Moving On

The Percy Islands are very, very nice, they have the most beautiful swimming beaches in all of the south Pacific. Too bad we can't stay longer, but the weather is going to blow and there really isn't much protection in the Percy anchorages. Besides, Eric and Anne are on a deadline, they have to be to Hamilton Island for Apr 30 to meet some friends who are flying in.

 

Another day, another short trip, this time further up the coast to Mackay (pronounced "McI"). Both boats are tied up at the dock by 3:30, we've checked in and rented a car for the next few days. Anne and I have to rush out to get groceries as everything is closed tomorrow for their Anzac Day celebration - like our Remembrance Day. Dinner out is always a good way to end a stint on anchor and the food at the Thai restaurant at the marina was delicious.

 

In all, we spend 5 nights at dock in MacKay and the winds "do" blow, so it is good to be in port. Boat work and exploring inland fill our time. One of our inland days, Glen and I drove to the Eungella National Park and did a 14 km hike through a very lovely sub-tropical forest. We came across a young park ranger who was cutting overgrowth from the path and he filled us in on some of the things we could see. His parting remarks were "Watch out for the leaches, they'll eat you alive."  Up until that exact moment, we hadn't encountered any, there after, we had to stop regularly and check ourselves over as they truly were out to get us.

 

Platypus (es,i) live in this area, but we traveled to the viewing area two days in a row and didn't see them, so we are unconvinced that they still exist.

 

 

Middle Percy Island

Next stop...... Middle Percy Island, only and hour north of South Percy Island. Another brilliant afternoon is in progress as the two Nordhavns set their anchors in West Bay. We swing out our flopper stopper just in case it is needed. Immediately, two rubber dingys are racing toward the shore, another tantalizing expanse of golden sand, this time with palm trees swaying.  The swell is breaking on the beach, so it is a trick to get landed without filling the dingy with water or taking a bath ourselves. This island is inhabited as well as being a National Park. There is an "A" framed shelter on the beach that is full of yachting "we were here" items, like flags, t-shirts, placards and basically whatever passing boats can print their names on, dating back to the 1950's, draped from the walls and rafters. Oso Blanco installs one of their t-shirts in the melee. We (Glen and I) are ghosts, traveling a "mystery path", we leave "no trace"!

 

 Our evening rendezvous is graced with the most dazzling sunset.

 

Day two at Middle Percy is discovery day, actually a super exercise day too. We start with a hike (3.5 km) up to the homestead (where the people live) and are greeted firstly by a flock of Mother goats with brand new babies (kids) - I mean Brand New! Kate, the lady of the house invites us all in for coffee and treats us to a new variety of fruits that she grows on the island. Custard apples, fruit salad fruit, passion fruit, all are exotic, unique and very tastey. She fills us in on the history of the island and we pepper her with queries. Ernst, one of fellows who also lives on the island, takes us all on a truck tour to see some of the vantage points of the island and the "airstrip".  We are delighted to see some wild kangaroos and wild goats (left by early mariners as meat supply for ship wrecked sailors) and we stop at a wild lemon bush to pick a bag full of ripe lemons (yum). Guess what? All of the butterflies are congregating on these islands. They are Blue dragon butterflies and driving through the forest with thousands of them everywhere makes you feel like you are in "Avator" or some such movie. We finish the adventure off by hiking back down the hill on the short track (1.5 km) to the beach for a splash in the water.  Because Kate is stuck out here for months on her own while her husband works on the mainland, I asked if there was anything that we might have on board that she would like. At first she said "No", then she cocked her head and said "Do you have any chocolate?"  Lucky her, I carry a great stack of chocolate bars, so we dingy'ed one back in to shore for her and left it safely in the "honesty box".

 

Dinner and a movie on our own tonight was just what we needed to re-build our strength.

Butterflies and Dragon Flies

 

Keppel Island was a good refresher course for us on how to rig our flopper stoppers. Lovely anchorage, but the residual swell from the past week of big weather just wraps around into every nook and cranny. We blast our way through the surf on our rubber dingy and walk on the flawless sandy beach. There is a bit of an estuary here and we are surprised to find three sailing vessels all intentionally aground, tucked into the mangroves, enjoying the solitude. The tides here are an amazing 16 to 19 foot difference from high tide to low tide, so they will float free on the next high tide.

 

The rolling is too much for us so the next morning we head off for Port Clinton on the main land. This proves to be a beautifully protected anchorage, as big as a lake, but calm. We get parked up with lots of afternoon left so Glen and I do the requisite trip to the beach to poke around a bit before "happiness hour" with Oso to watch the sunset. We are even able to set the whaler down in the water so we can tour down to the end of the inlet. This is a military area, so not much to see but mangroves and the water is very shallow.

 

Our next jaunt is to the Percy Island group, a short 50 mile day. The winds are non existent and the swell is undetectable. It's like cruising in a convertible, we have the top down, the tunes on and we are just rocking along. Another one of those days that let you know "Life is good!"  But here is the butterfly and dragon fly part…. There must be a butterfly migration on as there are hundreds of them just flying along with the boat, black with white spots and some are yellow. I did see one huge dragonfly too; all just flying around out in the middle of the water. Magic.

 

We are the only two boats to anchor up at this neat little cove on South Percy Island. It is gorgeous. The swell is minimal, the water is a typical tropical blue and the sandy beach is calling our names. So why disappoint it? The beach is like a moonscape, hard packed sand, swirled into channels by the rapidly decreasing tide, with jagged black rocks piercing skyward. The next day, Anne, Bear, Glen and I head back in for a hike up the hills, it is hot and sunny and really interesting. Red sand stone gullies and tufted salt grass covered hills and of course the barren rock shore on the weather side, where the waves crash into flashes of white foam.

 

Somehow, after our walk, when we were taking off our shoes to ride the dingy back to the boats, we all got wet! Go figure! The sandy beach and the blue water just sucked Bear in and next Glen decided to experiment with water therapy for his feet which extended to his neck, Anne made the plunge and what the heck, I had a swim too. Pure luxury! Australia does have amazing swimming beaches, clean, hard sand that extends out to the dark blue depths and refreshing clear water. Swimming beaches in the south Pacific are very few and far between as most are rimmed with coral shelves that make swimming from a shoreline impossible. Salt water always thrills me, because I can actually float in it and therefore swim - wonderous.  

First Overnighter of the Season

 

We are on day three of our travels. Our leisurely morning is spent fixing things, Glen sweating over a drawer that will not work on the sliders anymore and me trying to get our computer to talk to all of our navigation equipment. We had some work done on the computer - new power supply and video card installed. It was a case of unplug all the wires and then plug them all back in. But I guess when that happens, the software has to be told where to find everything again and since I was not the initial installer, I didn't know that, so now I'm troubleshooting.  As I write this I'm only 1/3 complete, I have some ideas, but can't do anything more until we are done traveling lest I get us so screwed up that we can't find out where we are - not a good thing.

 

Everybody hauls anchor at 10:30 am, we are heading from beside the Kingfisher Resort on Fraser Island to Keppel Island, just south of Yeppoon, 177 nm, 20 to 21 hours at 8 kt. Initially we thought we were going to be having to out run some weather, but now the extended forecast looks really wonderful, so we are looking forward to having some great exploring, maybe diving weather and of course a smooth passage.

 

I'm on the night shift again, with only two of us, we each get some night shift, so I'm not complaining, just letting you know. As we pass by Gladstone, there is a field of freighters on mooring buoys outside of the harbour, about 30 of them. They are lit up like Christmas - which is a very good thing as running into one of these babies would be like hitting a mountain. These great sleeping hulks shinning in the darkness always freak me out a bit because they look sooooo close, even thought the radar tells me they are several miles away. The next thing that catches my eye is a flashing light in front of my line of travel. There is nothing on the radar and it isn't close enough to see more detail by binoculars, hummm? Close scrutiny of the chart reveals a light house further up the coast and the directions correlates with our heading. I'll be watching it though. Guess I'd better get back to work. The stars are really nice and bright tonight.

Two Ships Head Out

 

The beginning of our dual trip (Oso Blanco and Mystery Ship) out of Mooloolaba began with a "bash". We were lead boat out of the harbour entrance and where there were markers buoys on the sand bar when we arrived, now there was nothing, but the sand bar was still there as evidenced by the breaking waves. We followed our original course in, out (and a sailboat ahead of us) only to be rudely awakened by slamming the sand bar. We bounced once and were lifted clear by the next swell. Visions of our impending destruction flashed through my mind - being stuck aground, being battered with the swell, falling over on our side and ultimately filling with sand and salt water. Good thing my imagination is not reality. The worst that has occurred is that we now have a shinny spot on the bottom where the sand rubbed the anti foul paint off.  The rest of our day was uneventful, even the crossing of the Wide Bay Bar in a 1.7 M swell. (we wouldn't want to be going in anything bigger than that though).

 

It felt so good to be letting the anchor down for the first time this season. Even the little rust bits that flew all over the freshly polished white gel coat didn't dim the fun. We are just snuggled up to the shoreline of the Great Sandy Strait channel, in a spot just south of the very shallow crossing that we will do tomorrow on the afternoon high tide. Our freshly inflated rubber dingy is plopped into the water and Glen and I head over to Oso for pot luck super, so we can all exaggerate about our day. Eric has lots of good stories on touching bottom over his extended boating history and we find that they even kissed the sand at Mooloolaba today too.

 

Our sleep has been peaceful. The day begins on a falling tide, so after breakfast, Glen and I head out in the dingy to check out the now exposed beaches and sand dunes. There isn't much to find as far as neat shells, but as we crest one sand pile on the beach, we are met with the strangest sight….. it is like we are looking down from an airplane and under us we see the gathering of multitudes of armies, jostling for position on a great battlefield. These tightly packed foot soldiers turn out to be tiny little blue crabs with white legs, they are the size of small marbles and there are literally thousands of them swarming over the beach in compact groups. If you get too close, they all dig themselves into the sand, disappearing in seconds. They are funny to watch. We are wondering why the birds aren't down here having a feast? Maybe the little critters taste bad! Of course our camera is on the boat, so no pictures to validate our story. This is Fraser Island that we are on and we do come across some dingo tracks…so we did hear one howling the night before.

 

The high tide happens at 5:00 pm today so we up anchor and start motoring at about 3:00 pm so that if we get hung up along the way, we at least have a rising tide to wash us up and away. We let Oso Blanco lead - Eric has a track from when we came south through here (we forgot to make one on our chart - tisk, tisk). We make it through without incident; the least amount of water we showed on our sounder was 3 feet below our keel. Now we have to pour on the coal to get to our anchorage destination before dark, which is complete by 6:00pm. Tonight anchoring isn't so fun as it is raining and windy (breezy) so I am freezing in my shorts by the time I have the snubber lines properly set. I am mollified (is that a word) by the fact that we get to have pizza at the Kingfisher Resort.

Moving Northward

The weather over the Easter weekend was absolutely perfect. Calm winds and flat water. We should have been making northward tracks, and we thought we were, stopping in Manly for two nights then heading up to Mooloolaba for our next stop. Except that the winds and water changed while we were there and we got stuck for 5 days. Oh, well, time to go see what's great about Mooloolaba. We rented a car from 1/2 price rentals, this funny little box that we don't even know the company of manufacture. It can park where ever you can park a bicycle! Too easy! Off we head to Eumundi Markets, about an hour away. What a pleasant suprise, it was like stepping off of the boat in Ganges harbour on SaltSpring Island. All kinds of people gather with their home made everything - jewelry, food items, clothing, things, you name it. It was a lot of fun. We came away with some beautiful soap, some great sented insense sticks and a metal twirly thing for the back yard at home (it is too windy on the boat).
 
Another day's exploring had us heading up to Noosa Heads and joining up with the Discover Everglades Noosa Tour. Ten of us are on a tour boat heading out across a couple of fresh water lakes up to the Noosa River in the Great Sandy National Park. This tour is one of the best values that we have come across in Australia. We had a lovely boat ride, morning tea with cakes, more boat ride, because somebody stole all of the canoe paddles and we had to go back and get some more, then a 1 hour canoe trip - 8 of us canoed, we then had a lovely steak lunch with many salads and refreshments, we canoed back to point B and fianlly a boat ride back to the start. All for $119.00 per person. You can hardly eat dinner out for that amount here and look at all of the stuff we got to do. The canoe trip was through the everglades, lovely calm water, with overhanging trees and birds. We really enjoyed the whole deal. Might have to get a canoe for the boat or home or something!
 
So we've been in Mooloolaba that we have met some fellows Canadians on the sidewalk and invited them down for a visit to the boat - sometimes you just need some outside conversation. Nice people, they are in Australia on a house exchange. And also, we have been here long enough that Oso Blanco has caught up with us. The weather is changing to the better and we will be headed out again. We had a really good visit with Anne and Eric and Bear, so much that each side had to tell as we haven't seen them since last Nov.
 

Happy Easter from Australia

Happy Easter Everybody, and especially Cassie and Georgia.
We just had a month of "Family time" in March, they won't mind so much that we are away over this important holiday (maybe!).
 
It was seriously nice to be in Calgary for March. The weather was more inclined to spring than winter and facing the crisp days at home was rather refreshing after some of the wilting hot days we have been experiencing on the boat. But most importantly we got to spend a lot of time with our daughters and the two pesky dogs.
 
We've finally broken away from the dock at Sanctuary Cove, not to return again until late August. Our destination this season is not too far away, but just as exotic as any of our previously visited tropical islands - The Great Barrier Reef. We'll take our time to get there over the next month and a bit, stopping in along the east Aussie coast as we head north. Currently, we are in Manly Harbour for a day or two, we had hoped to catch Eric, Anne and Bear from Oso Blanco here, but they are out on anchor for the weekend, returning at the same time as we head out for the next stop at Mooloolaba. They will be following behind us soon though, so we'll catch up along the way. The weather is a bit cooler in this area now as it is becoming their winter season, but it is still pretty warm for we Canadian Hot Bloods. I did however have to pull out a pair of jeans for an evening walk last night - shocking! This is why we are heading north, that and the siren call of fantastic diving.
 
Our flights to and from Calgary land us in Sydney, so we spent a few days exploring this vibrant Australian city. It has enough going on to please just about any traveler. Darling Harbour, the Sydney Aquarium, great restaurants, historical architecture and on and on. Sake restaurant in the Rocks has the best sushi ever and Manta is another great place to eat. Maybe it was the charming servers at both places, but no the food in both places was outstanding. Sydney has a gorgeous central botanical garden/park that takes a full day to wander through with plants from every corner of the world. There is definitely something to be said for a great climate, I do envy them the ability to grow anything, especially when I think of all the little plants struggling to poke their heads out of the cold ground at our home.
 
Anyway, long story - short, we are happy to be on the move again.