TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

we have circumnavigated Moreton Island testing out the new systems and crew awareness. We left Scarborough and organised the pontoon at the Little Ship Club and had the crew tie up to an unfamiliar dock with fresh docking lines, they did well. great facilities here, with several 4 burner BBQ’s, fridges, showers, well stocked bar and a gaming area, nice to watch the sunset on the lawns. We headed off next morning through the South Passage Bar in less than ideal conditions and the vessel did not disapoint us. We attempted to fish off the well known reefs on a drift, but at 3 knots it was extremely difficult to hold bottom.

We rounded North Point with 3 metre swell in close and about 4 metres apart, the vessel was pooped twice and we changed course to the 45o for a more pleasant trip. The new auto pilot had agood work out as did the stabilisers

The weather report told us we had NE @ 15 to 20 knots we decided to anchor between Bulwer and Tangalooma, rather than our first desicion being Yellow Patch,  the winds blew S/SE all night so we rocked and rolled all night. After a hardy breakfast we headed to the shoals off the wrecks at Tangalooma, for a fish, we had oviously found the nursery and threw a heap of fish back.

The trip back to Scarborough was hindered by vision as we could only see abot 1/2 nm at best in front due to squally rain, it was a good opportunity to familurise the rest of the crew with the Lowrance radar, with a man overboard suprise drill thrown in and a novice docking at the Moreton Bay Boat Club it was a successful few days.

A bit of fine tuning on the instruments and refrigeration and up on the slip at the end of Feruary for antifouling, anodes and a new transducer will prepare us for the trip ahead.