Yes it's not really a forum site but has some good blogs of those out there doing it for real.

Come on Cisco start writing old mate

Continuing the narration.

We have touched ground in Queensland again ( I get nervous when I have been out of Queensland for more than 24 hours) and I slip a couple of XXXX Golds down my gullet in quick succession to celebrate the occasion and we three get straight back on the job of getting this remarkable yacht to Bundaberg.

It is the middle of the night and the thump, thump, thump of the disco at the Southport Yacht Club was a good noise to get away from. Back out the Gold Coast Seaway we go laying a course to clear Point Lookout and then Cape Moreton.

The Gold Coast Seaway is at the southern end of South Stradbroke Isalnd and Point Lookout is at the northern end of North Stradbroke Island. About a third of the way up is the Jumpinpin Bar, being the separation between North and South Straddie. Why anybody on a yacht would attempt the crossing is beyond me. A speed boat with plenty of grunt, yes you can dice with death but on a yacht there is no reason why one would attempt it.

We clear Point Lookout early in the morning daylight, droning on with the motor and bugger all wind heading for Cape Moreton. The course HF had laid off for us was between Cape Moreton and Brennan Shoal which would then make it easy to lay into Mooloolaba if desired. Due to the time of day and our speed it was agreed we should head straight for the Wide Bay Bar thereby passing Flinders Reef to our port and cutting some miles off our passage by travelling in a straight line rather than a dog legged one.

The wisdom of that choice is debatable. The result of it was that we arrived at the Wide Bay Bar around midnight on a dead low tide. This is not the best time to be crossing a bar.

I am a firm believer in using all the facilities that are available to you in whatever situation. In that I had been using the VHF radio all the way on the voyage to maintain radio contact with shore stations so that it was not just us who knew where we were. Duly I called in to Coast Guard Tin Can Bay to get the way points for the bar crossing and the latest advice before they closed the station for the night. Their advice was that the minimum depth over the bar was 4 m, it had been flat calm for days and we should be right coming in with our draught if we followed the way points which they sent to us via text on my mobile.

Those advices gave us confidence to cross the bar and thereby save us about 80 miles travelling via the Straits, over going around the top of Fraser Island to Bundaberg.

The approach from south is to pick up the sector light on the south end of Fraser Island and follow it in to the way point or when the lead lights on Inskip Point are picked up. Then turn to port and follow them until you reach the way point or pick up the GREEN port marker in the channel. The red/green marker system in the Great Sandy Straits is based on the northern end is the entry is the exit.

Our crossing of the Wide Bay Bar deserves a post of it's own, so I will catch you all tomorrow.

Some pictures sailing past the Moreton Bay Islands.

They are sand islands and have some BIG sand dunes.

cisco said...
Been in Brisbane buying a car for No. 1 son. He wanted a BMW. He got a Corolla. I do NOT want phone calls like "Hey dad, I am broken down at Bullamakanka. Can you send $1,000??"

I will write the last leg up today. Sorry to keep you waiting.

When that is done someone else will have to do a write up. Second Wind will be Bundaberg bound for quite a while as I get mooring organised and lots of mods to her to make her suited for her intended purpose.

Expect my write ups to be in "What did you do to your sailing boat today."

buy a couple of BMW badges and stick em on cisco
A mate bought a corolla new back in 1969 ( $1958) lasted till 2001.
I bought a Camry for my son back in 2007 off e bay blown motor and auto no reverse "ell cheapo" bought a motor trans diff package off a local wrecker 68,000klm on the clock serviced locally by the Toyota dealer . Was still in the car with a hit up the rear . took the motor trans back to where I worked at the time and added a new rear main front seal ,timing belt water pump and hoses shes still going strong @210,000klm's had to buy an alternator for it thats all
a couple of years later

Good sailing Cisco

I have to finish the story.

I had to bail out of the trip on the Compass 29 which I did at Port Stephens.

1. The Compass 29 is a whole lot smaller yacht than a Lotus 9.2 and for me at 64 years of age it was just knocking me around too much.

2. The guy that owns the boat is underfunded and I had to subsidize. The exercise has cost me the best part of $1,000 but I am not whingeing. The experience of Newcastle Harbour and Port Stephens was worth my expence. I had other commitments also that did not allow me to continue on that voyage for more than a week.

3. I left the guy in a fairly good situation where he had family support.

Continuing the Second Wind saga.

We have fueled up at Southport and gone straight out again to clear Cape Moreton and Flinders Rock and make for the Wide Bay Bar. The choice is upon arrival, do we transit the bar or continue outside of Fraser Island and travel 80 miles ( 20 hours ) more than by going through The Great Sandy Straits to Bundaberg.

The advice from Coast Guard Tin Can Bay (prior to their close at 8 pm) was that it had been calm for days, minimum depth over the bar was 4.6 m and we should be right crossing at midnight on a dead low tide preroviding we followed the way points they texted to us.

The collective decision was to transit the bar. With bravery we proceeded to the first waypoint (using the sector light on the south end of Fraser Island) and then turned onto the leads to bring us past the bar. We should have picked up a fore and back blue light set of leads.

We got one blue fore lead light and were committed. There was no back light and therefore no visual way of determining if we were on track.

That then becomes a situation where as Lou Reed describes it "You need a Bus Load of Faith to Get By.".



Same song again.



It was a harrowing experience but we got by. Gary was calling the shots from below on the plotter, I was steering while the mast went through an arc of 90 degrees or more every 5 or 10 seconds and John was on deck with me giving me essential moral support.

We successfully transited the bar and I suggested we anchor up and enjoy the Straits transit during the day which we did.

I am telling you guys, the Great Sandy Straits is a great cruising grounds and I will be spending a lot of time there on Second Wind. I wanted Gary and John to experience it day time and I am sure they appreciated it very much.

After a good night's sleep and breakfast under way we transited the straits with the odd debate about which side to pass the markers and left the Hervey Bay fairway bouy behind us in the mid to late afternoon headed for Burnett Heads.

That was like the rest of the trip, little or wrong direction of wind and the donk thumping away. The channel into Burnett Heads is a bit of a bitch. It is three miles long, usually beam on to the sea and a bit narrow. It was our most uncomfortable entry of the whole trip and my home port.

Second Wind is home and safely anchored in the basin at Burnett Heads but yachts are made to go sailing. That will happen but my current first priority is to get my mooring laid.

That is a task that deserves a thread of it's own. Look forward to an informative thread on that subject.

I must say the pleasure was all mine having thee and MorningBird as sailing companions aboard the fair Second Wind.

Mayhap one day I can return you both the favour. A cruise in company with our three mistresses would be wonderful.

Yes, it is a bit like that. We came up on the sector light fairly accurately using the Garmin plotter and Navionics on my tablet. I don't recall that we saw red or green on the approach and only saw the red when we turned onto the entry leg (blue leads, one of which we did not see).

The trawler guys are in and out of there so often they could probably do it blind folded and most likely have a track in their plotters that they follow on auto pilot.

I came out of there about 18 months ago at 8 am on a 40 ft Flemming Moreton Bay Cruiser. We could see the sand bar through the water about 20 to 40 metres off our starboard side. A bit scary.

For those of us with yachts and not too much horsepower the safest rule to follow is top of the tide, daytime and calm weather only.

Coast Guard Tin Can Bay goes off the air at 18:00 or 20:00 hours. So if you transit at night and get into trouble, you are fairly much on your own. I think Brisbane Port Control takes over the listening watch on VHF 16 overnight which means you can get a distress call out but getting a tow vessel out is going to be very unlikely.

Like any bar crossing, it is not a place to be treated lightly.