TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

The floods in Bundaberg in January have led to a bit of silt building up at the Port of Bundaberg Marina and guess what – the only way to get Rebel into her berth was for helpful onlookers to drag her in by her bow rail! Very undignified and also meant that the tide dictated when we could leave. We caught up with the washing and shopping, including the marina bus taking 11 of us at a time to the Farmers Market on Sunday morning, where we stocked up with real farm fresh produce.

With the outlook for decent wind remote, we decided that rather than hang around the marina, we would motor the 50kn to Lady Musgrave Island. The day passed quickly as first we had to clean the Spanish mackerel given to us from a passing fisherman who had one over his limit. Then Ian caught a 3.5kg big eye tuna….On arriving at Lady Musgrave at 16hr, there was barely a ripple on the water and the colors were exquisite, and continued so the next morning when we took the dinghy and drifted over the shallow reefs. It is so hard to limit the amount of photos you take when it is so beautiful, but in hindsight a handful are enough, with the memories are embedded in the mind forever. The day closed with drinks on board Damischa Ridda with Chris and Maureen, whom we met in Scarborough Marina.

Contrary to the forecast, the wind picked up overnight, so we said goodbye to Lady Musgrave and headed to North West Island, where after a fairly vigorous day’s sailing, we anchored once again in turquoise water just behind the reef with some small fishing boats. Friday we sailed to Great Keppel Island and found Damischa Ridda already at anchor, having sailed through the night. Then the awful weekend weather that RockyNet had forecast came through, and the wind is still howling and throwing freezing rain at us. I baked to help warm the boat and replenish our bread and munchies (chocolate cake and date caramel squares) –  I was thinking of eating the Milo to get my sweet fix! It will still be a while before we get to Airlie Beach, which is likely to be our next provisioning stop…. and possibly where we will have to have new clears made up as ours are very tired and letting in water.