Brisbane to Bundaberg - Nearly nonstop!

We left Brisbane on the 15th of July and motored down the Brisbane river against the last of the incoming tide.

On the way down we passed another Lagoon 42 TPI - Connect Four, and a range of spectacular properties before we made it to the industrial area of Port Brisbane. The change in scenery along the banks of the river is dramatic and its great to see ships, tug boats, factories and container loading facilities near the mouth of the river. Sydney has lost a lot of this character with most of the city's waterfront now converted to luxury residences.

There was no wind at all when we arrived at Moreton Bay, but ever hopeful we pulled up our new mainsail and set off north via the small boat channel south of Bribe Island. Ryan used the traditional method to pull up the mainsail while Nick used his new electric winch handle - a WinchRite from Sailology- to save energy for more important tasks!

The kids entertained themselves in the cockpit and we were all treated to a spectacular sunset on the way  to Double Island Point. We arrived around midnight in pitch-black (there was no moon and plenty of low cloud that blocked out the stars) and anchored in six metres of water.

We woke early on the 16th to dash across the last eight nautical miles to the first waypoint of the Wide Bay Bar. We wanted to make the crossing while the tide was rising, but also wanted to wait for first light so we had everything working in our favour.

Wide Bar Bar was tranquil with no breaking waves in the shallow channel and we were pulled rapidly into the waters behind Fraser Island. We love to hitch a lift when we can as it's nice to see Lucey Blue traveling at about nine knots over the ground when we are only moving at seven through the water!

We decided to try and ride the tide all the way through the narrow channels behind Fraser Island to Hervey Bay. The conditions were perfect, but we needed to maintain the tidal advantage if we were going to clear the shallows near Boonlye Point. We nearly ran aground there last time and had no desire to get stuck.

We passed a number of yachts along the way and managed to sneak through the worst bits just on high tide. By the time we had cleared the Fairway light on Hervey Bay our boat speed across the ground had hit ten knots. We had been sucked in at one end of Fraser Island and spat out the other end in a day which is a record for us.

The crew of Lucey Blue kept their eyes peeled for sealife on Harvey Bay and Eric spent hours seagazing with Dad on the front trampolines, but the whales alluded us this time.

We arrived off Burrent Heads at dusk and gently pulled into the Bundaberg Port Marina at around 18:00 with the help of another yachtie - Gayle from Electra.

Brisbane - What a great city!

We love Brisbane and Dockside Marina which is located in the heart of the city. The free City Hopper Ferry program is great and we spent a week or so pottering about town and visiting the local attractions.

The temperature in Brisbane was much better than Sydney and the kids even went for a swim at South Bank in the water park beside the river.  But the local news described the conditions as the 'coldest period' for a decade or something like that. I guess it's all just a matter of perspective!

We had hoped to call on friends, but there is always things to do on a boat, especially when you have just started a voyage, so we ran out of time on this stop - lucky we are coming back when we sail south later in the year.

We were keen to keep moving further north so we jumped on the next good weather window and made a beeline to Bundaberg...

The sail north - Sydney to Brisbane (well almost)...

With Lucey Blue ready to go we waited for a suitable weather wind to sail north to warmer weather.
The first opportunity arrived in early July and we scrabbled to leave Middle Harbour on the 14:30 Spit Bridge opening.

We left the harbour on the evening of the 5th of July and sailed/motorsailed north, hugging the coast to avoid the east Australian current that can flow at a speed of over three knots - not fun if you are traveling in the opposite direction!

Our new sails and feathering propellers proved themselves on the first night with Lucey Blue surging along at 8 to 9 knots in a 14 to 17 knot north westerly wind. By dawn we were located just north of Port Stephens on flat sea with a number of local fishing boats.

The wind died off during the day and swung around to the southwest so we motorsailed most of the next twenty four hours to keep up our boat speed. We enjoyed a visit from a pod of dolphins on the evening of the 6th and arrived off Coffs Harbour at dawn on the 7th of July.

We passed South Solitary Island in perfect conditions with blue skies and 15 to 20 knot southerly winds. Lucey Blue was really enjoying the conditions and her crew was entertained most of the day by humpback whales sunning themselves along the coast and thrashing their tails against the growing southerly swell.

By nightfall on the 7th Lucey Blue was located off Yamba and the weather forecast indicated that a change was due to hit the region overnight. We reduced sail that evening to a triple reefed main and our blade jib as there is nothing worse than having to reduce sail in rough conditions at night. We also decided to take Lucey Blue further offshore to gain extra searoom if required.

The southerly wind picked up steadily and Lucey Blue sailed along at 8 to 9 knots in the growing seas. By midnight we were located off Ballina in two to three metre seas. Unfortunately we also found the east Australian current was running strongly at two knots against the sea which was making the waves rather pointy.

The southerly front hit at around 02:00 on the 8th of July with 35 to 40 knot winds, three metre breaking waves and heavy rain. Lucey Blue was sailing safely, but our boat speed was too high for conservative cruising folk - consistently 10 plus knots - and we were slewing around as we surfed down waves at 15 plus knots.

To reduce the load generated by the sails/sea we reduced sail to just the triple reefed main and unfeathered our MaxProp propellers. The postive impact on the boat's motion and our overall comfort was dramatic. Most of the improvement came from using our now rotating unfeathered propellers as mini sea drouges to provide extra drag at the stern. We had not considered using the propellers in this fashion when we purchased them, but the ability to change from no drag (feathered propellers) to drag (unfeathered propellers) is a fantastic feature.

After a long wet and rather bouncy night we decided to pull into the Gold Coast Seaway and by about 10:00 on the 8th of July we were anchored just behind Seaworld and watching filming of the new Pirates of the Caribbean movie!

We left the next moring and motored through the narrows behind the Stradbroke Islands before reaching Dockside Marina on the Brisbane river at 17:00. The trip through the backwaters was fun, but obviously not everyone makes it through the shallows and overhanging powerlines safely...

Safe in Southport

I just wanted to let you know we left Dockside at 03:00 this morning, after enjoying two and a half weeks of Brisbane hospitality, sight-seeing, shopping, relaxation.....and even getting in some re-provisioning and small repairs too.

As we slipped quietly down the river I was reciting passages of one of the kid's books to myself. It is called the Night Pirates, by Peter Harris and illustrated by Deborah Allwright...

"Down, down, down the dark, dark street they came. Up, up, up the dark, dark house they climbed. Stealthy as shadows, quiet as mice. Only the moon was watching when they arrived. Only the moon was watching when they left. Only the moon & one little boy."

I'm not convinced anyone was watching, and it was overcast so I've got no idea if the moon was up or not, but it did feel very stealthy navigating down the river in the middle of the night...very nice not to worry about the City Cats zig-zagging across our path too!

We made it safely down to Southport by lunch-time today, and will hang out here until the wind turns to the east on Sunday (if the forecast is to be believed). I'll pop up a few details of our trip down through the channels soon. I'm so tired now I don't think I'll make sense.

Christmas Click n' Sniff

Thought I'd pop up a wee snap of our beautiful Lucey Blue Christmas tree. We have the full Christmas thing going on here...tree, decorations, lights, candles etc, and I love it. I've even been ramping up the iPod Christmas playlist most evenings. Nothing like a bit of Bing, Diana Krall, Michael Bublé and Kylie to add a festive touch to our evenings.

Wish it was a click n' sniff pic...because those candles have a heavenly peppermint scent that really make the whole boat smell, well....Christmassy! You'll have to use your imagination instead. What you can't see in the picture is all the blue tack holding the Christmas tree in place. It is only a light, wooden frame, and when the City Cats go racing past here they create considerable wake which results in us lurching about like one of those automated bull rides you see in the US. The whole tree took a dive off the table about 10 minutes after I'd put it together last week, but thankfully nothing broke...so now it is anchored in place with about half a pack of blue tack. Problem solved!

This next pic is NOT a click n' sniff candidate...

Our budding Palaeontologists really enjoyed inspecting this Fish Fossil, an awesome piece of riverside art by Christopher Trotter. They were intrigued about what parts had been used to make him. You may be pleased to know he looks most un-Mackerel-like, so we had no desire to eat him.

Still watching the weather here, and speculating about taking the channel route down to the Gold Coast some time this week. Hope that comes off...it is supposed to be a very nice trip.

Wibbly Wobbly LIghts

Extra points if you can tell where this wibbly wobbly pic was taken! Actually, take that back, I probably had the GPS on the camera on at the time, so it's most likely buried in the metadata somewhere anyway! It was taken from Lucey Blue, while anchored in The Pond, Mooloolaba. I like wibbly lights.

I also like itty bitty coloured dots...so do the kids...

This pic taken in Yayoi Kusama's The obliteration room 2002, one of the children's exhibits at the Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) here in Brissy. Fun for the whole family...I enjoyed making little patterns with my dots.

Some Brissy curb-side art...is anyone else having Addams Family flashbacks? I was waiting for it to start scuttling towards me!

Have a great weekend.

A Christmas Prep Pitstop

I'm afraid our poor old blog has been passed over in the rush to prepare for Christmas on Lucey Blue, but I thought I should just pop on here and let you know we are still alive and well!

After a quick trip down the Sandy Straits (where I was completely mauled by Sandflies one morning) and a few lovely, quiet, sandfly-free days in Tin Can Bay (above) we travelled to Mooloolaba, and thence to Brissy, where we are currently berthed at the Dockside Marina.

Dockside is an excellent place to be based while in Brisbane. It is a quick ferry ride into the heart of Brisbane, where we have finished all of our Christmas shopping, seen a movie, watched the big Christmas Tree being lit, visited with friends and family, and even managed to acquire a lovely shot of the kids with Santa. I have taken Eric for a long walk every morning (he tends to wake at o'dark thirty-ish). We go along the cliffs walk to Southbank (along with every other man, woman, child, dog and bike in Brisbane it would seem), then we cross the Goodwill Bridge into the Botanic Gardens and walk to the Eagle Street Pier, catch a quick ferry ride across to Holman Street and finish up by walking back under the Storey Bridge to Dockside. Some mornings we swap bridges and walk up to the Victoria Bridge and then walk back down the Queen Street Mall to Eagle Street. I love being in the city, and we have loved our time in Brisbane so much that we are currently umming and ahhhing about when to leave. We still think we'll make it to Sydney before Christmas, weather permitting.

Other jobs happily accomplished in Brisbane include the repair of our screecher. As we were screeching down Moreton Bay towards the Brisbane River last Tuesday morning our new (second-hand) sail suddenly fell from the mast and plonked unceremoniously into the Bay. The webbing at the head of the sail had given way. Nick called Doyle Sails, Queensland as we entered the river and they offered to come by the marina and pick up the sail as soon as we'd docked. They also offered to drop me at the airport, where I needed to pick up a rental car! They fixed the sail and dropped it back to us at the marina in less than a week. I was surprised and delighted, to say the least. We can highly recommend Doyle Sails, Queensland for their excellent and friendly service!

Anyhoo...that's us in a nutshell! I have more pics of this and that to download, but they'll have to wait for another night.

Our stay on the Brisbane River

We ended up staying two and a half, fun-filled weeks in sunny Brisbane, berthed at the Dockside Marina at Kangaroo Point.

It was in an awesome location...just around the river bend from Brisbane City...

...within sight of the Story Bridge, and only a 20 minute ferry ride to the Eagle Street wharf.

We were central to everything, a quick drive to various shopping facilities (including Whitworths) and had a couple of restaurants and corner stores within easy walking distance too.

Another highlight of our stay at the Dockside Marina was the visit of the Bread Fairy. One Staurday morning we woke to find three beautiful loaves of bread had been left on our sugar scoop...

We asked some of the other cruisers, and the marina manager, but we never did find out who the Brisbane River Bread Fairy was...whoever you are, thank you!

The only real downside to being at the Dockside, was the frequent ferry wash produced by the City Cats, that ran well in to the night. You'd be innocently walking about and quickly have to grab on to the nearest handhold as Lucey Blue started lurching all over the place after a Cat went by. Also, whenever I went ashore it'd feel like the ground was lurching about and I think I probably looked quite drunk on several occasions. HOWEVER, it would appear that living with this for two and a half weeks may have been just the ticket to preparing me for an ocean voyage free from puking. So THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU to the Brisbane City Cats!

While we were in Brisbane we got a bunch of odd jobs done on Lucey Blue. One day Nick discovered that the VHF antenna atop the mast was dangling at an unlikely angle...so up the mast he went, to find it had snapped off, and was hanging on by a thread...

Of course, if Dad got to climb up the mast, the kids had to as well, and I was dumfounded to see Emily clamber ALL the way to the top in a matter of minutes...

 Another job that got completed in Brisbane was the replacement of Lucey Blue's life lines and the attachment points.

They were probably 19 years old, and had fractures in them, so it was past time they got replaced. Nick measured them all up and got them cut to length by David Lambourne. We were very happy with the job he did.

This post is getting ridiculously large now...so I'll finish it here. Part two of our Brisbane River stay will follow shortly.

Good Morning from Wide Bay, Queensland

After our fab day trip yesterday, we anchored here in Wide Bay, behind Double Island Point at 00:45 this morning.

It is not the world's most protected anchorage, but as we weren't going to cross the Wide Bay Bar at night, after the moon had set, and on the wrong tide...it was our safest option.

We will head up into the Wide Bay Harbour today, and maybe find somewhere nice to anchor in Tin Can Inlet.

Here are a couple of pictures I captured yesterday on our way out of the Brisbane River. Note how flat Moreton Bay is in the second picture! It didn't stay that way for the whole journey, but it wasn't rough by any means. Just a low rolly 2m swell...no one got sick, and everyone had seconds for dinner!

Thanks for your lovely comments after yesterday's post. It was fun posting while underway in the ocean (but still within sight of land).

Bonjour from Beautiful Brisbane

 

We interrupt this period of non-transmission to bring you a community service announcement...
LUCEY BLUE IS IN BRISBANE! The Brisbane River at Kangaroo Point to be precise….and has been for almost a week :-)

Nick, Ryan and Nick's parents left Sydney in LB on Friday 10th June. Nick will fill you in on that somewhat eventful journey at some point soon (maybe). In the meantime, Emily, Eric and I stayed with my mum in Sydney for a week, then flew up to brissy on the 18th. We got REALLY lucky and completely missed any airport ash cloud chaos…which was nice because one adult travelling with a 7 year old, a 4 month old, a large hiking backpack (choc full), a large duffle bag (also choc full), a stroller, a car seat and two small carry-on bags….was no mean feat. But, with the help of mum, some lovely QANTAS staff, the helpful Budget rental car staff, and a very kind gentleman in Brisbane who dragged all of my baggage off the carousel for me (I had Eric in my pouch and could barely bend over, let alone remove baggage from the carousel)…we made it in one piece, tired, but all accounted for!

I never got a chance to wrap up our Bantry Bay stay, as well as a couple of other bits and bobs from Sydney...so here goes. One of the Bantry Bay highlights for the kids was, of course, the ice cream boat! YES…you read it right…the ice cream boat! Kinda like a Mr Whippy on the water, but with no Greensleeves playing. He zips around selling ice cream and coffee, there are actually a couple of them operating over summer, but in winter, we only saw this one. What a great idea! What a cool job!!

When they weren't scoffing ice cream, the kids were entertaining themselves drawing pictures in the abundant window condensation…

Another item being scoffed that weekend was some boat-baked chocolate brownies...these lasted all of about 15 minutes in my estimation ;-)

...and one small boy was only too happy to help out mum by licking the bowl absolutely, positively, spotlessly clean (the 5 year old...not the 4 month old ;-).

...baked in our shiny new SMEV 7000 oven, which was purchased for its gorilla...every boat needs a gorilla apparently, how else would a certain old salt make his beloved cheese on toast??

It was a fun weekend, but some of us also managed a spot of much needed shut-eye...

...and the whole thing was topped off with a wonderful, fantastical, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious trip to see Mary Poppins at the Capitol Theatre in Sydney!

Please don't mind my scruffy looking kids! We aren't really kitted out for a high-flying night-life here...and had to just make do with what we had that was clean :-).