Our floating home a 65' cutter rigged Ketch.
Our 2025 cruise
This is a basic coverage of the places visited/stops on our passage to the Whitsunday's.
A daylight sail from Spring Cove to Nelson Bay
for an overnight stopover.
From Nelson Bay we had a 24hr passage up to Coffs Harbour where we spent a couple of days.
A pod of Dolphins playing in the bow wave.
Sunrise on a beautiful morning
We did another 24hr passage from Coffs Harbour to Southport.
These full day passages are to avoid having to cross the bars and enter the rivers on the NSW coast.
A daylight passage up to the north west corner of Morton Island for an overnight stop and cake for my birthday!
Cake, wine and a another lovely sunset across Morton Bay!
A short passage from Morton Island across the busy shipping lanes to Moolooabah where we spent a week.
Sunset over Moolooabah.
Moolooabah was very crowded but lovely weather & beach.
Day passage up to Inskip Point through Wide Bay Bar into the Great Sandy Straight behind Fraser Island.
Sunset at Inskip Point.
Half day passage on the rising tide to clear the VERY shallow areas in the Great Sandy Straight up to Kingfisher Bay Resort where we stayed for two days.
Then another half day passage up to the lovely Platypus Bay before heading across to Bundaberg. The original plan was to head out to Lady Elliot Island then on to Lady Musgrove Island however, the weather didn't permit this.
Some phots from Platypus Bay.
Day passage from Bundaberg to Pancake Creek. Here hiding from the strong winds. Hoping to head out to Mast Head Island when the weather improves.
The weather unfortunately didn't improve so we had to travel further up the coastline to Point Capricorn where we had a very rolly night.
When we arrived on Great Keppel we had a couple of damp days then the skies cleared and we enjoyed a lovely day on the island. Collected a few coconuts for fresh coconut water and shredded coconut.
We left the Keppel's and crossed back to the mainland to Pear Bay for an overnight stop before heading up to Middle Percy Island for a couple of days. Started out with overcast skies and drizzle but on the last day the weather was perfect.
We were invited to a BBQ lunch on the island by a couple of Italian backpackers who were both cooks! They had been gifted a large fish! Very enjoyable afternoon and more coconuts.
These two guys have bought a small yacht in Sydney to live on and travel around. One had a little sailing experience and the other is a complete novice. They are on their way up to the Whitsunday's where they hope to get a job and continue to live on the yacht.
From the Percy's we had another full day sail up to Scrawfell Island dodging all the bulk carriers outside of Mackay.
The two Italian guys followed us here and managed to catch a Spanish Mackerel on the trolling line so it was another very nice BBQ dinner on the deck!
We stayed here 2 nights, a very nice anchorage.
Very beautiful sunsets across the mainland.
The night sky has also been amazing.
We then did a half day sail up to Thomas Island in the Linderman Group.
Glad we didn't miss this one... one of the very best anchorages.
After we dropped the pick and had lunch the biggest decision was which of the 3 beaches to explore. A truly beautiful anchorage.
A pod of dolphins playing in the bay next to the yacht. Just after this the drone decided it was going to see what was around the point ... it didn't come back!
From Thomas Island we had a short sail up to Whitsunday Island and Whitehaven beach.
We took speedy Gonzalez the tender up to the other end of the beach to Tongue Inlet and climbed up to the lookout. The view is worth the effort.
From Whitehaven beach we motored up to the top of Hook Island to Butterfly Bay for a bit of snorkelling.
We have managed to pick up one of the moorings
here. It's a lovely quiet anchorage and very calm we
will be here for a couple of days.
The snorkelling here has been very good, lots of fish and reasonable coral.
The weather has been warm, extremely calm and it's been a very peaceful anchorage.
We have been here for a couple of days.
We now have the yacht booked into the marina at Airlie Beach for four weeks while I return to cold Sydney for the cancer treatment. Hopefully I won't be there too long.
We have been cruising around the Whitsunday's since we returned from Sydney in June and it's now time to start our cruise back down the coast to Sydney.
Departed Airlie Beach on the 17th September after a big re provision at Coral Sea Marina and headed for Thomas Island.
Spent the next day relaxing on one of the beaches.
The next day we departed for Keswick & St Bees Islands. We were expecting the winds to swing around to the east enough for a good sail however, this didn't happen and we had to motor the whole way into a head wind!
Spent the night on one of the moorings between the two islands then headed for Middle Percy Island for a couple of days relaxing on the beach.
A few images of our stay on Percy.
Low tide in the lagoon.
After a couple of days on Percy we headed off for Pearl Bay for a night stop over.
Then it was on to Great Keppel Island for a short stay.
Unfortunately, as soon as we rounded the cape we were faced with an unexpected 20kn southerly and a south swell. Not a very good trip until around lunch time when we could tack & the wind and see state eased off. It was then a reasonable sail the rest of the way.
Unfortunately, the swell picked up again during the night & we have moved around to a different location on the island. It has a bad reputation for that!
The winds and sea state are easing so we are going out to the reef, next stop is Masthead Island.
Masthead Island
We spent two days on Masthead, lovely spot very peaceful with water so clear you can easily see the bottom in 9m of water.
Approaching Masthead Island, sea state was like a lake. Extremely calm.
Lots of turtles this time of year,
Nesting season.
The crew stretching their legs
on the crowded beaches.
Another gorgeous sunset after a great day.
We then moved on with a short passage to Fitzroy Reef for a couple of days while the wind and seas were still calm.
and it's not marked on any of the charts!
Some images from Fitzroy Reef.
Extremely calm reef weather.
Our plan was to go from Fitzroy down to Lady Musgrove Island however the weather was turning and it would have been bad weather there so we had to make a very slow dash down to Bundaberg.
Unfortunately, we encountered the bad weather earlier than predicted and we were pushing through a reasonable swell and head winds.
We finally anchored up in the river around 8pm in the dark.
We are now stuck in Bundy for a few weeks waiting for the yacht to be lifted onto the hardstand to change the antifoul because when it was done last October the wrong product was used!!!
Because of this delay in our trip south, I have lost my two crew.
Hoping to find a couple more for the trip south.
Sunset over the river
The yacht was finally splashed back into the river on the 24th October and we were able to leave Bundaberg on the 26th and head down to the Great Sandy Straights. Fortunately, I managed to pick up one crew member in Bundy.
The Straights are very a stressful passage due to being very narrow and VERY shallow. This trip was made even more stressful when the chart plotter decided to turn itself off in the worst possible section!
Tides through the Straight flood from both ends and meet near the middle. Due to the depth you must time your arrival in the middle ( lowest & narrowest ) for high tide.
This year we got that perfect, unlike last year!
A conga line of yachts travelling through the straights. It looks very wide but there is only a very narrow channel through all the sand bars.
We again only stayed here for the one day before tackling the Wide Bay Bar crossing.
Fortunately, the bar was very calm when we went through at slack tide and we had no issues.
In Mooloolaba we managed to tie up to the public wharf for the night. The river is very shallow and difficult to find a spot. This allowed us easy access onto land & dinner at the Greek restaurant.
Sunrise over the marina with our early exit from Mooloolaba.
I decided to do a longer passage straight to Southport and not stop at Morton Island due to the conditions. It turned out to be a good fast passage.
Due to weather we stayed in Southport for several days waiting for the right conditions to travel to Coffs.
A little bit of rainy weather on the Gold Coast for our stay. We were anchored opposite Mirage Resort.
Once the weather cleared we headed off for Coffs Harbour a 160nm overnight passage.
Turned out to be a rough passage with the swell on the aft beam rolling the boat back and forth.
A lovely sunrise just north of Coffs.
We have spent the week in Coffs waiting for the weather to improve before another overnight trip to Port Stephens.
The view from Mutton Bird Island.
Can you pick out Island Time?
A lovely day in Coffs but unfortunately, the wind is coming from the south east!
After waiting a week in Coffs for the wind and swell to change around we left early on the Friday for Port Stephens or possibly further south depending on how good the sailing conditions were.
We were travelling well under just the spinnaker with the wind and swell behind us. We were making half wind speed and it was a lovely smooth sail......until the spinnaker halyard snaped at the top of the mast and the spinnaker blow forward then dropped into the water next to the boat!!!
It was great fun retrieving a 174sqm wet sail from the ocean!
After that we had the big sail and it's sock taking up most of the foredeck space.
We then had to motor sail with just the headsail but we still made good speed because we had gone out far enough to pick up the east coast current that was running at over 2kns directly behind us.
The wind was still around 20kns at this stage, you can see that our top speed was 13.7kns with the spinnaker and the avg speed 7.6kns up to this point.
We were making such good time over night due to the wind coming up to 30kns but staying directly behind that we were outside Port Stephens at 0400 so decided to continue south.
We continued to make good speed due to the current and 30kn wind that we were able to continue straight through to Sydney, a total distance of just over 250 nm in 32 hours.
Just out side of Sydney still doing almost 8kns and the wind was still up at 30kns but it was a very smooth trip.
No comments:
Post a Comment