From 30/09/2017 to 08/10/2017 - Gold Coast to Fraser Island
It was the last day of September when we finally untied Zenitude from
the marina docks in Coomera and started our trip north along the Queensland
coast. We’ve been pondering for almost a week, while watching the forecast, whether
we should take the course out the Seaport Seaway directly to Mooloolaba in open
seas or should we do the inside channels through to Moreton Bay.
At this time of the year most people had already started their
trip south, this is the season when the usually constant SE winds disappear, giving way to the northerlies. We were not with the southbound crowds, we were going north and hoping for a
late arrival of the northerlies, predictable, as soon as we decided we are ready to leave, the northerlies arrived.
The weather became quite unstable, the forecast models wouldn’t
agree between them and most of the time they were completely off . The result was that we were changing our minds twice a day on what route to
take, over analysing forecasts just after each new forecast was issued. Hopelessly weather obsessed. At the end we decided
to ignore forecasters and stick with the inside route, which would give us more
options to react to changing forecasts.
Leaving Coomera and sailing up the river we headed north
thru the winding, sometimes shallow channels. It paid to leave at dawn as it
was all very quiet. By early afternoon we arrived at our first stop, the Tangalooma
Wrecks, where we decided to spend the night. It was just motoring for this
trip and Zenitude did well with the new engines. The anchorage was packed,
which was totally expected, after all that preparation we had finally left on a
Saturday of a long Queensland weekend, but then we found a good spot to anchor
and were happy to be finally “on the move”.
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| Coomera River - Leaving Gold Coast City Marina after a long stay |
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| Tangalooma Wrecks on a long weekend |
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| Sunset at Tangalooma Wrecks |
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| Moreton Island beaches |
After a quiet night, it was another pre-sunrise start when we left towards
Moololaba. Early in the morning of this long weekend we could see boats at
anchor all along Moreton Island, we realised then that there are many anchorages protected from easterly
winds, even though you need to be ready to raise anchor and go if a strong westerly
turns up, sometimes making a sudden appearance just before sunrise. Of course
the same can be said of Tangalooma where the wrecks had been strategically placed
to create a protected ‘harbour’, however the wrecks don’t really stop the havoc created
by the westerlies, the outcome accomplished, apart from interesting snorkeling, is to make it harder
for a vessel to leave in a hurry.
Passing near the tip of Moreton Island we were curious to
have a peek at Cape Moreton. There is an anchorage called Yellow Patch, which
we were considering as a night stop if taking the ocean route. We couldn’t find
much information about it with the locals at Gold Coast, nobody had been there and
now we could see why, it looked very exposed to the weather, in a day when everyone
was in the water, that anchorage was empty. We quickly scrapped it from our
list of safe places.
The early start paid off again and we arrived in Mooloolaba just in
time to have a quiet lunch at anchor. We had no wind for the trip, and motored
happily with the new engines that where giving us around 2 knots more than
the old ones without much effort. The
wind did arrive a little later but from the wrong direction. The stormy weather kept
us at anchor in the Mooloolah River with not much to do, except resting (no complains) and checking forecast
twice daily. The next leg was tricky as involved crossing the Wide Bay Bar, which
requires calm weather and careful timing for the right tides if you want to
avoid an exhilarating surfing experience while attempting to enter the harbour.
Oscar chose the weather window as I was catatonic with indecision.
We left again before sunrise 3 days after our arrival. Sadly we couldn’t catch
up with Eduardo and family as our stop was not long enough to manage meeting them,
so we said good bye over the phone this time. The skies were full of clouds but
weather was very calm. There was a 1.5 meters northeasterly swell, which made
for an interesting exit thru the shallow bar at Mooloolaba .
The swell kept diminishing slowly during the morning and it was
quite calm when approaching the bar at the southern end of Fraser Island. Throughout
the years shoaling in the bar keeps moving around, with the result that entry waypoints were not helping much any longer. This year the waypoints have been updated following a long lasting survey of the shoaling.
We found the conditions quite reasonable, with current,
wind and swell running in the same and favourable direction, pushing Zenitude
fast and steady, at least torture was short lived. Low tide had been at 14:34,
we entered with the flood at 16:30, the lowest mark on our depth sounder was 4.00
meters and the swell was just about 1 meter with no breaking waves to be seen. After
so much worrying from my part, the bar crossing was quite reasonable indeed, Oscar could be seen with a happy smile having chosen the right window.
Once inside we decided we would anchor in Pelican Bay for
the night and visit Tin Can Bay next, as we’ve never been there before. It was
time to visit the resident dolphins. But this is a story for next blog.
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| Arriving at Pelican Bay after crossing WBB |
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| Pelican Bay |
G.
