TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

We left Bundy for Pancake Creek at 4.30 am on Wednesday 11 June with 63nm to cover. We had a southerly 10 kn breeze and slight SE swell.  In the afternoon the wind changed to SSE and 15 kn and the swell increased to 1.5 to 2 metres which wasn’t pleasant.  When we used the engine it ran unevenly as if there was air in the system and we expected it to die any minute.  We didn’t use it again until we needed it to get into Pancake and it sounded evenworse, but got us to the anchorage.  Bill changed a filter and purged the system.  We decided it was safer to go into Gladstone to try the engine out and buy new filters.

The Gladstone run being only 30 nm we sailed with a 10 kn SE and when the wind died we motored up the shipping lane and the engine ran perfectly.  We arrived at the marina at 2.00 pm.  We met up with old friends, Val & John from Blue Musketeer.  We are tied up two boats from them and Val rushed out to grab a rope.  We are off to have Chinese in town with them tonight.  We will leave here when the weather calms a bit.  Winds are okay but seas are up due to stronger offshore winds. We would like to go through the Narrows but tide heights will be a problem this time of year so we will most likely use the northern entrance.