Onward and southward; Farewell Queensland.

 With the Whitsundays in our wake....

It just so happened that the northerlies started early September which many yachts took advantage of, including us! Onward and south ward!

We sort of got stuck in a few places with SE blows. Island Head Creek was one....

Urangan Boat Harbour and the Gold Coast another. Whilst the anchorages were great, Urangan turned out to be not so good as the marina pontoons were like a bucking bronco for the last three hours of a flood in any strong northerly winds. Considering we had up to 30 knots.....it got a little scary. We had a few bolts missing off our dock near the post! However, they were painting the rails so the marina looked good! We still preferred it to sitting somewhere down Great Sandy Strait in 30 to 40 knots for the week!

Whilst in Urangan we caught the bus down to Maryborough..more river ratshanging out there. Some beautiful old buildings..but the poor old town has certainly seen better days.

The upside of Urangan was meeting Stylopora's new owners who gave us the use of their pen at RQYS, Manly, Brisbane! We would have stayed there longer (than 2 weeks!) had they not been returning! We waited in the Gold Coast, Bums Bay for the weather to improve further south. A great anchorage, even though a little tight at times.

During our waiting, Peter has done an excellent job finishing polishing all the lights...well much more than polishing as the solid brass lamps have gone from being horribly tarnished to looking like new! I have been writing a few more articles....so we have kept ourselves busy!

We had some great sails with one frustrating evening getting into Hexham Island where the wind came in SE 20 knots after dark resulting in us having our two enemies against us...wind and tide! Hexham is a small, rocky anchorage but we felt ok as we had been in before. Anchor down at 2300 hours ending a long day from McKay. We were in a hurry to sit out the strong winds at Island Head Creek, which we made the next day.....as did 15 other boats. Excellent anchorage!

We did another big hop from Yeppoon to Bundy in 18 hours with good NE/NW winds. Sitting in Pancake Creek in a NW'ly with little protection was not for us! We had great TV coverage at sea so were able to watch our favourite program in the evening. Anchor down at Bundy by 0100 was like coming home!

Late one afternoon, during this sail, whilst waiting for the HF weather update, I was watching the speed; 9.7 knots and was wondering how long Peter will keep the assy up.....a yell from the captain that I was needed on deck....foredeck duty..oh my..I don't do foredeck! It takes two of us to hoist and drop the sock.....a little bit of info Peter picked up by watching the racing yachts at Airlie and Hammo. I hold the sock so it does not twist!

Anyway.....in pulling the sock down in 22 knots I thought Peter was going to do a Mary Poppins on me! With two of us...we managed to get the sock down. lesson 1.....run more square and blanket the sock a little more and get it down before the wind gets up to 22 knots. Peter thinks he is racing and has a full crew!! However, not having the halyards twisted would also help!

Heading south has been a wonderful catch up,time with so many yachties. We spent a few days with Tony and Val (previous Stylopora owners we met in the Kimberly)...Tony now drives the boat to and from 4X island....so we got a little trip out there.

 Trevor from Malarkey who just arrived in Bundy, Deb and Jonno, Taka Oa in the Great Sandy Straits,

Deb and Russ, Lady Ann in Mooloolabar, Marg as in the other half of Jules in Tiarre II and Lyn and Nicholas from Shweetie in the Gold Coast. Some of these yachties we crossed the Pacific with. Last but not least we had a great Pacific reunion with Virgos Child, Malarkey, and Condesa. We had a brief chat with Alan from Amnesia, who also crossed with us last year. Aeolus whom we met in Mexico was anchored in Bums Bay, Gold Coast and it was fantastic catching up with them as well.

We were able to anchor outside Kawana Marina, Mooloolabar, which was great as Deb and Russ were there. We cycled a few 20km days up and down the coast!

I was pretty chuffed as I got to borrow my ideal bike!

We have finally got the boat sailing well and 200 mile days, or part there of, are getting to be a norm....pity it has taken us 5,000 nm to work this out...are we slow learners or what! Maybe it's just that we have steady winds now and the assy has made a huge difference, not to mention that we sail 3/4 of a knot faster with the Kiwi Prop. We crossed to Australia from Fiji with Malarkey, a Beneteau 473 who sailed marginally faster than us. We were happy to see that when we both sailed from Mooloolabar to Brisbane, we were faster and higher than Malarkey! We were cruising along and they were trying to sail faster! Malarkey was sold to a Kiwi couple whom we had the pleasure of meeting.

There have been so many pods of whales to keep us company heading south and thankfully we did not have any close calls, although many close encounters! The bar at Great Sandy Strait was a doddle....flat calm so that is one bar under our belt! Anything after the bar at El Salvador would have to be a doddle!

Brisbane is a great city

set up for visitors and people in the city.....free community pool/swimming hole in the centre of town much like Airlie Beach

and City Cycle....bike stations all around the city. For a $2 registration, you can ride for free if you time your route well and swap bikes at the stations. Otherwise it's around $6 for 1.5 hours. A fantastic way to get around. Busses and trains make for easy travel around Brisbane, albeit expensive!

Our trip through Morton Bay was interesting and worthy of further exploration. Due to silting up of the channels, we were advised to stick to the main channel, which was fine at LW of 0.34m. After much discussion with some of the yachties we met, and looking at the chart, we decided to go under the power cables just before Jacob's Well at LW ......with 65 feet from water line to mast head, we had about 1.5 m clearance.....including the VHF antenna at the top of the mast! Being a cooler day, the sag would have been less and there is reportedly a margin of error as well...ie they are higher than officially listed! Which was just as well as otherwise we would have had only 1/2 m clearance! The east west channel from Jacob's Well had been dredged and in exiting the eastern side of the channel, it's best to stay as close to the red marker as possible! Following the charts, we did park here momentarily! We saw 6 dugongs on our way through Morton Bay. Would have loved to have gone swimming with them!

Queensland is certainly set up for visitors and the public to enjoy the great outdoors. Parks along the Gold Coast had something for everyone. Something Perth could learn from. We had to visit Surfers Paradise but would not like to be here permanently.

Certainly fantastic beach culture. The iconic beach looks its part, although getting a little washed away after the last storms in January.

The sun beds that line the walk ways are a treat.....Peter taking in the atmosphere!

Some great parks; if not a little quirky!

 Everyone we met in Queensland along the way were helpful and extended us kindness.

Our next destination is Yamba, our first port of call in NSW. We have missed some amazing events in Sydney like the tall ships and Naval Celebration as well as the Opera House's 40 th birthday. We are looking forward to sailing past the great Australian icons of the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge and just hanging out in the myriad of bays that make up Sydney environs. We have 340 miles to go to the heads!

We managed to escape the big thunder storms that can plague this area. However, they are also present down the coast with the southerly changes. It's late October and we are seeing some signs of changes in weather patterns, however the next 200 miles to Port Stephens will be done quickly to avoid the strong southerlies.

Wonderful Whitsundays!

As we were now in the Whitsundays, it so happened that the highs were not so high being around 1022HP and hence we had 3 weeks of winds under 10 knots. Of course the two regattas, Airlie Beach Race Week and Hammo Is were both plagued with light winds.  For us, heaven on a stick!

From Shaw Island in the south of the Whitsundays we had stunning calm anchorages littered with whales and turtles! How good is that! We have mat many cruisers and enjoyed the walks.  The stunning Whitehaven beach was all that it lived up to and we stayed for 5 glorious days. It got little busy between 1000 and 1530 with tourists, but we had only a handful of boats there in between.

We walked the entire length of Whitehaven beach and back up, 10km in all which was a decent exercise. There were helicopters that had dropped their punters off at various places to get the experience of being on an isolated beach…they almost got what they paid for!

In the afternoons, yachties gather on the shore to do what we do….sundowners.

Peter, on his walks, would sing. A lovely thing to share but I suspect it was to scare away the snakes! He carries a spider stick to carefully remove the webs as we walk. The views and beaches we came across on our walks never failed to disappoint. We found many bush turkey mounds that were larger than Peter!

There was one day and night when winds over 20 knots were forecast so we decided to go into Nara Inlet, which offers all round protection. Peter said that he had sailed all those miles overseas, and he finds what he was looking for at Nara Inlet! Well almost! It is certainly a stunning anchorage with aboriginal art at its head. There were only a handful of boats there when we arrived and by nightfall we had over 40! The anchor lights twinkling provided our own little galaxy!

We climbed Whitsunday Peak...a lengthy and somewhat of a challenge, however when you have climbed Mt Kinabalu, anything is possible! The views, of course are worth it!

Hamilton Is in the background.

Outboard issues we had earlier (ie engine cutting out; not so good in a tidal race!) were solved with putting the fuel through the baha filter. Water in the fuel was the culprit! Old fuel left over the wet season with condensation inside the tank.

We have the VHF on scan to listen to the goings on and pick up any useful information. There is one yacht, Fluffy Muffy…whilst we thought we could not charter a boat with that name, Sam and Stu thought that would be fun!! It sounds as though the yachts here suffer from a lack of maintenance and punters who either do not have engine instruction or ignore it. Complaints about over heating engines is common…the cause…the engine being upset at being run over 3000rpm. We must admit that the charter operators at the other end of the VHF do have the patience of a saint, as they are very polite and patient!

Our venture into Airlie Beach was to meet Sam and Hitchhiker. Dave McCready (aka Macka) from FSC once again trucked HH over here. He is such a great guy who does his job with such a passion, and of course being a yachties, enjoys the history of HH. Outback Truckers, a Ch 7 program are doing a session on the journey here, being 10,000km. Dave and his escort Andy had a film crew with them the whole time. The first crew were apparently great as they had done filming in Afghanistan and various difficult places, but the Sydney city crew ….well, it sounds like they learnt a few things being with Dave and Andy! We look forward to seeing the program.

Airlie was in full swing with the Airlie Beach Regatta. There is a lagoon swimming pool on the beach which is open to the public. One thing is for sure, Queensland and its people are so welcoming to visitors and tourists and especially to yachties. Something that Perth could take on board.

In the afternoons a tiger moth entertained very brave souls with an acrobatic joy flight. it would buzz around the anchorage then on a dive, cut its engines for a while. Screams would errupt..not surprising. A little disconcerting when you are on the boat and hear the plane in the background then all of a sudden...silence! By the law of averages the engine will fail at some stage...hopefully when he is not above us!

Peter helped Sam put the boat together. With two other crew, it only took the boys 4 hours to complete the task. How amazing is that! When all was going smoothly, the foil broke as Sam unraveled it. This was Friday and racing starts on Sunday. Stu pulled a lot of strings with his contacts in Sydney and within 4 hours had a new foil flown up from Sydney to Hammo, with the owners meeting the plane at Hammo to collect it! Magic! There was only one foil in stock in Sydney!

We enjoyed Airlie..they do tourism, visiting yachts and regattas very well! Easy to get around and there is a bus to take us out to the large shopping centre at Canonvale to re-stock! We were soon off to Hammo, having a great sail there wth HH close behind.

The new club house at Hammo was an atention seeker!

HH, having won the inaugural Hamilton Is Race Week 30 years ago, was a special entry. They received a lot of well-deserved press and the Marina gave us a complimentary mooring for the week, along with a night in the marina for presentation night. We were not going to drift off on this mooring!

We were in good company out on the moorings!

The boys won many races during the week, culminating in 1^st in Frist Fleet and 3^rd in Performance 2. Given that the winds were in light airs, their effort was awesome!  Sam had organized the girls with their ‘Shore Things’ shirts and all in all, they got the best dressed! How could they not! We know Emma was there supporting Sam.

The 'thumb' was adopted by many people and as you went by in a croud, the thumb was the accepted gesture; at trophy presentation there would be always a group of guys with their thumbs in the air. Many people stopped by the boat to see her and everyone had many comments regarding how pleased they were ot see her back!

Peter and I sat at one of the social gatherings and looked at all the crew and their girls. We have not seen such a wonderful, happy group of people who all got along. They all share a great sense of humour and fun! Quite a rarity. We enjoyed getting to know them all better and were over the moon to be part of  race week. 

Sam's uniform won the best dressed yacht. We think it was the 'Shore Things' that was the icing on the cake!

Of course, having Macka drive the boat there..well, it would not have been the same without him. He takes an enormous amount of care with the boat and a lot of pride with it sharing in a bit of WA yachting history.

We are as proud as punch seeing what Sam has again achieved and appreciate the effort it takes to get the boat and all the crew here and back....not to mention out sailing! It was a special time for us spending time with the boys and their girls and are so proud to see them all grow into the amazing, wonderful adults that they are.

After one of the successful wins, the HH crew put a little dent in the Piper Heidieck champagne...which was very nice! Sam in his usual amusing manner helped Anita out with her photo!

The owner...he had a fantastic week as well....

We took the girls out to Whitehaven on one day and another to watch the windward /leeward racing, which HH outperformed a Whitbread 60! Macka came out and gave the girls an excellent running commentary the racing!

There was a lot of off water fun to be had, with the tug of war (HH won one lost one!) Of course with Audi being a sponsor there were a few cars Peter fancied!

We did have a little hiccup on leaving Hammo Marina as the engine lost power and blew out a lot of smoke and soot, the latter of which emptied out into the marina! Embarassed, we wanted to quickly get out of there!  The good thing is that we did not hit any boats! We finally got towed out of the marina to sail back to Airlie (3 days of good wind followed the end of race week!) but not before almost sinking the marina tender that towed us out! They forgot to release the back line and I bore away with the main up thinking they were free! OOPS! We turned back into the wind and released them!

Our return to Airlie saw the boys have the boat from the water packed on the truck in just under 4 hours! It did help with the crew taking necessary bits off at the conclusion of racing at Hammo. Of course the wind started to blow the day after race week ended!!

We will start to head south in a few days when the winds fall back to 10 knots, although there is a bit of a blow coming in the first week of September. Once around Yeppoon, some 140 miles south, the winds will be lighter as we get below the trades. Our plan is to enjoy the Great Sandy Straits before heading south to catch up with friends in Brisbane and Mooloolaba and finally on to Sydney by late November.