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.