Coral Coast Sailing

14 May
Departed Mackay for Hamilton Island, and arrived at 1630hrs. The photo is Phil Wood standing on Spindrift at Hamilton Island Resort Marina, Pat in the cockpit.


13 May
Sailed to Mackay and stayed at the massive great marina. Restocked our stores and Bill Smith departed for Hervey Bay. Patrick Walsh arrived on board at 1800 hrs at the marina. Barry and Pat had a great dinner of bacon and eggs while Sylvia and Phil meet up with Sylvias brother and wife, Mat and Chris, and had a wonderful dinner.

12 May
During the night, 0200 hrs, some light squalls caught up with us. We furled all sails and still managed 7 knots with just the bare pole. The squalls lasted the rest of the night, and all the way to Curlew island. We were happy to pick down at Curlew.

11 May
Left Gladstone 0630 heading for the famous inside passage called "the Narrows" (bad move...). The tide was out and we got stuck waiting for an hour and a half, the tide was too low for this bus. Finally got going again, and met a fisherman broken down and towed him through to the end of the narrows. To make up time, we sailed overnight to Curlew Island.

10 May
Dinner at the Gladstone yatch club. There is some nice boats in there. Gladstone is a huge exporter of coal, with about 15 ships queued up waiting for coal.

9 May
We walked 3 km's for boat parts, and when we finally arrived, the shop was shut. Bugger. Left Sandy Strait 0930, and practiced "Man Overboard". We were a bit rusty but should get better. Sailed overnight to Gladstone. Passed a few ships in the night, but we had no troubles with picking them up on the radar.

8 May
Departed Garry's Anchorage at 0800, and sailed all day, weaving our way up to the Great Sandy Strait. Spent the night in Urangan Marina (Hervey Bay) where we met up with Susan and Ross, Bill Smiths daughter and son in law. We had a nice meal at the boat club. Susan supplied some nice pies for the boat which was very welcome change.

0600 6 May.
After a months hard works at Newport, we slipped into Monty's on Caboolture River to give her a nice clean bum. First night stop was Mooloolaba Marina. Crew were Sylvia and Phil Woods, Bill Smith and Barry Scott.

The next day we sailed to the south end of Fraser Island and crossed the notorious Wide Bay Bar (many a boat has come to grief here). Arriving at the Bar, we were behind a big trimaran, and we thought "this is great, we will follow someone who knows the way." To our surprise, he didnt seem to know the way and did a 360 and started to follow us into the Bar. We now had the blind following the blind. We surfed all the way in with breakers trying to come on board.
Looking for a nice and cosy spot for the night, we picked down at Garry's Anchorage on the west side of Fraser. Nice stay overnight with a quick walk on Fraser inthe morning.