Overnight the mozzie coil had burnt out and we were visited by a few mozzies, we lit a new coil and removed the mozzies for another few hours of sleep. This anchorage was very calm with only the tide moving the boat.

Sunrise

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We wanted to again use the tide to get to our next anchorage, so we lifted anchor early. As I wasn’t feeling 100% I decided a pyjama day was in order. We motored the short distance to anchor behind Black Swan Island, we were greeted by a small turtle and plenty of fish activity. Unfortunately we didn’t succeed in catching any.

 

With these waters, they can dry to sandbanks with very small channels, so we like to keep an eye on our depth when the tide starts to run out. We anchored in over 5m of water but at low tide it was 2.3m.

I read a book in a day, while Dean fished and on occasion we caught the turtle spying on us. We had one little fishing boat checking his crab pots, other than that we had the place to ourselves. We enjoyed another beautiful sunset, before dinner & another peaceful nights sleep.

6 nm, 1 hr, avg speed 5.54 kn, total motor 1 hr

We wanted to use the tide to get us up to Grahams Creek, so we planned on leaving at 2pm. We rode our bikes into town for a small amount of provisioning and got Time Flies ready for the short trip. It felt good to be out again. I can get a little too comfortable in a marina and forget how peaceful it is being on anchor.

Coal dock

Once we navigated ourselves around the 3 ships coming into port, we put up our head sail, sailing past the 3 gas plants on Curtis Island. While being built they employed over 3000 people, now they employ less than 1000. It certainly does show in the city of Gladstone with many vacant shops.

 

 

Interesting catamaran

We dropped anchor a little way up Grahams Creek getting protection from the 20-25kn SE winds. We were amongst the mangroves, I put my homemade sand fly repellent on (equal parts Baby Oil, Dettol & Eucalyptus Oil) & set up a mozzie coil just outside the companion way. Fingers crossed they leave me alone this time as I have only just started to recover from the attack I got at Pancake Creek.

 

While we were enjoying the peaceful surrounds another couple of boats came in and anchored at the entrance of the creek. A quick look on Marine traffic showed one boat to be SV Trybooking. This boat was previously owned by a fellow club member at RBYC. Hopefully we can cross paths and get a picture.

11 nm, 2 hr 45 min, avg speed 3.98 kn, total motor sailing 1 hr

The weather seemed to start to turn, with high winds & messy seas expected over the coming days. As we wanted to spend some time out at Great Keppel Island, we wanted to make sure we had some nice days ahead. We decided to wait a few days & when the winds were coming down we would make our way through The Narrows and head up to GKI.

While waiting out the weather we road our bikes around town up & down some big hills and out to the main shopping centre.

View from lookout

We had a beautiful dinner on Jumping Jack Frog and lots of snuggles with Cara Mia. It was sad to say goodbye to them as they are now slowly making their way back south to Tasmania. We look forward to visiting them in the future.

 

 

 

 

 

Gladstone Marina has a courtesy bus which takes you out to the local shopping centre for a 3 hour return trip. A great service offered daily. We were able to do a big provisioning trip to Dan Murphy’s as the boat was becoming a little too dry.

We visited Gladstone VMR/Coastguard to discuss the logistics of navigating The Narrows. The Narrows is a stretch of water between Curtis Island and the main land. At low tide parts dry completely and is otherwise very shallow. As high tide can vary by time & depth you need to calculate this to avoid running aground.

As the weather was starting to look better over the coming days, we would make our way further north through The Narrows which would shorten our trip to GKI and also have us move further north in calm waters. We chose to head to Grahams Creek (11 nm from Gladstone) for a night & then onto Black Swan Island a further 6nm . Doing this cuts a few hours off getting to start of The Narrows and on time for the tide.

We had a great motor to Gladstone, we used the incoming tide and averaged 5.5kn. Watched the sun rise, read a book and made a cup of tea.

Once we made it to the channel, I radioed Gladstone VTS for shipping movements. Gladstone is a port for coal & gas and has many ships coming & going. We only had one ship to avoid which was leaving port.

 

Once we were tied up and settled in we went for a bike ride to see some of the sites & enjoyed a drink at the yacht club.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

31 nm, 5 hr 30 min, avg speed 5.55 kn, total motor 5 hrs 30 mins.

WOW! Pancake Creek you are beautiful. We arrived at 5:30am just as the sun was rising and the tide was going out. I safely navigated the snake like channel. By the time we anchored and packed the sails away, put out the solar panels and made a cup of tea, it was low tide. It was amazing how the sandbanks just appear.

Sunrise on arrival

We had a little rest, before taking Time Spies to shore. The sun was shining & it was warm. There were a couple of camp sites set up, which are only accessible by boat. A great little weekend getaway for local fishermen. In one of the campsites there was a goanna walking around.

 

We went for a walk to Aeroplane Beach which started near the signs but quickly come across a mangrove mudflat, we looked around and could see across the mudflat an upturned green bucket, we headed in that direction and came to the main track. It was an easy walk, except the amount of rustling on the ground made me feel skittish. There were plenty of lizards sunning themselves making me jump several times when they ran off. We decided to leave the walk to Bustard Head Lighthouse for the next day.



Aeroplane Beach, great for a landing strip

Warm weather & clear water there was no stopping us from swimming, we enjoyed a beach day after our morning walk to the lighthouse. We also managed to give Time Flies a clean around the water line. The day was finished with another amazing sunset.

 

 

 

 

 

The boat “Mr Micawber” in the photograph left before I had a chance to motor across to share my photos. I was able to put a call out on “Women who sail Australia” Facebook page and found their contact details. They were very happy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The campers packed up leaving a few logs for the fire so we decided to enjoy sundowners & a fire. Baked potatoes & grilled chicken a great finish to another perfect day.

 

 

A few boat jobs done while watching many boats arrive, we lifted anchor and headed to the creek entrance to anchor before leaving the next day. We enjoyed another swim trying to find the elusive dugong and two turtles swimming around Time Flies with no luck.

We were looking forward to a lazy motor to Gladstone as there was no wind, we will use the incoming tide to help us gain a knot or two. We would be leaving at 5am.  

Pancake Creek Summary - I love this place BUT! I was eaten alive by sandflies. I ended up with bites all over including my face. I used Aeroguard, Natures Botanical & Rid none of them worked. I have since made my own using Baby Oil, Dettol & Eucalyptus Oil. Fingers crossed this works in future.

 

Everything was looking good for spending a couple of nights at Lady Musgrave. It is best enjoyed on neap tides, first or third quarter moon. We had a spring tide (full moon), which meant the tides were going to be high. Dean was a little concerned about comfort at anchorage, but as there was little wind we decided to go. We headed out and as we were leaving the river, the conditions were not as predicted, we were bopping around like a teabag & only making 4.5kn with motor on. This was going to add another 2 hours onto our trip, which would have pushed us closer to arriving @ sunset. We continued on for another hour with no improvement, with much disappointment we decide to turn back to Bundaberg.

We wanted to visit Lady Musgrave but we also wanted to keep moving north, so we decided to do an overnight sail to Pancake Creek. We lifted anchor at 6pm to calm seas & perfect wind. It’s amazing how a few hours can make a difference to sea state.

We had a very comfortable sail with 10-15kn and very slight swell and a full moon to top it off.

65.65 nm, 12 hr 45 min, avg speed 5.17 kn, total motor sailing 3 hrs

Once the office opened at 8:00am we were able to get our berth number, we headed in and had the lovely team at Bundaberg Port Marina welcome us & help us tie up. I need to practice my line throwing as I totally messed up the bow line, but all was good.

We caught up with Jumping Jack Frog, where they were held up as poor Cara Mia had some tummy issues. She was still very happy to see us. We had dinner at the restaurant with them, Della-Rue and some new friends from Por Dos.

Bundaberg Port Marina is one of the best marinas we have enjoyed so far. They have beautiful grassed grounds, courtesy bus into town, hire cars & a BBQ with kitchen & tv. They also have a tour every Thursday to the Bundaberg Rum Distillery for $35pp, which we took advantage of.

 

I was drawn to a wall in the kitchen with colourful anchors mounted. On closer inspection there were names of boats on them, you could purchase an anchor for $5 with the proceeds going to VMR. Time Flies has now got her name on the wall.

 



 

We enjoyed a BBQ  & sunset, a yummy banana cake freshly baked from Della-Rue and had in depth discussions about the possibility of visiting Lady Musgrave.

Conditions were looking good for Lady Musgrave, an early night and we would leave at 4:00am.

We lifted anchor & were happy to be heading to Bundaberg, the winds were perfect and we had a nice sail following the shipping channel. As we got closer to Harvey Bay, the sea state had picked up. We had a very uncomfortable sail to Bundy, feeling like it was taking us forever. Dean has put this one in his “sh#@” list, I also agree. We helmed the whole way as auto helm doesn’t like messy swell.

We finally reached the river entrance and headed to an anchorage just past the sugar shed where they load the ships. We enjoyed a well earned rest and organised a berth in the Marina the next day.

 

55.25 nm, 8 hr 45 min, avg speed 6.27 kn, total motor sailing 4 hrs

We lifted anchor & had a very quick sail to Kingfisher Resort anchorage, the wind was quite strong & gusty so we only had the headsail out. We dropped anchor in 10m but as the winds were strong & gusting up to 25+kn we decided a trip to land wasn’t to be. We don’t like leaving Time Flies in strong gusty winds especially when you are anchored in deep water. We like anchoring in 3-5m but sometimes you don’t get that option.

Power saving

We decided to continue on to Bundaberg the next day. So we worked on some videos & the blog and had a lazy day.

10.44 nm, 1 hr 30 min, avg speed 7.07 kn, total motor sailing 0 hrs
 

A learning curb for us today. The early bird does not always get the worm. We lifted anchor and slowly navigated our way through The Great Sandy Straits. As we were making our way slowly due to an Ebb tide, we realised that reading the tides for here makes life a little easier. We were sailing with our head sail & wind 15+kn from behind, we should have been doing anything from 6-7kn, but we were only making 3-4kn against tide. Lesson 1 – try to always go with the tide. Lesson 2 – depth. We got to Boonlye Point where it is well known to be very shallow. Following the chart plotter we slowly came to a red mark and as we nearly turned we touched ground. We reversed back and decided we would anchor & wait for the tide to come in. This was about 4hrs away.

Our anchored depth, waiting for the tide to rise

 While we were patiently waiting, enjoying the sun, there were 3 boats coming. We kindly informed them we touched as they went by. All of them decided to continue on. I watched with curiosity the first boat, they seemed to be getting close to where we touched & all of a sudden their bum lifted into the air. They had hit the bottom, unfortunately as they had more speed than us they got stuck and had to drop anchor and wait for the tide.

The 2^nd boat still followed & tried to go around them, they to touched the bottom, but were able to reverse and anchor near us. The 3^rd boat miraculously cut the corner and went on the other side of the red marker and continued on only to get stuck another 100m down the channel. After about an hour or so they were bumped off the sand bank with the help of their sails and they continued on.

The tide had finally risen enough to lift anchor & continue on. We touched very slightly near the red marker but were able to bump off straight away. I find shallows very stressful, but I guess if you were to hit bottom sand would be much better than reef. We continued on to South White Cliffs and anchored for the night, having sundowners on Della-Rue.

13.13 nm, 2.5 hrs, avg speed 5 kn, total motor sailing 2.5 hrs

After a very peaceful night sleep, we woke to a glorious morning. We took the dingy across to Fraser Island hoping to spot a dingo. We walked along the 4WD tracks nearing a lake. Unfortunately there was no track leading down to it, so we turned around & headed back to Time Flies. No dingo’s were sighted. Once back on time Flies I had another swim before relaxing and watching another 10 boats come in to the anchorage, now totalling 15 boats.

 

 

Della-Rue rafted up to us for a little chat before they anchored after coming up from Mooloolaba. Both myself & Julie woke the next day covered in midgy bites. It’s time to get the repellents out & remember to include in our daily sunscreen routine.

Again we finished the day with a stunning sunset.

We decided to head to South White Cliffs the next day.