TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

As strong winds were forecast that afternoon 25-30kn and to continue for 3 days (we had listened to the latest VHF forecasts in the morning) we thought it best to head over to Urangan and get a spot in the marina.

We pulled anchor around 9:00 and headed off thinking there was no hurry. We had sailed up Fraser island though further than we thought and it took a while to get back to Moon pt in windy conditions. We went out through the narrow Ferry channel within spitting distance of Moon pt int the full brunt of the SE – it was now at 27-30 kn on the nose. The tide had also turned so now we were bashing against the waves and down to around 3kn SOG (Speed Over Ground). This meant that we were going to have to spend an hr in this direction before we could change to the next NW leg, the final S leg should be more protecetd but the troops wern’t entirely happy with this. As water bucketed over the dippiong bow I thought that trying to do this against the tide was a bit like pulling teeth so why not go back and wait for better tidal conditions.

IO swung Holdfast back around 180deg and we set for the narrow ferry track again – thank god for GPS. As we came up to it – we hadn’t come very far at all really around the corner – the tide was pushing the boat onto the sandbanks and I had to glide sideways into the narrow channel. Once there we were fine and I rounded Moon pt and motored along until I found a quietish spot and dropped the anchor.

Agfter considering options and tides etc we thought best to sit here and try tomorrow at the top of the tide ie not fighting it but not wind over tide either which would be very viscous with these wind conditions. It started to pur outside so we cranked up the movie HD and settled in for 3 movies and a cou-ple of episodes of Underbelly before bedtime. Good to have 240V and a generator as well.