Just like the Endeavour

1st Jul 2010


After a rolly night at Hummocky Island, we woke to a light southerly with predicted light winds for the rest of the morning - again. Keen for something different  and having been engrossed in Capt Cook' journals for the last few days, I elected to raise the main and sail off the anchor with the headsail just like the Endeavour was compelled to on every occassion. This all came to pass as planned so we started our trip to Rosslyn Bay at a leisurely and quiet 3.5 kts while we had breakfast. Finally being forced to start the engine, we then motored on (uneventfully) to Rosslyn bay arriving about lunchtime. Here, like Endeavour, I will effect some minor repairs and rest the crew before heading off Sunday after a predicted blow on Saturday.

Tropic of Capricorn

30th Jun 2010

Weighing anchor at 06:10, we motored through almost calm water in virtually no wind all day towards our destination of Hummocky Island. This is small island north of Cape Capricorn, (a cape so named as it lies almost exactly in the tropic of the same name) and south of Great Keppel Island.

As pleasant as it was, the day was without much to speak of but for a brief dolphin visit. Indeed, so uneventful was the trip that Paul got quite excited when he saw a lump of seaweed drift by. Even so, it did tick off a number of firsts; Crossing the 23deg 30’ line of latitude placed us in the tropics for the first time and our destination, albeit of low rank in the scheme of such things, is our first Island stay and it turned out to be a beautiful spot. Beautiful but for a rolly anchorage - even in these quite conditions. In fact ‘Lucas’ (our cruising guide) state that in any sort of wind, this spot is completely unacceptable for an over night and given our experience on this night, I have to agree.

Like all the islands around here, there is the oblogatory rock hazard or two to be avoided on appraoch as the photos of the aptly named "shipwreck" rock left shows. Once anchored we took the dingy ashore and explored the beach and found a true ‘tropical paradise’ of isolated white sand and aqua blue clear water. A swim, wet a fishing line and back to the boat for dinner. A good start to the tropics!

Mornays and Maintenance

28th Jun 2010

We dropped the mooring lines at 05:50 as we had a long day ahead and I wanted to make Pancake Creek, an anchorage south of Yeppoon, before dark. While I plan on 5 kts, we needed to average 6 kts to have any hope of this aspiration and this would mean a lot of motoring as the wind forecast was light. The backup plan was to overnight at Round Hill, some 20 nm short of Pancake and near the town of “1770”, (so named because Capt Cook called in here back in 1770). However, if we were to do this it would force us to deal with a very shoaly entrance to Round Hill and probably add a day to our passage to Rosslyn Bay but such is sailing!

As things turned out, we arrived at the entrance to Pancake at 16:30 with an hour of daylight to spare. Now as said, we achieved this by a lot of fairly boring motoring in light conditions so as a diversion during the course of the day; I rebuilt the lazy jacks, fixed a crook pulley on the steering, cooked a Mornay for lunch and even baked some scones for afternoon tea – how domestic is that!

But all this was worth it as Pancake Creek tuned out to be a nice place which gave us the opportunity for a row ashore and a swim before a pleasant night. (Left Is Pilgrim at anchor at sunset in Pancake Creek)

Turtles and tranquility

28th Jun 2010

Heading off at 07:30 we started out on what was to become and near perfect day. At the very beginning we were greeted by a large old loggerhead turtle, a sign we took to be a positive precursor to the whale spotting efforts which were assigned a priority today. Alas, no whales but the sail itself was near perfect with a 15 kts reach achieving 6. to 7 kts in the almost calm waters of northern Hervey bay.

With the arrival of a sea breeze in the afternoon, I reluctantly fired up the Yanmar to keep us moving at a reasonable pace for our arrival at Bunddy and this proved to be eventless and simple with us secured to a berth in time for a walk and a few cleanup jobs.

Tomorrow is and early start as we have a long 67 nm haul to Pancake creek and at 5 kts , that’s a long day!

PS: The photo is a file shot, not genuine I am sad to say.

Glassy Calm

26th Jun 2010

Heading up the Great Sandy Straight, tide plays an important role in speed. For this reason I briefed the crew that we wanted to weigh anchor just on dawn as the high tide was due about 09:30 mid channel. This would give us in flood tide to about the middle of the straights, being the point where the tide direction changed as Hervey Bay tide takes over domination. The plan was to then head on noorth with the now ebbing flow into Hervey bay. All this, I am pleased to say, worked a treat with and average speed for the 8 hrs of just under 7 kts.

Now the Great Sandy itsef is a circuitous maze of channels and markers but is genetrally a little deeper than the Morton Bay straights so I was feeling reasonably comfortable. None the less, as the plotter image (left) shows, one needs to keep one's wits about themselves at all times. Locals of course, rip up and down these straight at high speed in their shallow draft boats armed with experience and current knowledge but we poor sailor type with 1.7M under us benefit greatly from a much more cautious approach, even in the finest conditions; something we didn't wake up to!

Setting out, a new challenge emerged; that of fog. Looking up the straight, the fog appeared to be down to the water so we had no choice but to wait. After a cuppa, it started to lift so we pushed off. We had a few little patches underway but it soon lifted into a fine day. From here on, the trip itself was generally without incident in glassy calm conditions but for two close encounters with the bottom, one being the nature of the place and the other being a fault on out part when we ‘skipped’ a marker and thereby cut a corner.This by the way is a real trap on these type of excursions so the routine is to mark off each passed marker as they go by and check their ident. number if it can be seen.

The good speed meant an early arrival in Urangan and this put us right on the bottom of the tide. Now tide up here are biggish with over a 3 m range so we entered the marina dead slow, watching the sounder all the way to the berth. “No problems”; my concerns were unjustified it seemed, as we tied up with a goo '10cm' under our keel in the berth!!!.

We plan to stay here in Urangan Marina (left), tomorrow as the day is forecast to be rainy and still with Monday much better and with more usable winds.

Dolphines, Whales and Wolves!

25th Jun 2010

Wolves? Yep, Wolves, all this happened late in the trip bit I won’t keep you waiting: Just after rounding Double Island Point, we had just set the new course for Inskip and I was about to go below and make a cuppa. Fortunately, I lingered for a while standing on the companionway, chatting to my dozing shipmates. For reasons of pure habit I turned to look ahead just before going below and was totally shocked to see a large exposed rock with breaking surf dead aheads about 500m. What the ???. Jumping to the wheel to steer the boat away (we were on autohelm) I exclaimed that no such obstacle was on the Navionics charts! A quick cross reference to the paper chart showed the object to be Wolf Rock, a small and deadly yet prominent feature of this spot. Another lesson learned - electronic charts have limitations that must be respected. Ironically, while in Mooloolaba, I had insisted on buying paper charts as it is regulation and certainly my preference. The problem was that my cross reference was insufficient on this occasion.

OK, the whales and dolphins: Fairly early in the trip I was staring to port when a mature whale (Southern right I think) jumped almost clear of the water only about 50 metres from the boat. Doubtlessly the most spectacular sighting to date, but we once again missed the shot as the display was so short lived. Upon my call, Paul and Carla saw the resultant splash and a number of following blows but that’s all as the single jump was the limit of the display this time.

Sometime later we had a dolphin sighting by Carla. Not unusual by now but I pre-warned Carla that so far the visits had been brief in nature. No so this time! The dolphines numbered perhaps 20 and included Mums and young ones and collectively they had a ball playing in the bow wave of Pilgrim for almost 20 minutes. I took photos with the compact camera until it ran out of batteries and then went below to get my Olympus. It is surprising how hard it is to get a good shot but I managed just a couple, see left, out of perhaps 50 shots.

As for the trip: It was about 70% good with good speed but uncomfortable conditions most of the way. With the bulk of our time well off the coast, but the sights along rainbow beach were certainly a spectacular interlude in the setting sun as we neared Inskip. The entry to Inskip was itself OK but while the course in is deep, it is none the less disconcerting as the entry path is surrounded by breakers at reasonably close quarters.

Dropping anchor in Pelican Bay around 16:00, just inside Inskip, with a number of other cruisers, we settled into a good dinner and plan an early departure up the Great Sandy Straight tomorrow.

Hint click the Photos to enlarge

Force 8

24th Jun 2010

With report of 39kts at Double Island Point and 4.5 m swells, I decided to stay put in Mooloolaba for another day. Departure now will be Friday (25th Jun).

Out of interest, 39kts is a Force 8 which is formally recognised as a gale on the beaufort (meteorological) scale. The scale only goes to 12 which is >65 kts with 15m waves and is almost unique to severe cyclones. Yee Ha! The general consensus is that 8 is bad but 9 is really serious stuff.

Ella Pink Lady

18th Jun 2010

Today we had a morning cleaning up the boat before we each have a few days away from her; Paul at home in Caloundra and me back to Sydney for a few days through to Tuesday next week. Now while I'm really keen to see the family, I felt that in flying home, I was taking the cushy option and this was reinforced by seeing Jessica's boat "Ella Pink Lady" in the marina with us. Jessica didn't have a break!. It turns out that 'Jess' is a local to Mooloolaba and the boat seems to draw spectators every day - well deserved I say to both Ella Pink Lady and Jessica.

(On an unrelated note: Following a comment from a mate I must point out that the posting times that appear on these bloggs are not Australian time but eminate from the home counrty of 'Blogspot' I assume. Just in case you were wondering - I sleep well at night and tend to NOT be awake at 03:00.)

Made it to Mooloolaba

17th Jun 2010

We departed Scarborough for Mooloolaba at a leisurely 09:45 as we had some things to do and needed to wait for the marina office to open. In any event, the pen we were in was showing zero depth under us at low tide when I first got up, so waiting was prudent.

Motoring across Morton bay in zero wind, I was surprised how shallow the entire bay is. In fact I needed to track a very specific course to avoid running aground and in some spots needed to be particularly careful as we crossed unavoidable shallows. This lasted almost all the way to Caloundra after which we stayed close to the main northern shipping channel as thre pic left shows. Arrival at Mooloolaba was straight forward from a purly technical point of view but made interesting due to the variety of traffic we encountered.

Just on entry, we had outbound fishing boats with nets deployed, runabouts and, to make it really interesting, an old block on a paddle board right in the middel of the entrance and about 15 young kids on surf borads not far away. All we could do was throttle back and see how it was all going to work without someone hitting, or running over, someone else. Of course, it sorted itself out in the end and finally slipped into our allocated berth almost like professionals! 

We plan to stay a few days and sort out some domestics but being here represents the completion of a significant stage of the trip as we are in Sunshine Coast. Next stop Wide Bay.

Bottoms, Bouys and Beacons

16th Jun 2010

We set off  from the GoldCoast at 07:50 as I was keen to arrive in Scarborough (Redcliff) before dark. Motoring into the inland channel, all was well, with the tide in our favour and plenty of depth but this was soon to change! After about an hour we arrived in a spot known to be tight on depth but what I didn’t expect was the depth sounder to go to 0 and for Pilgrim to have a gentle ‘kiss’ of the bottom as we passed. This event was almost repeated a few minute latter with what I estimate to be less than 10cm under us a number of times. Now all of this was taxing, particularly with low sun and shadows but the trip still had its merits and certainly afforded a cross section of Brisbaine's socio-economics spectrum. We saw mansions and shacks and we saw multi million dollar boats a near wrecks. All were represented along the route!

Further along an interesting phenomenon occurred as we followed a big vehicular ferry through a narrow channel. The props of the ferry so churned the bottom that our depth sounder was blinded by the silt and showed zero with screaming alarms even though the charts showed 3 m. Disconcerting and worth remembering!

Once in Morton Bay we set the headsail, polled out for a steady 6.5 kts right across the bay. Apart from dodging heavy traffic and a scattering of special marks, isolated danger marks and spoiled ground, the trip was uneventful.

Arrival at Scarborough was only made interesting by the bottom of the tide and a ‘marina girls’ who didn’t want to tell me much. (It turns out she was just back from a long holiday and didn’t want t be at work today). This however didn’t stop us enjoying our shower and the state of origin at a local boat club before ‘binks’ as my uncle Den use to call it.

An easy sail

15th Jun 2010

Waiting for the tide, we had a late start with breakfast and coffee before dropping the lines about 09:00. The decision was justified by a very good bar crossing outbound and that in turn found us in good weather having a great sail at over 6 kts. including passing Cape Byron, Australia's Easterly most point. The day was in fact so good as to be uneventful but for my lingering concern about our night arrival into the Gold Coast. While the arrival was simple enough, I knew from aviation experience that all the bright lights of the Gold Coast would complicate things and this they did.

On arrival, as we search for a faint red of a port marker, the vista was overpowered by taillights from a dozen cars. Similarly, as we looked for the white of the ‘special mark’ all we could see was headlights on high beam and high rise. None the less we dropped anchor as planned and though I was a little unhappy with our proximity with the sand, we settled into some hot soup and a good nights rest after another long day.

In the morning, the scene we found was quite surreal; a cityscape, theme parks and sandy shallows about 200m from the boat. Fortunately the Manson plough anchor did its job but next time I’ll respond to my instincts more readily.

Denisens and Doubts

12th Jun 2010

I’ll get to the Denisens in a moment but first: We were up at 06:00 and under way by 06:30 for a beautiful sunrise trip down the river. With cuppa in hand, the navigation was decidedly easier, being the second time around so all in all, a pleasant morning.

Leaving the bar at 08:20, the offshore leg started out great with a good 7 kts and a completely tolerable sea. In fact, we enjoyed a couple of hours of what I have always called ‘coffee sailing’, an event that is not all that common in reality! As if to confirm this view, about 11:00 the wind swung south thus putting it directly behind us; good for a square rigger but not for Pilgrim, so we needed to tack off our course in order to settle the boat. This was not a major issue as our good speed was going to get us to Ballina early and this would make the bar crossing all the harder as the tide wouldn’t be right. (it is here where the doubts side of this tale start but to that soon!).

Sometime after the wind shift I was at the gunnels securing the preventer when I saw a big dark shape dash under the boat. I called “Dolphins” and waited for it to surface but - - - - it did not ! This can only mean one thing, it was a bloody big shark or some similar scary denisen of the deep. Strange thought it may seem on a 9 tonne steel boat, shark sighting are always ‘spooky’ at sea and this was no exception. None the less we sailed on without any further visitors being seen.

On arrival at Ballina I enquired about the bar and the report was not entirely good so we hoved to (stopped the boat) and waited for about 30 mins. After this we decide to ‘have a look’ so we proceeded cautiously towards the bar. Now the issue here is that if big swells come through and catch us on the bar, the potential for a breaking wave and loss of control, is the risk. This is true of all bars but Ballina is even more demanding as it has no headland to protect it from the ocean swells. Well aware of this, I was a little apprehensive, and even had some doubts, as we motored in. Fortunately, between Paul and I we kept a close eye all around and got in without too much drama. I was none the less relieved once we cleared the danger zone.

Once in, we dropped anchor just off the trawler harbour but having noticed in the way in that the RSL had a great wharf, I gave them a ring and was told it was available to us for a few days - beauty! Upping anchor we soon tied up to the wharf and all that was required was that we sign in to the club, an easy task!

Tom and Huckleberry

11th Jun 2010

Something different; today we travelled up the Clarence river on the good raft PILGRIM, feeling decidedly 'Mark Twain esk'.

The aim  was to travel up river to the Harwood bridge, a natural barrier for mast vessels. After threading the needle and getting back out the Yamba 'hole in the wall' shown left, a much easier task than first time, we set off up river following the many leads and Lucas’ charts. Apart from one navigation error on my part where we ran very low on water briefly, the trip was simple and in fact quite serene. PILGRIM in the river seemed odd as did the passing cows and rural scenery.

In these good conditions, I took the opportunity to run the engine out to max revs ( a cleaning process recommended by Yanmar), took time and two circles to align the wind indicator and noted compass reading in the hope of aligning the magnetic compass when I can. So some small jobs as we took in the atmosphere and waved to passing locals.

Anchoring just off the Harwood sugar mill, adjacent to the Pacific Hwy, we had lunch while we watch the anchor in the 1.5kts tidal flow. The plan is  to spend the night and move down river early tomorrow to make the tide into Ballina if the bar allows.

Drop Offs and Labrynths

9th June 2010

A day which was to end with some anxiety, started well on a crisp Mid North Coast Morning. Due to some timing demands with the Yamba arrival, we were up at 03:15 and out the Coffs harbour entrance at 04:00. The departure was dark and uneventful but for my ship mate getting his Port and Starboard mixed up and thus directing me to turn towards the wave covered rocks; advice I questioned very quickly, thereby gaining an equally quick retraction and correction.

Once at sea we set the mainsail under motor as I was happy to keep things simple until dawn some 2 hrs away. After a brief attempt to talk to the 24hrs services of Coffs VMR (whom I would guess were fast asleep) we soon settled into a very nice 6 kts in good conditions. With the sunrise I set the genoa, shut down the engine, got us a cuppa and cooked up some eggs for breakfast. All in all an entirely pleasant experience including a visit from a pod of dolphin who stayed briefly, dashing under the bow and such and, whats seemed an exceptional number of large vessel traffic.

Quite apart from the big ships, of interest on this north bound leg is that there are a number of ‘hard bits’ that need to be avoided. As our departure was night and due to my aviation bred urge to avoid the hard bits, I planned a course well off shore. This actually took us to the edge of what I took to be the continental shelf or what Nimo might have called the "drop off," a remarkable place as the water depth drops from about 70m to 880m in a very short space, a feature that was soon manifest. As we neared this region, the seas became quite lumpy as the swells increased in size considerably – not surprising really so we decided not to stay!

With daylight I could afford to be a tad more daring with the rocks so I altered course to bring us back to the coast. It was about now that we got a wind change whereby our lovely broad reach was replaced by a wind straight down our next track. This slowed our progress and as I had to make Yamba before sunset I again called on the Yanmar. With some speed recovered we soon found PILGRIM burying her bow from time to time in the oncoming seas with the occasional green water rolling all the way to the dodger. So our perfect day had diminished some but this was soon addressed by another whale sighting.

Staring out to sea I suddenly saw a picture perfect tail emerge from the water on our starboard bow at about 100m range. He/she was going north and seemed in no hurry to avoid us. Even so, an urgent call for the camera, two or three more sighting, a wait, then nothing. As we stared at the again featureless ocean we knew we had missed the shot – Again!

Now our early departure from Coffs, had been driven by the tides at Yamba. As the Clarence is such a big river, the outgoing tide stream creates breaking waves on the bar in any conditions. The aim then is to arrive near the top of the tide while it is still ‘flooding’. This is further supported by the need for depth as one negotiates the river itself. So the planned departure and the planned speed all should have worked but as we were slowed by the adverse winds another issue emerged; that of a night time negotiation of a relatively tricky arrival path in the river mouth.

Arriving at the bar at 16:30 entry was fine but as expected, the trip to Yamba required a lot of concentration and attention to the charts as the route is a tight, shallow and  circuitous labrynth defined by a myriad of small and ‘far from clear’ markers. This was further challenged at the time of our arrival, by an outgoing flotilla of fishing trawlers all seeking to share this narrow passage. None the less, a joint effort soon had us tied up at Yamba marina some 13hrs after leaving Coffs behind. Beer-O-Clock!

Aloft

7th Jun 2010

Firstly let me say that I feel somewhat amiss in that I can't give you tales of real sailing just now because we are, as you know, layed up in Coffs. Even so, the sailor stuff still happens as the shot at left will attest. Enroute here I noticed that the wind vane was out of calibration so I knew there was little choice; When next in harbour, I would need to  go aloft in the bosen's chair and have a look. This is not an easy task or indeed a comfortable one; particularly for one who has left their 25th birthday long behind. The 'getting up' involves a 'climb' up the 13m mast with the deck crew (Paul) backing up on the halyard attached to the bosens chair  (more like a harness really). Now the real fun comes when the boat moves as the motion is amplified by the length of the mast and that makes for a wild ride for the jack up top.

Quite apart from the 'heroics' of the mast climb, the day has been productive with a number of repairs incluing to the cracked paint work. Sometime around 04:00 last night it occurred to me that what was cracked was probably body filler, not an uncommon aspect of steel boats. The filler is used to blend welds in particularly visible areas such a the toe rails in this case.

The Coffs Wash!

6th Jun 2010

Over the weekend, we have been stuck in Coffs by a combination of needing a 50 hrs service on the Yanmar (can't do that until Monday) and the winds, which remain quite strong.

Although on the marina, this place has been aptly described as a washing machine and that’s holds true for this stay. Most nights, Pilgrim, and all the other boats on the marina, bounce on mooring lines and work the fenders hard. In fact, Coffs Marina is well known for its rough conditions in big seas. We certainly haven't seen this but the pic shows what it can be like here. None the less, the layover is  a good opportunity for admin (real life goes on) and the ever present boat work.

I can Fly!

3rd Jun 2010

The night at Trial Bay was surprisingly comfortable with good holding and just a gentle swell. None the less each time I woke I checked our anchor and at 03:00 I checked the weather on the ‘Iphone’, which had good connectivity. The news was not good with the first of what was to become the Lennox Head ‘cyclone’ starting to show up. With 33 kt winds and heavy rain predicted for late morning I decided to up and go ASAP. This meant a departure in the rain and the inky blackness of the night. Not an easy or pleasant task but I was confident that we had a clear departure course and clear run to Coffs.

The passage went well although wet and cold. Well but for a brief exercise in flying! Not the type that needs a licence but the ‘across the cabin’ type. I was coming up from below when the boat lurched off a swell. This happened to be just between changing hand holds so I travel from the top of the companionway, down and across to the galley, impacting the stove with my full weight. Fortunately no damage to me but for bruising but as we discovered latter, the stainless steel hand hold near the oven had bent and buckled upon impact, so I hit with quite some force. Tough or Lucky?

Also of note on this leg was that just out of trial Bay we were passed by two opposite direction fishing vessels, clearly working hard in these horrible conditions. Makes you appreciate the work these guys do. We also had radio and visual exchanges with a couple of other cruisers due into Coffs at about the same time as us, so the seas were surprisingly crowded for such a miserable day!

Entry to Coffs was fine but for a mix up in berth allocations. I suspect that the ‘marina lady’ was slack and rather than get wet she had a guess. This left us manoeuvring in the tight confines of the marina to find our own berth. Once on I set about the usual post passage cleanup to find some significant cracks in the paint on the upper hull. This could have resulted from our night at the Crowdy Pier but its still a bit of a worry that will need investigation but we have time for that as the weather will keep us here for a few days at least.

Visitors

2nd Jun 2010

We departed Port at 08:45 crossing the bar easily and setting course in about 10 kts of following wind. Conditions were good and mostly fine. We were however pushing a stiff current of up to 2 kts that held our SOG to about 4.5 kts.

A couple of hours on, we were met by FORZA 2, a big cat with Roger and Anne Mckinnon on board. We had a chat via VHF and promised to exchange photos when we next got to our emails. A fun interlude but the highlight of the trip was a whale sighting. Off our Port Quarter, I spotted what looked like a young whale, putting on a real display of tail slapping and jumping. A little too distant for a good shot so we missed out. As this was such an occassion, in this case I have cheated here by including a "file' shot.

Shortly after this, we sailed into a huge black cloud of rain and it didn’t stop raining all the way to Trail Bay. In fact, enroute, the bureau issued a severe rain alert for the area and flooding. This won’t hurt us of course but doesn’t make for a pleasant trip.

Dropping anchor in Trail bay, (Sth Wst Rocks) the rain continued but some hot soup and dry clothes and the world looked rossie again. With the latest forecast bringing some weather earlier than originally forecast, I intend to get going early to make Coffs soon after lunch