Mooloolaba to Noosa

After a couple of nights at the Mooloolaba Yacht Club, we decided to sail 30 nm down the coast to Noosa. The wind was still blowing pretty well so it was first reef all the way.

We store the dingy on the targa bar. For offshore passages, we tip the dingy on its side so that it won't fill with water. It also shelters the cockpit. The dingy is an "Argie 10". Oddly enough, the designer of the dingy, a South African known as Dudley Dix, was familiar to me. When I was still considering monohulls and perhaps, building a boat myself, I'd been very impressed with his Didi 38. Anyway, Steve had built the dingy several years ago and never used it. I started complaining about the cost, weight, and expense of inflatable dingies and one thing lead to another.

Noosa Heads

The anchorage at Noosa Heads is well sheltered from the prevailing south-east swell, exposed to anything from the north or east. Basically, we could stay there until the weather chased us out.

The anchorage turns out to be just 100 yards outside of Little Cove - where we'd had such a good time in April. Thankfully, the surf was completely flat. The normal trade-wind surf just doesn't wrap that well. I was a bit worried about the "shark nets" - really lines of baited hooks - but there was a gap in the line of floats and we sailed right through and dropped the hook in 5 meters of water. Geoff and Dianna Mercer met us on the main beach and I managed to get through the (very small) surf without getting the dingy swamped and picked them up for a visit.

On a subsequent trip the lifeguards yelled at us for landing a motorized craft on the beach. That spot is recommend for dingy landing by the the cruising guide that we had, but the town of Noosa Heads had evidently outlawed motorized boats near the beach sometime after Alan Lucas last visited. No worries, we have oars.

Cockpit Break Dancing

The kids laid hold of the freshly charged video camera and invented "cockpit break dancing," then "inverted cockpit break dancing." After the fashion shoot, they video taped an all purpose cleaner commercial and then left the camera on...

Noosa to Tin Can Bay

Our last night on the hook was marred by rain and a local east swell which made the anchorage uncomfortable. Clearly, it was time to move on.

The crawley bumps on the horizon suggested that the SE wind was still blowing hard so we went out with the 2nd reef in. It was still blowing in the teens but the wind eased as the morning went on. We shook out the second reef, went to full sail, and finally motor sailed for a couple hours as the wind dropped down in to the 4 - 5 kt range after lunch. After rounding Double Island Point (so called because the point has a couple of low spots which makes it look like two islands from a distance) the wind picked up and our course to the Wide Bay Bar was perfect for a spinnaker run. Nothing like making 10 knots in 8 knots of wind to jazz up an afternoon, except perhaps making 12 knots in 10 knots of wind. As we neared the entrance to the Wide Bay bar, we snuffed the spinnaker. The snuffer is a long nylon sock which can be pulled down the spinnaker. Without a snuffer, we would have to blanket the spin with the main and gather all 1500 square feet of it in by hand.

Up to this point, we had had decent weather, occasional sun and the odd rain shower. But at Wide Bay, the weather suddenly turned ugly, or, at least really opaque. According to our borrowed chart (vintage 1988) we had to pick up one set of leading beacons on Frasier Island, follow them north-east until we could pick up a second set of leading beacons on Inskip Point, which would lead us more-or-less east into Tin Can Bay (the bay). Beneath the label for the Wide Bay Bar on the chart was a circumspect notice that the bar crossing required "local knowlege" and that, as sandbars frequently changed location, the leading lights might be adjusted. All of this discussion about leading beacons was completely moot, because the entire coastline was obscured by a black rain storm which, in fact, was the cause of that last little burst of speed with the spinnaker. We were right where we were "supposed" to be on the chart, but the depth meter went from 20 meters to 4 in what seemed two heartbeats. Faced with ugly light green water all around, we did a crash tack and headed back the way we came. We were cold, damp, tired and if we couldn't get past the bar our alternatives were a 70 nm upwind sail back to Mooloolaba, or a 100 nm sail around Frasier Island into Hervey Bay.

We dropped the main, and Karin motored slowly south to where the water looked a little deeper while I radioed the coast guard. Coast Guard Tin Can Bay was happy to provide us with three new waypoints which I plotted on the chart. They went right across the "shallow" part on the chart. Ugh. Fortunately, the first one was indeed farther south so we reached it just about the same time that the rainstorm hit. The next half hour was really spooky. Karin drove and I raced around checking our position on the chart against the GPS, double checking the waypoints that I had written down, and looking for breakers. Thankfully, the tide book was from 2002 and it indicated that we did have a flood tide in our favor. We never saw less than 6 meters on the depth sounder and never saw a single beacon, buoy, leading light or day board until we were passing Inskip Point, well inside the bar.

But the drama was not yet over. When we were safely inside Tin Can Bay (the bay) I radioed Tin Can Bay Marina (in the town of Tin Can Bay on Snapper Creek) and asked if we could get a berth for a few days. There was an uninspiring pause when I gave our length and width. After an ominous silence, the marina operator came back with "OK Endless Summer, I think we can squeeze you in..." and gave me directions to a berth on B finger. "Just tie up at the fuel dock if you can't fit in. The key to the showers will be under the mat." The thought of standing under hot water until I was sick of it immediately banished all worries about "not fitting."

After an hour of motoring (in the rain) we reached Snapper Creek just at dusk. As we motored up the creek, the channel got narrower and narrower until there was just barely room for us to slip between the docked fishing boats on one side and the channel markers on the other. Turning the final corner revealed a marina which would have fit comfortably in a back yard swimming pool. B finger was easy to locate (one of only three, clearly labeled) and it appeared to be a docking area for Lazers or Optimists. "They've got to be kidding," I thought to myself.

They weren't. Thankfully there was no wind at all and several neighbors on the dock to take our lines. Also, I had to turn around anyway so I figured that we might as well try docking half way around. As we have two engines, manuvering the boat with the throttles is actually pretty easy, like driving a bulldozer. Not that I have any experience doing that. Anyway, I put one engine in forward and the other in reverse and the boat turned 90 degrees while staying more or less in the same spot. It was actually less rather than more so I had to back and forth a bit to line us up with the berth. That's OK. Any docking you can walk away from is a good one.

Tin Can Bay in the Rain

Basically, it rained for the next three days. We explored the town of Tin Can Bay. To give you an idea, the only ATM in town will only dole out A$300 at a time. Since it would take you several weeks to spend that much in town, no one has any problem with this. Our big splurge was going into the local laundromat with a fist full of two-dollar coins and every damp thing we owned (basically all of our clothing) and getting good and dry.

We thought about going over to Frasier Island, but no one could generate much enthusiasm for anchoring out in the rain, far from any source of dryness.

Since our bimini is flat on top it collects water. The kids took turns pushing up on the bimini and causing a mini Niagra. Big fun.

Back to Mooloolaba

After three soggy days in Tin Can Bay, we were ready to move on. We had wanted to go a bit further north (actually about 300nm further north...) but we had balance our desire for exploration with the requirement that we come back south against the pervailing winds and it looked like we had good weather for going south today. Specifically, we had a glorious sunny day with very light easterly winds. So, we slipped our dock lines at seven in the morning and motored back down Tin Can Inlet bound for the Wide Bay Bar and Mooloolaba

Tristan got to drive down Tin Can Inlet. It was nice to finally see everything that we missed in the storm on the way in. "Honey, do you remember ever seeing that channel marker? ..."

From Inskip Point, barges depart for Frasier Island. There aren't any paved roads on Frasier Island so all traffic (even busses) is four-wheel drives. The barges work like double-ended landing craft. Drive up to the beach, lower the ramp and everyone drives off right onto the sand.

I had used the rainy days to learn how to use waypoints in the GPS and discovered that we had actually stored the track through the Wide Bay Bar so getting out was going to be easier than coming in. In nice weather, the beacons worked just as advertised and it was easy to see the shallow spots.

We started south in an 8-knot breeze, rapidly overhauling another cat under full main and jib. Just as we started to get close, they mysteriously started increasing the gap. I raced around checking sail trim, trying to discover what we were doing wrong. After a few minutes I noticed that the enemy boat had furled their jib while continuing to increase the gap... Aha! Motorsailing. Soon the wind dropped and we had to resort to the motor too.

Since the weather was so nice, we had no qualms about hugging the coast. We sailed right past Rainbow Beach (where we rented the Jeep in April) and rounded Double Island Point quite closely. The other cat, perhaps chasing the remains of a land breeze, opted for an inshore course. We opted to stay out where the current would help and where we could set the autopilot to drive us straight to Mooloolaba.

Otto did the driving, I cooked tuna curry for lunch, and everyone enjoyed the sun. Actually, Otto did start acting a bit funny late in the day, but I wrote it off as a problem with one of our wind sensors

Back in Mooloolaba, our old spot at the Mooloolaba Yacht Club was taken by a giant monohull, shudder, so we tried the Mooloolaba Warf Marina. The warf marina was a bit smaller, but it was also closer to town. Prior to Tin Can Bay, I would have considered it "tight." Now, no problem.

The other cat, which we actually beat into the harbour, craftily snuck past us in the line for the fuel dock. We chatted a bit and discovered that they were planning on continuing on south the next day. The forcast was for winds from 20 - 25 kts from the southwest (ie. dead on the nose for the first part of the trip to Manly) with the next day being about the same. Since we had a day to spare, we decided to hang around in Mooloolaba for a day and see if things might not moderate the day after.

We went to Underwater World and scored a backstage visit with a baby seal. With difficulty I dissuaded the family from taking her with us.

25 knots on the Knose

And the next day came and the forcast got worse instead of better, 20 - 30 kts. But it looked like more of the same for the next few days. It probably would have been smarter to continue on immediately like the other cat (hmm... local knowledge, perhaps there's something to that...) instead of giving the seas time to "fully develop". Ah well, 30 kts is pretty common on SF Bay and only the first 15 nm would be bad. Thereafter, we'd come under the lee of Moreton Island and the seas would be much calmer.

But first, we had to get out of the marina. The wind was howling and Endless Summer, being light and tall, really gets pushed around. The trick was to get her out of the slip, turned 90 degrees, and moving fast enough for the daggerboards to provide some effective resistance, while avoiding the yachts across the finger from us. Not my finest hour as skipper. I put a small ding in the boat and left Karin on the dock. Fortunately, it was easy to pick her up on the other side. Fortunately, there were few witnesses.

As we rounded Pt. Cartwright we discovered that the seas were indeed "fully developed" short choppy waves with sets as large as 3 or 4 meters. The boad did a great job. Even though the bow beam was frequently submerged as we went through the sets, the bows never hesitated and the boat never staggered to a halt. We also had no wave slap under the bridgedeck, probably due to a combination of high bridgedeck clearance and "fillet" between hulls and bridgedeck.

So it was a little hairy, but the boat was doing fine and I figured that if I angled it a bit so as to take seas on the quarter, I could let the autopilot drive and pay some attention to the family who were, at this point, somewhat uneasy. I remember thinking that I needed to appear to be having fun so that they didn't get more worried while not having so much fun as to irritate them...

But the autopilot wasn't cooperating with this little "jolly skipper, ha ha, isn't this invigorating" charade. After the problems we'd had on the way down to Mooloolaba, I'd figured that we could always have Otto steer a compass course, when on the tack with the "flakey" wind sensor. No drama. But Otto didn't seem to be keen to get out of his bunk at all. In fact, all of the sailing instruments hung completely and seemed to hang the same way every time I cycled the power. Rough justice for Mr. Computer Programmer...

With the sailing instruments out of commission, we had to use the analog compasses for steerng and the GPS for navigation. Made me really glad that I didn't get an "integrated" GPS which would have failed with everything else. We also have a handheld backup GPS and visibility was generally pretty good so the situation wasn't really serious. Nicoline got seasick but she barfed over the side like a good sailor and perked up later in the day.

After a couple of hours of pounding, we picked up the channel leading into Moreton bay and the seas began to drop. Once inside the bay we hoisted sails and went rocketing down the bay. Rarely saw less that 10 kts on the GPS speedometer. The kids amused themselves by standing in the cabin and trying to jump just as the boat dropped off a wave.

We radioed for a berth in Manly and just a couple of hours later turned onto a beam reach for the final approach to the harbour.

Manly is a huge boat harbour with 5 or 6 different marinas. We were looking for J-finger. They couldn't possibly be so foolish as to have two different J-fingers, could they? Working my way through the maze of berths, I spotted a likely looking J-finger with an end-tie empty. That's gotta be it. After a bit of fiddling we managed to tie up only to discover that we were at the wrong J finger. Hmm... Ownership is nine tenths of the law and we were all exhausted. We stayed.

And back to the Gold Coast

Next morning, I discovered that we were inadvertent guests at the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron which graciously accomodated my error in exchange for A$25. No worries.

While checking out a funny buzzing sound under Nicoline's berth I discovered that there was one casualty from all the pounding. The water heater tank had come loose. Thankfully, Steve had built a tool tray into the engine room and the tank had landed on that instead of on the engine. The coolant hose was pinched between the tank and the engine and the leaking coolant had filled the bottom of the bilge enough to activate the bilge pump. Hence the buzzing.

So the previous day's trouble was a bit more serious than we'd thought.

I jury-rigged a bypass so that coolant came right back into the engine instead of going through the water heater, topped up the coolant level, and off we went towards the Gold Coast. The wind was still SW and after one tack towards Peel Island the channel was small enough that we gave up on sailing and just motored.

Until next year, we're leaving Endless Summer at the Gold Coast City Marina, about an hour up the Coomera River from Southport.