The Narrows.....

Big ships..... 

After a leisurely morning checking the boat and doing some last minute provisioning, we left Gladstone Marina at around 1430hrs.



Gladstone Harbour was just as busy today as it was last night, with vessels going everywhere.


And what a range of vessels, with everything from small outboard-powered workboats to giant barges, dredges and tugs.

And barges....

Again, the AIS system was an excellent safety aid, and we were able to negotiate the vessel traffic safely.

It was also reassuring to know that Endless Summer was showing up on the navigation displays of the vessels that we were encountering, meaning that they could see us electronically as well.

The  Narrows is a waterway which runs north from Gladstone harbour. It separates the mainland from Curtis Island and goes for about 30nm (50km).  Below the Narrows, the southern end of Curtis Island is dominated by an enormous construction site for a new Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) plant.

In places the channel is only a few metres from the bank - Image by Navman

I have wanted to navigate this stretch of water for a long time and I was not disappointed. Originally the owners of the LNG plant were going to build a bridge over the Narrows, and this would have prevented all but the smallest vessels navigating beneath it. Fortunately, the views of local people and  boaties were heard, and the bridge is not going ahead (for now).

After passing this LNG construction site, the scenery is wild. This is mud crab country, and apart from a few houses built by the crab fisherfolk, there are few signs of civilisation.

Endless Summer (black triangle) apparently out of water!

The channel is not only narrow, it is very shallow, and in parts dries completely on very low tides. Even during periods of normal tides, it is important to time the journey through the middle of the Narrows to coincide with the high tide. This was the main reason for our late departure today.

"Mutineer" exiting The Narrows

We made it through without incident, thanks to Captain Bligh's skill and local knowledge.

By 1730hrs we were anchored safely in Mosquito Creek which is towards the northern end of the Narrows. By 1735hrs we were enjoying a beer in our tranquil surroundings, with not another soul in sight.

Dinner tonight was Chilli Chicken with stir-fry Asian style vegetables on a bed of brown rice.

Tomorrow we will head back out into the ocean for the run up to Yeppoon.

By the way, we heard today that wind gusts of up to 47knots were recorded just off Gladstone yesterday. No wonder it was such a wild ride!

Good night all,

Navman

Wild in every sense of the word........

Yes, today was a wild day. We were up at 0545hrs, and had weighed anchor by 0600hrs. For the first few hours we were running up the west coast of Fraser Island, which is certainly a wild and beautiful place.

Peaceful anchorage in a wild place - Image by Navman

After we cleared Moon Point we experienced a different kind of wild.......wild wind and seas. Initially we had wind of around 25-30 knots and fairly slight seas, but as the day wore on, the wind rose to 30-35 knots and the sea to around 3m.

Fortunately it was a following wind, so the problem was surfing the waves rather than banging into them.

Endless Summer handled it well on most occasions, though there were a couple of times when she took off down a rogue wave at more speed than we would have liked.

Wild seas ahead.....

These occasions were fairly rare however and Captain Bligh slowed our pace from our initial 20 knots to a more sedate 11 knots as the wind rose.

 After lunch we switched off the autopilot and hand steered so that we would not have to reduce speed further.

The swell continued to rise until we were looking across the tops of the swells from the flybridge.


As we came on our final approach to the Gladstone shipping channel the wind and waves were at their worst, and to compound the problem, we were now beam-on (sideways) to the swell.

And behind

Just before sunset we called Gladstone Harbour Control to let them know that we were in the harbour precinct. They replied that they were already watching us on AIS. The AIS was certainly very handy for us once we were inside the harbour, as we could "see" the speed and direction of the big ships which were coming head-on to us in Gladstone Harbour.

So we are now at a berth at the Gladstone Marina. Gladstone is itself a bit of a wild town,  and every second person you see is wearing hi-vis clothing. The marina harbour is crowded with ferries taking people backward and forward to the massive heavy industry within the city precincts and across at Curtis Island.

The plan is to do some phone research on our battery charger problem first thing in the morning, then head out through "The Narrows" and get to Yeppoon (Roslyn Bay) by tomorrow evening.

Approaching Gladstone harbour - Image by Navman

One more thing.....At about lunchtime today we passed the half way mark on our odyssey north. If the rest of the trip goes as well as the first half we shall be very happy.

Two other milestones are worthy of note....The first is that today we had our 700th hit on the blog. Many thanks to you readers for taking the time to share our adventure.

The second milestone is the celebration of 31 years of marriage to my First Mate, SasSea. Thank you for the time we have spent together my love.  You are my inspiration and I am looking forward to being together again when this adventure is over.

That's all for now,

Navman

Escape from Paradise

It blew like crazy overnight, but we all slept well in our beds at Captain Bligh and Pacifica's house. We woke to intermittent rain squalls, but the weather forecast indicated that conditions would not be too bad in the direction in which we were headed.

Heavy squall coming out of Tin Can Bay

By 0900hrs we were loading the last of the provisions onto the boat, and at 1130 hrs we slipped our lines and left Tin Can Bay Marina. We sailed almost immediately into a heavy rain squall and had to reduce speed significantly so that we could safely see where we were going.

When the rain cleared we put the trolling lines out for a while, but this was not successful.

On we went during the day, cruising slowly at 12 knots along this picturesque inland waterway. Sea-Dog even had a nap while we were steaming quietly along.

Fraser Island wilderness - Image by Navman

We arrived at North White Cliffs at around 1530hrs. The rain continued off and on, but by 2000hrs it had settled to a calm and clear night. This is a very pretty and calm anchorage, and we have it all to ourselves.

Wreck at North White Cliffs -  Image by Navman

After a delicious dinner of lasagna and spinach, washed down with a fine glass or two of red, we washed up and retired early to bed.

Tomorrow we are planning to make a run for Gladstone. There is some heavy rain predicted for the weekend and we would like to be tucked up in Gladstone marina when it arrives.

Speaking of being tucked in, it's time for me to be tucked up in my cosy bunk.

Goodnight all,

Navman

Still stuck in paradise.....

We have become comfortable in Tin Can Bay, perhaps too comfortable.....

The dreaded macerator pump

After arising at a reasonable hour, and enjoying a fine breakfast, we adjourned to Endless Summer to await the arrival of the oft-mentioned macerator pump. It was a fine and sunny morning, and it was hard to concentrate on our job list in such enjoyable conditions.

The pump arrived on time (thanks Tin Can Bay Chandlery!) and we had it fitted without incident within about an hour.

We probably could have left at lunchtime, but Sea-Dog suggested that we have a beer in the cockpit, and it was very pleasant sitting in the sun in the shelter of the marina.

We did have a discussion about it, but it didn't take too long before we decided that we would wait until tomorrow before we left. The weather will be better, the tides will be more favorable, perhaps the planets will be better aligned etc etc.  You get the idea....

Tin Can Bay is a very comfortable place to stay.

New mooring lines for Endless Summer - Splicing by Captain Bligh

We spent the afternoon doing a bit of hardware shopping, then went back to Endless Summer to run the main engines. Why are we doing that? It would appear that the main battery charger has a serious fault. This device is supposed to charge the vessel batteries when we are running on the generator on shore power.

Anyway, it seems to have died, and the main batteries were down to 10% of capacity now that we have been here for 4 days. We will have to address this problem in more detail at a later stage. In the mean time, running one of the main engines for about half an hour is keeping the batteries at a satisfactory level of charge.

After topping up the batteries we headed back to Captain Bligh and Pacifica's house to prepare for dinner. Captain Bligh impressed us yet again with his rope splicing skills.

Happy Birthday Sea-Dog!

 On the menu for dinner this evening we had BBQ'd crumbed reef fish, with a fresh tossed salad, and chips. It was as delicious as only freshly caught fish can be, and there was not a skerrick left over.

Following this we had a celebration of Sea-Dog's birthday. Pacifica baked a stunning chocolate cake and there was much merriment as we all celebrated the birthday and enjoyed the cake.

All too soon it was much too late, and tonight's post will be close to midnight, but it has been another wonderful day.

Somebody asked a question about the fishing.....Well, the reality is that we have only fished once, and we didn't catch anything, so in cricketing terms that is a score of 1 for none (I think).

Perhaps tomorrow will be better for fishing... If not, then it doesn't really matter. Being stuck in paradise is a pretty nice place to be.

Goodnight all,

Navman

Stuck in Paradise.....

In a perfect world, we would have been heading north today. In reality, we can't leave here till we fit the new macerator pump, and that won't arrive till tomorrow.

Raw water filter

But if you have to be stuck, this is a great place to be. Today was a magic Queensland pre-winter day.  With brilliant sunshine, little wind and a mild 22 degrees, it was a wonderful day to be tinkering with small jobs on Endless Summer.

More jobs??? Yes, the reality is that there are always things to do on most boats.

Our job list today included sorting out a minor leak on the so-called dripless shaft seals, cleaning the raw water strainers, fitting a new float switch on the mid-ship bilge pump, and trying to fix the air-horns.

This last job was the only one which was not successful. Well, not fully successful anyway. The air-horn which was not working at all, now sounds like a cow in the last stages of a difficult pregnancy. We will have to try again!

Dripless shaft seal

Once the job list was complete it was time to relax, and relax we did. Captain Bligh's wife Pacifica cooked up a feast, and an assortment of Tin Can Bay locals came around. It was one of those happy occasions with ten people around a long table, enjoying great food, wine and company.

After dinner we were entertained with a guitar and vocals performance by the talented Miss Tracy and her friend Georgia. Just wonderful!!!

The evening then either got better or worse, depending upon your attitude to loud 1960's music, courtesy of Captain Bligh. Love it or hate it, it was a rollicking night. .......As for me, I loved it!

To other matters.... the Endless Summer audience is expanding. As you can see from the table on the left, we now have people reading the blog from a ever-increasing list of countries, including Qatar, Argentina, Malaysia and Columbia.

Thanks to all of you for taking the time to share our journey. It's great to know that we have such a diverse audience.

Thanks also to those (few) who have left comments. Keep them coming, they are really appreciated.

Tomorrow we hope to be heading north once more. We still have around 800 nautical miles (1500 km) to go, and I am sure that there will be plenty of adventures.

Goodbye from Tin Can Bay,

Navman

A few issues to sort out...

Yes, once we stopped we realised that we had a few issues to sort out on Endless Summer. Nothing too major, but still important.

First a warning, if you are eating or about to eat then I suggest that you close the blog and come back later....

OK, you are still reading, but you have been warned. Still, I would like to begin with a bit of philosophy. A boat is like a microcosm of a city. It has electricity, water and sewerage systems, all of which need to function well in order to create the comforts to which most of us in Western society have become accustomed. If any one of these fails, then we won't be happy. Today, Endless Summer has suffered failures to key components of its electricity and sewerage sytems.

Faulty bilge pump level switch

More specifically she has had a failure of her sewerage macerator pump and mains battery charger.

The macerator pump  is the piece of equipment which chops up the stuff which comes from the toilet, and the mains battery charger is what charges our batteries when the main engines aren't running.

Added to this, one of the bilge pumps is malfunctioning, and malfunctioning bilge pumps are never good on any boat.

As I mentioned yesterday, the Tin Can Bay Marina was incredibly helpful in sourcing a new macerator pump, and it will be delivered on Monday. If you need chandlery in this area check them out at http://www.truelocal.com.au/business/marina-chandlery/tin-can-bay

In the mean time Captain Bligh and I are working out how to change the pump without ending up covered in you-know-what. We think that we have a good plan, and I shall report the results on Monday.

We have also discovered that our mains (240V) battery charger is not functioning. This isn't a problem while the engines run for a few hours each day, but will be a major issue if we get held up by bad weather. We are still discussing what we need to do about this.

So what did we do today?

Firstly we changed the faulty switch on the macerator pump circuit which probably had contributed to the pump failure.

Next we changed the automatic level switch on the bilge under the bathroom.

Finally we dismantled and oiled the gear shift levers which had been vibrating at speed.

All in all it was a great day, and we retired to Captain Bligh and Pacifica's house for sundowners before going out to the Tin Can Bay Yacht club for dinner.

Here we enjoyed Bundy and coke to warm us up  as it was unusually cold at Tin Can Bay for this time of year. There was also good food and wonderful company.

The Tin Can Bay Yacht Club is a very friendly little venue and has great views out over Wide Bay. If you are in the area call in for a drink or have something from the cafe. The web site is http://www.tincanbayyachtclub.yachting.org.au/

All in all it was another great day, though we still have a few more things to sort out before we begin the next major leg of the journey.

The end of the day at Tin Can Bay - Image by Navman

And so to bed, goodnight dear readers,

Navman

Rest at last....

Well, it's been a long day.... We were up at 0430hrs, with just a quick cup of coffee and a muesli bar for breakfast. After checking the boat, we set off just before 0500hrs and we crossed the Mooloolah River bar in pitch blackness just after that. Conditions outside weren't the best, with a confused swell rocking the boat. We soldiered on in the darkness, knowing that we needed to be at the Wide Bay bar on the southern end of Fraser before noon. Why the hurry? Well the Wide Bay bar is one of the most treacherous bars in Queensland, and we needed to be there on the rising tide when the bar is at its safest.

Spooky sunrise - Image by Navman

After an hour or so the sun came up....Well it sort of came up, but it was only visible for a few minutes before it was completely obscured by the thick cloud and rain banks. There were numerous heavy squalls out to sea, and we hoped that they would stay out there away from us. Our hopes were upheld.....for a while.

Double Island Point in heavy rain - Image by Navman

By 0845 we were off Double Island Point. 

For those not familiar with the area, this is a wild section of coast with a beautiful rocky headland. The area is also home to the notorious Wolf Rock, which is an isolated rock which is just above sea level. 

Just as we rounded the headland we were hit by a heavy rain squall and visibility was reduced to a hundred metres or so. Wolf Rock disappeared in the gloom and we needed to concentrate carefully to get around the headland and avoid crashing into something.

After a few minutes the rain cleared and we made our way to the approach point for Wide Bay Bar. The rain stayed away for a while and Captain Bligh guided us expertly across the three nautical miles (5km) of confused water in the bar. It was an exhilarating ride, with Endless Summer being pushed along at around 16 knots by the following sea.

Soon we were inside, and in almost total calm in the waters of the Sandy Straits. What a relief after the rocking and rolling we had been experiencing for the previous five hours! 

Coast Guard Tin Can Bay 

We made coffee and set a trolling line so that we could fish on the four mile run down to Snapper Inlet and Tin Can Bay. No fish were caught, but it was a relief to be motoring again in such fabulous conditions. 

Not fabulous for long though. The rain squalls followed us in to Tin Can Bay, and it rained for most of the rest of today.

Tin Can Bay is a great little town, and I hope that its quiet and laid back atmosphere is never spoiled by over-development. We have a couple of minor problems with Endless Summer, and the people at the local chandlery were incredibly helpful, even offering to pick up parts in Brisbane for us over the weekend.

The Coast Guard units at Mooloolaba and Tin Can Bay were also very helpful on our run north, with clear advice and great coverage.

Tomorrow we will be getting the boat ready for its next stage north. We have a couple of electrical problems to deal with, plus some cleaning and reprovisioning to do.  

Sunday might be a day of rest. I think that we all could use one. We have now completed over 600 nautical miles since Monday morning, and most of this has been in open ocean. We also need to wait for the next good weather pattern.

It's been a long day, so I'm signing off now.....

Till tomorrow,

Navman