Tin Can Bay to Fraser Island

We spent a lovely, relaxing couple of days at Tin Can Bay.  It's a great little country town with charming buildings and even more charming people.

On Sunday morning we decided to head to Fraser Island, but when we went to start the motor we realised we had no power.  Thanks to Michael's misspent and questionable youth, he hotwired the motor to get it started.  We then went to pull up the anchor.  No power.  Thankfully Michael is no shrinking violet and was able to pull the anchor up manually so we motored out of Tin Can Bay.

There was no wind to speak of so we motored the 20 odd nautical miles to Fig Tree Creek on Fraser Island.  On the way we saw a seal, a whale and numerous dolphins... all of which are very good at avoiding a camera.  Once at Fig Tree Creek we saw a turtle.  The health status of the turtle has been the subject of debate.

We had a restful night at Fig Tree Creek.

At 7.00am on Monday morning, we hot wired the yacht and headed further north through the Great Sandy Strait.  Again, there was no wind so the 20 nautical miles again was under motor.  For a couple of sailors that could hit a sandbar in the middle of the ocean, we managed to avoid all of them in the Great Sandy Straight (I love Navionics... best $16 I've ever spent).  More fascinating marine life and a smooth trip.  At about midday we arrived at King Fisher Bay Resort.  We went ashore and took a 1.2 km walk up to the North White Cliffs Lookout. 

After our walk we hit the bar at the resort and had a relaxing (if a little numb) afternoon.

This morning Michael had his head back in the motor trying to work out the problem with starting the motor.  It seems the solenoid needs replacing (who am I to argue?)  We'll have to get that fixed when we get to Bundaberg later this week... but right now, I'd better get out on deck because these fish aren't going to catch themselves.

Noosa Heads to Tin Can Bay

After a very rocky night and much sea sickness at Noosa Heads, we were up and moving early towards Tin Can Bay.  The sailing was friendlier with 2.5m swells and 5 knot winds.  We did a bit of motoring... after the problems of the previous day we needed to make sure the motor was working properly.  Unfortunately our auto pilot stopped working so Michael had a heavy day ahead of him - 50 nautical miles of manual steering in a 2.5m swell.

We passed Rainbow Beach and even had a whale escort for about a nautical mile.  For such massive creatures they are very graceful.

It was uneventful (besides Jed being sea sick again) until we got to Wide Bay Bar.  We were warned about crossing the bar and were even issued with written instructions and diagrams.  There are three way points to pass to get into Wide Bay Harbour.  We had advised Tin Can Bay Coast Guard of our intention to reach Tin Can Bay and they insisted we contact them when we passed the third way point. 

We knew we needed a high tide and when studying the maps we couldn't understand exactly why.  There are no sandbars to get caught on and when we approached the first way point it all started to look like someone was pulling our leg.  Why did we need to negotiate this invisible obstacle course when nothing appeared to be dangerous.

Way point one... no problem, change tack and head to way point two... easy!  What's going on here... OH FUCK!!!! Between way point two and way point three was some very rough water and we broadsided with breaking waves over the helm and Michael could hardly see.  We were only about a meter from "knock down" on several occassions and were angled at about 50 degrees.  It only took about 15 minutes from way point two to way point three but it felt like hours. 

After getting through way point three we encountered some very calm waters.  We motored through Tin Can Inlet and anchored at the opening of Snapper Creek.  Hopefully there's some good fishing!

So this is how I'm going to die?

The alarm went off at 2.00am, we were to head from Mooloolaba to Tin Can Bay... About 50 nautical miles (or 10 hours) with no anchorages in between.  We needed a relatively high tide to get out of Mooloolaba and a high tide to get over the Wide Bay Bar to get into Tin Can Bay.  High tide at Mooloolaba was 12.30am. We were hoping to be leaving our marina birth at about 2.30am and getting out of Mooloolaba Harbour by 3.00am.  We checked the weather, the winds, swells and it had all changed from last nights predictions... should we stay or should we go?  We decided to bite the bullet and go, finally leaving the marina at 4.00am.  We should've stayed!

There's a wave that hits you side on entering and leaving Mooloolaba Harbour and when it hit us everything that wasn't tide down (and quite a bit of stuff that was) flew around the cabin. Even a knob flew off the stove.  There were a few breakages and a couple of minor injuries.  The sea was rough so we couldn't get cleaned up, this made it almost impossible to move around the cabin.  We soldiered on.  We couldn't turn back because we had to get past that side hitting wave to get back in to the harbour.

Michael was motoring whilst Grace, Jed, the dog and I were tossing our cookies into various buckets, it was still pitch black (sunrise was at 6.30am) and Michael's sphincter must have been tightly puckered because I know mine was.  I was terrified but trying to keep it together so the kids wouldn't freak out but all I wanted to do was scream and pull out my hair! After about an hour Michael called out that he needed a hand to get the foresail out as our motor had overheated and he had to turn it off.  So now we're in 3 meter swells with no motor.  With just a touch of the front sail out we were moving along at 7 knots.

We couldn't continue for 10 hours in this fashion.  Reassessing the map showed a sheltered bay at Noosa Heads so we decided to head for that and relative calm.  We arrived a Noosa Heads about 5 hours after heading off from Mooloolaba.

Surveying the damage upon anchoring, we found we had lost 2 x 25 litre water bottles, had burst a heat exchanger pipe to the accumulator (this means the water was filling our boat instead of cooling of motor) and a blocked bilge that was not removing all of that water filling our boat.  If we'd kept heading to Tin Can Bay, we'd have surely sank. 

It's pretty rocky in our bay at Noosa Heads and we can't even manage to boil the kettle, but we're glad to be here.

Education

Unfortunately the authorities do not look kindly on traveling with your kids and not educating them so we've enrolled the kids in distance education.  This is different from home schooling in that they are enrolled in school.  The school sends us the necessary work, we complete it and return it to the school for marking.  The kids need to work about 3 hours per day but as there is so much down time on a yacht, this isn't too difficult. 

I'm not a big fan of playing "teacher" and I find a lot of the work pointless and frustrating.  I'm surprised all primary school teachers aren't heavy drug users.  Grace's current work involves creating fossils with shells and plaster of paris.  Plaster of paris?  Yeah, we have shitloads of that on the boat!  We have tried to make our own with flour and water but 3 days have passed an it's still not dry.  I think she'll be failing this little activity.

On the upside, Grace's work has improved greatly under my close watch.  I feel she was falling through the cracks with 29 other students also requiring the teacher's attention.  I don't blame the teachers or the school, but it does go to show the difference individual attention makes.

Living in unusual circumstances can also be inspiring. This is Grace's poem about where she lives...

My Home

My home is located on top of the waterIt houses my parents, their son and their daughter
It contains a motor and a very large sail
The postman has problems delivering our mail

My home is compact, cozy and small
In the middle there's a mast that is very tall
A fireplace and chimney it has not
I sit on the roof when it gets hot

We can move it around but not on land
And have to be cautious of bars of sand
In this poem the clues I give
Can you guess in what I live?

I just hope that traveling educates them in ways they would never experience in a class room.

Tangalooma to Mooloolaba

We left Tanaglooma this morning to start the trek to Mooloolaba.

It's pretty hairy getting out of Tangalooma because of the shallow reefs but after lining up beacons and taking the lines they provide, we managed to get out without hitting anything shallow (woo hoo!)... just to enter shipping channels.  They're pretty scary.  Those ships could carry 100 of our boat and to see them heading straight for you is a little daunting. 

The wind was our friend so it was mainly sailing with just a little motoring... but who am I kidding? Michael did all the sailing while I tell him to stay out of the way of the big cargo freighters.  I'm nothing if not helpful!

It took 7 hours to get to Mooloolaba only to see a narrow stoney entrance to the harbour.  Once we came around in line with the entrance it was apparent the entrance wasn't quite as narrow as first expected but the canoists made life a little interesting.  I love the ambitions of a 50kg canoe taking it's chances with a 16 tonne ferro yacht... but I guess, whatever floats your boat (pun intended).

We've got a marina berth at busy Mooloolaba which is the first time in 7 months we haven't been "on the hook" (anchored) and having shore power and water is a very exciting prospect indeed!

South Stradbroke to Tangalooma

On Tuesday morning we sailed from South Stradbroke to Tangalooma via North Stradbroke.  North Stradbroke was uneventful... another sandbar but that just seems to be par for the course.  We stayed at Dunwich the night and it was just a stop over, somewhere to anchor have something to eat and get some sleep.

Wednesday morning we sailed on to Tangalooma, Morten Island.  My god it's beautiful.  The water is so clear we could see the starfish sitting on the bottom under our boat.  The wrecks are pretty awesome but it was too cold to go snorkelling to check them out. Grace and Jed are a little dirty about that.  We thought we'd do it today but to be honest we couldn't wait to get out of there.

Tangalooma is gorgeous but it is not too far from a shipping channel and with no shelter the waves rolled in constantly.  There was no sleep to be had last night and things were no better this morning, so we up anchored and are now heading for Mooloolaba.  It's a long trip and we've been at it for about 4 hours so far and are about half way.  I guess I should get off my arse and go help pull some lines or something...

The Northern Bedroom

We sailed... actually sailed!!!  No motor just sails and wind, it was awesome!  About 4 hours from Southport to The Northern Bedroom at the top of South Stradbroke Island. 

It was a relatively uneventful trip... well, we met with a sandbar but that's nothing unusual and a couple of mangled toes later we made it and anchored just near a mate of ours, Colin (aboard Interlude).  Colin's a salty old sea dog, a little long in the tooth (it would be rude of me to put a number on it) who is full of great stories and much encouragement.  It was to be our last "interlude" with Colin as we head north and heads south back to Hobart.  We had a couple of drinks and a lot of laughs!

South Stradbroke is beautiful.  Wallabies, kanagroos, goannas and heaps of sea life.  We have done a few weekend trips up here during our time at Southport.  The kids love South Stradbroke and could probably live here happily for the rest of their days.

It's About Time

This post has been 12 months in the making.

For reasons I couldn't be bothered going into, we found ourselves broke and on the verge of losing everything. I decided to sell my house and buy a yacht for myself, my husband and our two kidlets to live aboard, spend some time together and travel the coast of our wonderful country.

I purchased the yacht, Kidnapped, in December 2011 and we immediately moved from Sydney to Southport to start our new life.  We sat at Southport for 7 months.  Torn sails, blown up motors and unfavourable conditions all against our efforts to embark on our adventure.

There have undoubtedly been some adventures whilst sitting around Southport trying to get our shit together but it has mainly been hard work, home schooling and fishing.

Tomorrow... we set sail!