Sailing Around Australia; Revisiting the 'berg

Bundaberg, Queensland

12/11/2015 Revisiting the ‘berg

We stayed at Bundaberg for a few days on our journey north. So being held captive  in Bundaberg for the past week by the weather, we have taken the time to do some of the things we missed last time, as well as found some new things to do around the area.

Thinking that we would only be at “Bundy” for a couple of days we suggested to our companions, Bossa Nova, that we would just anchor in the river. But it wasn’t long before we got sick of the jostling of Easy Tiger by the tidal current going one way and the wind pushing the other.

After looking at the weather forecast and seeing conditions would not let us sail south for a week or more, a quick phone call was made to the Port Bundaberg Marina and we moved into a pen the next morning.

As we were not used to being in one place for more than a couple of days, the thought of being stuck in Bundaberg marina for a week was quite daunting.

Last visit to “the ‘berg” we did the usual shopping tasks and visited the Ginger Beer factory, (I am one of their best customers) which we thought was a bit lame.

The marina has hire cars that are quite affordable for a day, so with Neville and Amanda, we set off in a hire car with the name of Heidi proudly displayed on the back.

We went to the small town of Bargara, an outlying suburb of Bundaberg. This was a nice enough small settlement, with a couple or restaurants near the beach. I am sure most beach side places have the same sort of restaurants. As you would expect the menu was full of degistated and deconstructed items. Me, I was happy with a steak burger minus tomato.

After lunch, the four of us headed off in Heidi, to look at a couple of the other outlying towns surrounding Bundaberg.

At Elliot Heads, Neville and I got a little excited to see a half a dozen or so yachts and catamarans anchored about a mile up river from the heads. Switching Heidi into 4wd, we wound our way along a gravel pathway to get closer to the boats lying quietly on anchor.

We certainly hadn’t found anchoring utopia. There seemed a nasty, shallow bar crossing, narrow and shallow channels leading to a collection of quite small, old boats. Later I couldn’t find any reference to this place in the sailing guides that we have, so I wiped it off the possible anchoring list.

Passing back through Bargara we then went to Mon Repos. Here we saw a sign for the Turtle Conservation Centre. Amanda googled and found that they did Turtle watching tours.  We all hoped that it would be better than our turtle sighting events we had at Lady Musgrave.

Back at the Marina. Many of the other yachties with their travels on hold due to the weather, were headed to the Burnett Heads Pub for tea in the courtesy bus. We decided to tag along and had a good night talking boats, destinations and future plans with some different folk.

It was generally decided though, that while most had plans for 2016 they were all written in the sand at low tide. In other words all plans were subject (and highly likely) to change. Also discussed at great length were the main dangers to an extended sailing program. These main hazards were house rent, sharemarket variances and Grandchildren (particularly the arrival of same).

Wednesday was Neville’s day. Neville, being a dedicated bundy and coke drinker, was excited as we set off for a tour of the rum distillery. For those that don’t know, Bundaberg is home to a large rum distillery where they make rum, Bundaberg Rum. The rum named after the town is famous in our country (where 96% is sold) and New Zealand (where 3% is sold) and unheard of everywhere else.

Bundy rum as it is affectionately known by it’s loyal customers, is an example of good old Aussie ingenuity.

Back in 1888 the sugar industry in the Bundaberg area was in full swing. As they crushed the cane to produce the sugar, the main by-product, molasses, just ran down the street into the river.

Mr Buss, who owned a dozen or so sugar plantations, got together with a few other locals and said, “hey… what if we could turn the wasted molasses into rum”. Turning a waste product into something you can drink and party with is an easy sell, I reckon.

Pretty much that’s what they are doing to this day. Turning molasses produced from the sugar milling process into rum.

As with most of these factory tours, the most interesting part is in the free tasting. Leanne was delighted yet again to have a tea total husband. She gets a designated driver, plus she got my 2 free samples. They were all downed with exclamations of how nice they were. Funny enough, the fourth sample was declared really really really nishe.  Once we got back to the boat though, someone had to have a lie down. I’ll give you a tip… it wasn’t the designated driver.

Wednesday night we toddled off to the Mon Repos Turtle centre in the hope of seeing the mother turtles emerge from the surf, crawl up the beach, dig a hole and lay some eggs.

We had a couple of attempts to witness this at Lady Musgrave. There we saw plenty of tracks leading from the water to nests in the sand and plenty of turtle porn as the turtles were all happily mating in and around the reefs surrounding the lagoon. Our 2 trips to the island in the dead of night proved fruitless though. No turtles wanted us to witness their reproduction efforts. Can’t say I blame them for that.

After another “specials”night at the Burnett Heads ($12 schnitzels) we hopped into Heidi the hire car and trundled off to Mon Repos.  We joined the queue and waited. We got allocated to group one, then we waited. We circulated in the visitors centre looking at turtle bones, turtle pictures, stuffed turtles and written content about…turtles. Then we waited.

An announcement was made that a movie would be shown in 5 minutes. The movie all about the breeding and the conservation of loggerhead turtles was shown. The we waited. Neville and Leanne made a trip to the food van. Then we waited.

Finally, Group 1 was asked to assemble at the walkway. We were lectured gain about lights or noise. Then we scurried down the walkway on to the beach. It was quite dark. There were a couple of flashing lights about a hundred metres up the beach. This was the only sign of life. We were then reminded about lights and noise and not to rush. Stay behind the ranger. Off we set again, this time walking about 200 metres along the beach, excited by the fact that there was a mother loggerhead about to emerge form the water and lay 120 or so eggs into her nest.

I stuck as close as I could to the ranger lady, mimicking her steps. Thinking this would be a good way to be at the front of the group and get the best view of mum turtle. Suddenly she said stop, throwing up her hands and nearly giving me  backhander. I stopped, but 50 other people didn’t. Somehow they rushed past me and instantly managed to form a circle around a huge loggerhead turtle, who was making way along the sand…towards the water.

Three or four ranger types jumped in front of the turtle and started wrestling it around. I did see a bit of irony here. We weren’t allowed flash photography or to make any noise what so ever, yet they were gang tackling Mrs urtle?  Turns out the rangers were trying to read the turtles identity tag.

The rangers were very apologetic about the fact that the turtle was not going to lay tonight. We would be the first group called back to the beach when another prospect emerged from the cold frothy water. So as the non layer returned to the deep, we returned to the “interpretive centre” stage.

We sat on the hard brick bench seat for another hour and half while one of the rangers did his best to stretch a ten minute talk about turtles out to a couple of hours. He was definitely hoping that another sighting would be made sooner rather than later, because by the time he got to travel patterns of the Australian Green Turtle he had lost most of the crowd, many of whom were texting and even playing cards on their phones.

Next time someone suggests we go and watch the turtles come ashore to lay their eggs, I’ll take some convincing.

The turtles have my sympathy.  Imagine all you want to do is what comes naturally to all beings.  Having to scramble out of the freezing ocean, in the dark and commando crawl up a beach of scratchy coral and then bury themselves in the sand to finally “do their thing” is bad enough, but then there are four people trying to wrestle with them and another 50 or so wanting to watch and take pictures. That would sort of kill the mood I reckon.

In anticipation departing the ‘berg early tomorrow, we are tidying up and packing away. Looks like a couple of days where the weather will mean we can sail down to Fraser Island for a week or so. 

There will also be anchorages that we visited on our trip north, but as the ‘berg has proved there will be things at each place that we missed before, so here’s hoping.

The distillery at Bundaberg since 1888. 

Neville is one of there best customers and Leanne smashed the tastings!

A polar bear, to advertise a rum made in northern Queensland Australia...of course!

The star attraction at Mon Repos. Except they don't often turn up!

Sailing Around Australia; Backtracking and Lady Musgrave

Bundaberg, Queensland

7/11/2015 Backtracking

No body I know likes doing things twice. So with that in mind we planned to try some different stopovers on our journey south from the Whitsunday’s to Brisbane.

The weather would play its part in where we could get to that was new or where we would have to revisit the anchorages we used on the way north several months ago.

After setting off from Hamilton Island we sailed in light winds to Keswick Island, then from there we motored in even lighter winds to Port Clinton, both were new spots for us. There is a large tidal movement and we had arrived during king tides, so the waters in Port Clinton were very mirky, in fact appearing dirty with leaves, sticks and the like floating around.

One place that was on our list of places to try and get to was Lady Musgrave Island. The weather would have to be perfect though for us to venture out there. This is because there is zero protection from wind and swell in any direction.

As luck would have it by the time we caught up with Bossa Nova at Yeppoon marina, the weather gods smiled on us and a trip to Lady Musgrave was planned.

On the way, we traversed the channel between the mainland and Curtis Island that brought us to the Gladstone Harbour. This is a very busy shipping port that took several hours to motor across. Fortunately, unlike our visit to Newcastle we did not get in the way of the many ships.

After deciding we had got to Gladstone rather early, we went on to Pancake creek, breaking one of our number 1 rules (yes we have quite a few number one rules) that is; we never arrive and or anchor in the dark. Unfortunately for Bossa Nova we broke this rule that night, arriving in Pancake creek in the dark. Using the boss as our only marker to anchor, we found out in the morning we had anchored way too close for comfort and poor Neville was up all night waiting to fend off Easy Tiger if we got any closer. We also managed to keep Amanda awake all night with our rattly mast keeping time with the rolling swell. They must really love sailing in company with us!

Lady Musgrave lies at the southern end of the Great Barrier reef, some 50 nautical miles north of Bundaberg and 35 nautical miles east of the nearest mainland, Bustard Head. The island is quite small, perhaps a hectare of sand, containing Pisonia trees.

The island is surrounded by a very large reef system that circles around to form an internal lagoon. A narrow channel at one end of the lagoon allows boats in and out, but careful navigation is required. Once inside the lagoon even more care is needed to find a place to anchor that is not on top of small outlying reef “pieces” or coral “bombies” as they are known. Enough “swinging” room has to be found too or the anchor chain could get caught on these bombies and then you would have to dive down to get the chain untangled or, worst case scenario, cut off your anchor and chain to move the boat. I am sure these are called coral bombies as the mess they would make to the nice fiberglass boat if you hit one would be similar to a small bomb.

So we snuck our way into the lagoon, again following Neville and Amanda on Bossa Nova.  Leanne and I then had several “discussions” about where to anchor. After circling around three or four good looking areas, more Bombies were discovered. Fortunately after several more “discussions” in frustration we just dropped the anchor in, as it turned out, quite a good spot about halfway from the entrance channel to the lagoon and the Island.

Once the dust settled and the heat from energetic discussions dissipated, we were able to take in the magical surroundings.

Neville, Amanda and Leanne set off next morning on the kayaks to look at the expanses of reef that were very evident at low tide. With the clarity of the water, it was quite easy to see the coral and fish life in the water underneath the kayak.

Leanne and I walked through the middle of the island and we were truly amazed at the mass of bird life. It seemed every fork in every branch on every tree was home to a nest. Also there are a huge number of burrows that shearwaters have dug for themselves. This is really crowded real estate. It seemed than other than the narrow pathway we walked along every tuft of grass contained a nesting bird. Even the path was a gathering point for groups of birds in no hurry to move as we strolled along.

Being a collection of hundreds of coral reefs, Lady Musgrave lagoon gave us really nice snorkelling experiences each of the four days we were there. Some of the reefs are only a few metres across, but go quite deep forming walls of sea life to look at. Others are bigger than a football field and very shallow.

You would think that with all this Leanne and Amanda would have caught a feed of fish, wouldn’t you? No. Other than a weird thing that look more sausage with big teeth on one end (called a Long Tom) fish again remained the winners on the two occasions that the girls tried them out.

Perhaps the nicest surprise at Lady Musgrave Island was watching the Green turtles. Most days we would see a dozen or so turtles doing what turtles do. Some of the turtles we saw were easily a metre in diameter. It is very obviously mating season for turtles as we did see plenty of turtles doing that, too.

On the beaches of the Island we could see tracks left by mother turtles as they scrambled up from the water to lay their eggs in a nest near the trees. One fella we talked to said he had sat on the beach the night before and seen the turtles make their way up and prepare their nest.

That was it. Leanne was determined that she was going to see the turtles. So the four of us set off at 8pm in the dark, snuck around to where we saw the tracks and waited patiently in silence for any sign of turtles scrambling up the beach.

After nearly half an hour of silence (almost a record for Leanne) and, or, perhaps it was when the wine ran out, we decided that we must be there too late. So we enjoyed a drenching in the dinghy on the way back to the boat going back against a fresh breeze.

Not to be outdone by a turtle, plans were laid for the next night. We decided it would be dusk and sunset that the turtles would make their perilous journey driven by the primal urge to reproduce.

So the next night we were there, in wait, just before dusk. Again we sat in silence and waited. Nothing. Then we decided to relocate further up the beach. We waited. Wow, excitement grew when a head bobbed up out of the water about 50 metres from shore. This was it. We were ready. Here come the turtles.

Alas, other than a few turtle heads bobbing up, about 50 metres from shore, no turtle dared to take the 100metre sprint to the nesting area with us watching.

Once again, after the wine, the nibbles, the chocolate and cheeses ran out, we wandered back to the dinghy and again got drenched for our troubles again during the dinghy ride back to the boat. Turtles 2, people none.

The weather window for lady Musgrave was closing, so we left the next day at five AM. Easy Tiger headed a queue of about ten boats departing for safer and more comfortable ports to sit out approaching storms.

We headed for Bundaberg where we have been before. Leanne says it not her most favourite place and we like many others don’t like doing the same thing over again. However with the weather turning and storms approaching a bit of familiarity is quite comforting. 

Lady Musgrave with boats anchor in the lagoon.

Forward scouting party sent by kayak.

The water is so clear, you don't need a snorkel.

The forward scouts were sent in kayaks

The Shore Party

Best part about Lady Musgrave; more birds than flies

Every fork in every tree taken. Crowded real estate.

You have been given the look!

This one is wearing a hoody!

Even the footpath is a bird communal area.

You can see the fringing reef here in the view out to Fairfax Island

The turtle trackin author

Waiting for sunset and turtles to appear.

Leading the procession out of Lady Musgrave lagoon

Sailing Around Australia; Wonderful Whitsunday Islands

 Hamilton Island Marina, Queensland

27/10/2015 Wonderful Whitsunday Islands

The Whitsunday Islands in mid north Queensland is well known as the cruising sailor’s mecca. After spending a couple of months here we can see why. The beautiful bays, the turquoise colored water, the coral reefs and the high tree covered hills form a spectacular landscape.

The weather at this time of year also adds to the summer holiday feel. It has been around the 25 to 28 degree mark most days. There has not been any thought of a windcheater or jumper and the doona has long been packed away.

Everyone around these islands is on holiday. There is a large fleet of yachts and catamarans on hire, with groups of people on board each one obviously enjoying themselves. These can be hired pretty much like hiring a car and as it was for Leanne and I it can be an introduction to cruising sailing.

Even the wildlife quite enjoy interaction with visitors to the islands. At Hayman Island’s Blue Pearl bay Batfish swim at the back steps of the boat. At Stonehaven, Nara Inlet and Tongue bay there were many turtles bobbing up here and there and at Hamilton Island the cockatoo’s wait to steal your chips or pizza.

 Our visitors enjoyed their introduction to the Whitsunday islands as much as we enjoyed hosting Ian and Sue, followed by April and Wayne.  April and Wayne are great friends who were involved in most of our fun times when we were quite new to the boating life.

Easy Tiger’s Whitsundays itinerary this year started with a reunion with Bossa Nova at Gloucester passage. This was the scene of the Shag Islet Cruising Yacht Clubs annual get together. There are 2 very casual resorts there and a few long lunches were “sampled”. Leanne and Amanda went on a morning fishing charter, but unfortunately, fish were the winners that day.

From Gloucester Passage, we ventured south to Woodwark Bay. That was where we found kamakazi garfish. For some strange reason, these little fish would hurl themselves from the water on to Easy Tiger’s back steps. Suppose suffocating is better than getting eaten?

Leanne then left from Airlie Beach to go to Cairns for three weeks to help our daughter. I stayed on board Easy Tiger and got some unpleasant tasks done, like replacing the toilet outlet hose.

After a week of being home alone, Ian Sulley flew in from Adelaide and again in the company of Bossa Nova, we returned to Gloucester passage for a few days.

Ian and I made our way down to Hamilton Island via Black Island, Macona Inlet and then had a fun “race” with Bossa Nova under screecher from Whitehaven around to Gulnare inlet. It was sort of like two snails going in the same direction.

We picked up Ian’s wife, Sue at the Hamilton Island Airport.

Amanda and I are AFL football fans and the team that I support (West Coast Eagles) made to the grand final. So a big day was had at Hamilton Island with a champagne breakfast, watching football, Sausage rolls at half time and a roast dinner to finish off. Unfortunately the hawks finished off the West Coast Eagles.

Blue Pearl bay was our next stop. There we had the friendly long and short finned Batfish, (like angle fish in your aquarium) about 400mm across, swimming at the back step of our boat.  Lucky for these fish they are not good to eat as we were hand feeding them and it would have been so easy to scoop them up.

Then back to Airlie to sit out some windy weather, to restock and to pick up Leanne.

Leaving Airlie, we had a very lively sail across to Stonehaven anchorage in gusty wind. At Stonehaven we had Turtles lazily cruising past the boat. They would float near the surface and lift there head up to look around. Once they saw us though they were keen to dive and disappear.

Snorkelling among the fantastic coral was next on the agenda. Blue Pearl bay was the best place for beautiful and diverse coral fields. It was hard however to judge whether there was more fish or more backpackers in the water. Boat loads of backpackers arrive every hour, dropping their cargo into the water and collecting them up again with loud reggae music summoning them back aboard.

Our next stop was Nara inlet. This is perhaps the most scenic anchorage in the Whitsundays. At the far end of the inlet the water is really bright blue. The banks are high hills with many tall Hoop Pine trees reaching up. There is a steeped path going up to a cave that has Aboriginal paintings from many years ago.

Tongue bay was our next port of call. There were more turtles there. A steep climb up to the Whitehaven beach lookout was well worth the effort. At the top the view over the swirling water in several shades of turquoise and blue, outlined the pearly white sand is astonishing.

Ian and Sue flew out of Hamilton Island. We had a couple of nights at Cid Harbour with Bossa Nova and fifty or so other boats including a floating night club that serenaded us with doof-doof music until the wee small hours.

A quick trip to Airlie Beach for restocking turned into a full on race with the Bossa Nova. Unfortunately while we were going nicely and reasonably well in front, we took an unexpected sharp turn and some of the sail ropes got tangled up.  That allowed Bossa an opportunity to pass under us and form there we couldn’t catch them. They were presented with an appropriate trophy that night in Airlie Beach.

April and Wayne arrived at Hamilton after a long trip for Wayne. He had flown from Barrow Island to Perth, Driven to Bunbury, then turned around and Driven to Perth, flew to Sydney then to Hamilton Island. We were very gad that they made the effort though. So the first night was a pretty quiet and early one.

We hired a golf cart and spent the first afternoon and then the next morning cruising around and seeing all the sites of Hamilton Island, twice. There’s not that much to see. The views for One Tree Hill are amazing.

With our new guests (old friends) aboard we tried to get a mooring at Blue pearl but they were all taken. There are a huge number of courtesy moorings at the more popular places in the Whitsundays. Unfortunately there are also a huge number of boats wanting to use the moorings. So finding one available in your place of choice is a bit like taking a ticket in a raffle. Sometimes you win, sometimes you don’t.

After a night at Black Island we had better luck with moorings at Blue pearl, early the next morning. The moorings have a time limit of 3 hours on them, but no-one seems to take any notice. Many spend a couple of days on the same mooring without feeling guilty.

After spending the morning snorkeling over the fascinating coral at Blue Pearl, we then went to Nara inlet.

The wind had swung right round from the previous week. So we were then able to experience some different bays than we had been in with Ian and Sue the week before.

After a brief stop at the iconic Whitehaven beach we ventured along the bottom of Whitsunday Island and parked in Turtle bay for the night. Strangely, even though it is named Turtle Bay this is the one place we didn’t see any Turtles.

Next day, our skipper for the day, Wayne, piloted Easy Tiger around to Lindeman Island’s Plantation bay. Here we rode the dinghy around the corner to the Lindeman Island Resort. Luckily we weren’t going for coffee or lunch as it has been closed for a number of years and is in a terrible state of neglect and disrepair. The sign pointing to the Discotheque demonstrated the time of it’s heyday, the disco era of the eighties.  

The derelict resort on Lindeman Island

Sadly the next day April and Wayne departed from Hamilton Island. We fell into a bit of a lull, then summoned just enough energy to prepare for the trip south.

Now we are on our way at snails pace to Brisbane for a couple of months that will include a family Christmas and some guests aboard Easy Tiger for New Years Eve. From there, who knows.

One things for sure though, we are both already looking forward to visiting the Whitsundays again next year.