My easter cruise... a bit late.

[matt195583]

Well a bit has happened since easter for me, the biggest thing being that i moved aboard my 34ft colvic UFO "Blue Print"  ;D .

I thought I would share a bit of the adventure I had sailing north last easter, so here we go.

Myself, A good mate of mine Deano and the previous owner of "Blue Print" John pushed off from the marina at about 08:30. Motoring the 9 odd mile south to the Gold Coast seaway with 5-10 kn on the nose ( bugga ). We crossed the seaway about 10:30 and headed north with that 5-10kn of S/W behind use we were on  a broad reach with the engine ticking over making a steady 4-4.5kn. Untill around 13:30 the inevitable happened my mate Deano started trying to entice the fish to follow us with a steady flow of burley, which brought on a little bout of sickness from me. All the whill John was getting a bit of a laugh.
             Not long after that the wind picked up a bit to 10-15kn. you little ripper, While Deano ensured the cusions on the pilot berth stayed in place. I, sickness forgotten and John  started tweaking the sails and shut down the engine. Peace at last for the next 2-3 hours we slipped along in peace. The swell had been building a little but was not to bad, running north with us at 3-4 feet. Life was peachy I even got a bit of afternoon tea to stay down.
         All things come to an end and for us it was the wind that came to an end so it would remain for the next 11 odd hours. on went the yanmar and the motion became a little uncomfortable with next to no wind in the sails .
           We rounded cape moreton around 22:00 and I guess the water moving out of the bay and the open ocean caused the seas to become a little confused but for the most part it was following seas. With little or no wind in the sails the motion was not any better than before. And poor old deano kept heaving over the side every so often.... poor guy.
           And then came the ships, just off maloolabah ( our destination) is the pilotage area for the port of brisbane so ever so carefully we picked our way through the massive anchored and occassional moving ship's. It was a little bit stressfull at times given that it took the best part of 2 hours to get clear of them and it was the wee small hours of the morning . Around 04:00 we crossed the Maloolaba Bar with the aid of some really good leads without incedent. After motoring the few miles up to the anchorage we dropped the pick and within 10 minutes we were out to the world, what a night.

[matt195583]

John left later that morning, his Wife had driven up to pickhim up. While I had initially planned to stay in maloolaba for a day or two then head north for wide bay bar and the great sandy straights, that was not to be. The weather turned pretty bad and the forecast was terrible with 40+kn of wind, 4-5 meter swell and 3-4 meter waves. needless to say Myself and Deano were not going anywhere in that sort of weather
          So we trekked around the town, saw the sights and sampled some of the local pubs cuisine and beverages  ;) we even got a few good surfs in between the cruddy weather, the big swell making for good times. All in all we were having a good time untill one night just after dark we decided to head over to a nice burger place for a feed. Having motored to the shore and sercured the tender we were maybe 400 meters from the yacht when the wind went crazy and the rain began to pour i mean really pour. One problem with this was thinking we would only be 15 minutes we had left to all the hatches open 2 of them directly over the dinette (Deano's bed) and the pilot berth. I bolted back to the tender and fired up the mighty 3hp suzuki. Nose into a nasty 2-3 ft steep, short chop that had blown up with howling wind with it. Flat out I crawled back to Blue print what a ride that proved to be. Standing on the deck tying off the tender full of adrenilin the rain and wind just stopped like it had been switched off. So I closed the hatches and got into a dry change of clothes and sorted out the gear that had got wet.


A valuable lesson  here close the bloody hatches

[matt195583]

theres more. I will finish it in the morning

[matt195583]

Well it appears as if I have dropped the ball on this one :/

That particular trip ended up ok although we had a bit of a moment when I watched a little front approach for a bit to long, all the while thinking we will miss it. Well we didn't and we got a fair old belting untill I managed to reef the main.

Lesson learnt. Reef early and reef deep.

Since that trip I have done a 1800 nm 5 month trip to the Great Barrier Reef :)
All without incident so long as we don't sweat a minor grounding  :-\

[CapnK]

Matt I have always maintained that a grounding can be considered strategic, so long as it doesn't result in broken stuff or boat loss, and you can think of a sufficiently good reason for having done so when you did - even if well after the fact... :D

And there is always the old saw which goes something like "If y'ain't been aground, y'ain't been around...". ;)

Congrats on the trip! And of course - Pics, or it didn't happen!!! ;D

[matt195583]

Is there any way to load pics straight off my iphone ?

CapnK shall we say I was exploring a sand bar while entering a new anchorage  :)

[matt195583]

GBR trip

[matt195583]

At anchor.

[matt195583]

Enjoying the Yanmars song  :-[

[matt195583]

Inside of Fraser Island.

[matt195583]

Dinghy exploration.

[CharlieJ]

CapnK shall we say I was exploring a sand bar while entering a new anchorage  :)

Hah- been there, done that, more than once. If you go messing around in different waters, eventually------

[s/v Faith]

Matt,

  Can't believe I missed this thread, really glad you are posting!  Thanks!