Bunderberg, Queensland, Oz

The admiral and I left Brisbane on April 5th after spending more than a month there.

It was as though we were growing roots and becoming all too comfortable with being tied up to something hard with all the power, water and air conditioning available to us.

We even had the use of a car, courtesy of our friends Phil and Kristina of " Songline". A simple thing like that made our trips to the market and the chandlery much easier, instead of sometimes spending an entire day getting groceries.

We had a good time in Brisbane but it was time to move on and explore the Queensland coast and the Great Barrier reef.

We left on Thursday morning on a clear, bright fall day and made our way down the river into Moreton Bay and on to Scarborough about ten miles outside of the estuary of the Brisbane river. On the approach to the marina I ran aground in a very narrow channel on a falling tide. Fortunately, the weather was benign and the bottom was soft mud but we were pretty well stuck. We managed to get Australian volunteer coastguard to come and help us and we then made it safely into the marina. Not a very auspicious start to this cruise.

We made some sail repairs and the Admiral went up the mast to check the rigging after the grounding and to replace the bulb in the steaming light.

We left the following morning for Mooloolabah, this time managing to stay in the channel. There are many places that there is very skinny water in Australia and it is imperative to keep a very close eye on the tides and your navigation.

We had a very nice sail out of Moreton Bay up the coast to Mooloolabah. When we got there we discovered the harbor entrance was being dredged and getting over the bar in breaking waves was interesting to say the least. We had a quiet night and left early the following day to sail up the coast through the narrow entrance south of Fraser Island up to Bunderberg. This particular entrance called Wide Bay Bar has a reputation for being difficult due to breaking waves but would have saved us about 75 miles. The weather was perfect with good wind and a full moon so we decided to take the long way round Fraser Island. We got into Bunderberg at about noon today. A nap is in order and we will visit the town such as it is tomorrow. Photos to follow.