much swell, enough wind for us to put the main sail and head sail up and turn off the motors, we actually sailed the sailing boat..... for 30 minutes before the wind died. Better than nothing.

We arrived at Pancake Creek ahead of time, anchored at the entrance for the night, wasn't to bad just a bit of sloshing.