Wide Bay Bar ...

Monday 4th September 2017

Wind, thunder, lightning and rain before bed last night – woke to an absolutely calm anchorage this morning – how is that so? It felt like we were going to be blown away last night then with no warning it stops.

We are anchored in Tin Can Bay, just off Norman Point, along with what appears to be a whole city of other boats of all descriptions – some looking like they are just able to remain afloat by sheer good luck!!

An example of one boat anchored near us at Norman Point

We are waiting here until we get a good weather window to hop across the “Bar” and continue south.

The Wide Bay Bar apparently is one of the top 10 worst bar crossings in the world, and we are understandably a little apprehensive having never crossed a bar of any sort before – let alone one as infamous as this.

We do all the right things though, we go into the Coastguard office and get our copy of the Notices to Mariners with the latest waypoints for us to follow, if we deviate from the route set out by these waypoints we could be in trouble. These waypoints we enter into our chartplotter as well as isailor on the ipad, and also onto our paper chart – backup, backup, backup. We are also told the best time to leave is around 2hrs before high tide with a light swell. Looks like Monday is the day, especially as we will also have winds from a northerly direction to take us down towards Mooloolaba and Brisbane.

So with a few days to kill we spend time at the library – (time to organise our taxes) – and the libraries have great free wifi for us to use to our advantage. We also do the laundry and get groceries, even sneak into the local caravan park showers and put some colour through my hair!! A huge bonus here in Tin Can Bay is a place called "The Snack Shack" - the best deal for fish and chips we have found anywhere - fish, chips and salad under $10 - and super delicious!! We had lunches and dinner here the whole of our stay.

Cute snuggle sack completed !!

We have recently placed ads looking for an interested couple to sail with us to New Zealand, it is too far for us to do this length trip on our own so have turned to the internet for help and a couple would mean always two people on watch allowing the other two sleep and relax time with no hassles over cabin space, (SOL having a spare double cabin and a spare single). We have two months before our anticipated departure from Australia and have decided at this stage that we will sally forth from Coffs Harbour – all the ducks lining up that is, and the journey should take us 7 to 10 days. So, the ads are placed – now we just await responses – strangely enough the bulk of the response comes from singles in far flung places – we have had interest from Germany, Greece, Spain to name a few.

Had a message from Grace the other day – “Mum, Charli (her neighbour) and Ash just had a baby boy, can you knit it something???”  So, got the knitting needles clacking away and have a cute wee baby sleeping sack ready to post – woo hoo, how clever am I??? Took a few days but it was fun – especially as we have had no luck with the fishing lately so haven’t even bothered to throw the line out – best change that attitude, Mrs Docker, can’t expect fish to jump on the line if it is not baited and in the water, can you.

As well, with time on our side we made a cute little mat for just outside the cockpit door from rope - pretty flash we think...

Well, Monday dawned calm and clear, we watched as the flotilla of waiting yachts commenced the bar crossing and joined in, having followed all the “P’s” we should be right (Proper Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance) …. And we were – the bar crossing went without a hitch – in fact it could almost be termed a doddle and we were soon sailing along with a good wind down to Mooloolaba.

Sadly, our good luck fell away somewhere between Double Island Point and Noosa Heads as that is when Otto, our (obviously not so) trustworthy Auto Pilot decided to throw a massive tantrum and cease working which meant we had to hand steer for 6 hours, not a big deal but having gotten used to Otto taking the helm it was a bit of a change. With the wind behind us we were flying along and reached our top speed so far – 15.8knots boat speed !!! woooo!!!!!

Entering the harbour at Mooloolaba was actually more hairy than crossing the bar – the wind was now between 20 and 25kn and blowing straight in the entrance, the steering was really heavy – like the rudders were jammed – the tide was almost low and there was about a 2metre swell – it took about 7 seconds only to get in – but seven seconds of hell. The daylight was fast fading as we dropped our anchor in the crowded area allocated past the marina, for boats to anchor. We would look at the steering tomorrow – right now another "bar" needed to be dealt with – we sat and enjoyed a nice glass of red.