Wings Cruising Log

Well, here we are, at it again. Wings is on another cruise.

On Wednesday morning we left Scarborough Marina in Brisbane, Australia for a little cruise up the East coast, into the wonders of Queensland, the Whitsunday Islands, the Great Barrier Reef, all of this in the region known as the "Coral Coast".

We don't know how much we'll actually see. We have two and a half months before our Australian Visa runs out and we have to head out of the country for the "islands" again. At our usual pace which includes staying everywhere we light for longer than we need to, we'll be lucky if we get past our first planned stop, Mooloolaba, by the end of the two and half months. Oh well, it could be worse, Mooloolaba is terrific.

However, assuming we can break out of that lazy habit, we'll make it to Townsville by mid June, with lots of good cruising along the way. In Townsville we'll haul the boat and paint the bottom, then depart Australia once again, this time for the Louisiade Islands, part of Papua New Guinea, Like last year, we'll be on the way to Hong Kong. Maybe this time we'll make it. Hope SARS is over by the time we get there in July 2004.

This cruise started typically for us, as we found ourselves in "Strong Wind Warning" conditions by the middle of the first morning. This time however, we can't blame the Australian weather bureau for surprising us. They've been predicting this blow every day for a week, only despite the predictions, it never came. Finally we said we were going anyhow. And now its blowing 30.

But we're not sailing tonight. We're anchored in a small river inlet near the bridge to the town of Bongaree. Actually its not an ideal anchorage, with just a low sand bar protecting us from the waves of Moreton Bay, where the 30 plus knots of wind have whipped up quite large seas. At low tide the sand bar gives us good protection. At high tide the waves get over it and we move around a bit. Don't like it much, but we're sort of stuck here unless we want to face the storm and shallow waters outside this little river mouth to try to get out of Moreton Bay and head north. No thanks, the ocean will certainly be a lot rougher than this anchorage, and the treacherous and shifty sands of Moreton Bay are bad enough in calm conditions, let alone on a rough and dark night. We'll sit it out for a day or two, until the seas flatten out a bit.

I am listening to loud music on earphones while I write this, some punk rock I downloaded from the Internet, and the music drowns out the noise outside. Between songs I can hear the howling and the radio chattering with wind warnings and calls for assistance. Its a tough night for boaters in Australia, and we glad we're in port.

All we've got for protection is our trusty old Wings and this little sandbar, but right now, it's enough, and there's better sailing ahead. 

Fred & Judy