Lara has a new home. After finalising our affairs at East Coast, Phil, his daughter Sarah and myself said goodbye to Manly boat harbour and set off to Woongoolba in the southern part of Moreton Bay.
Leaving around 4pm to take advantage of the NNE 10-15 knot breeze, we beat towards the Huybers Beacon, through the channel between King and Green Islands. With the wind on our port side we steered south on a running reach towards Coochiemudlo Island. Making good time in the remaining two hours or so of daylight, dusk saw Lara tracking nicely on the eastern side of Coochiemudlo, with Macleay Island to port.
As I had still not connected the newly mounted solar panel, and was unsure whether Lara’s battery had retained any charge, Phil had brought a spare along. Fortunately however the battery was serviceable and well up to the task of powering the depth sounder and navigation lights.
Using a recent edition of Beacon to Beacon as our guide, we began in earnest to identify the appropriate green and red flashing markers we would need to guide us through the many sometimes tortuous channels that characterise the southern end of Moreton Bay. It wasn’t coincidental that around 7pm a full moon rose over North Stradbroke Island to help light our way. I had purposely chosen this particular evening for the trip, to take advantage of a NE breeze and a full moon, a window of opportunity between morning South Easterlies and forecast storms the following day.
I fried some sausages in butter on the stove as Phil steered us south. Sarah, perhaps wary of my ability as a cook, could only be enticed to eat a single sausage on a slice of bread. Whereas Phil and I ate the remaining snags, chopped up and mixed into a can of “stuff” I can only describe as the meal eaten by the “fully loaded man”. You know, the stuff eaten by the guy who slides down a mountain side in a kayak, off a ravine cliff into a mountain stream. The ad is suspiciously reminiscent of the old Solo lemon job as it finishes with a moustached guy grinning wolfishly while crushing the empty can in his fist. Phil didn’t say anything about the meal (he’s too polite), but I think he’d probably agree that fully loaded cans are best left to fully loaded men and hungry yachties should eat something more palatable!
Of course, unbeknown to us, we had misread key beacons at crucial channel juncture at the southern end of Russell Island and motored (the wind had dropped by now) inadvertently into Fisherman's Channel. Towards the western end we were overtaken by a string of jet-skis strung out maybe eight to ten strong in a long convoy. They looked surreal in the dark, each similarly lit by bright LED navigation lights, resolutely playing follow the leader. Clearly they were on a mission of some sort however I have no idea what it was. They disappeared in the distance as quickly as they had come.
At the end of the channel we instinctively steered south-east into what we later realised was Canaipa Passage with Cobby Cobby Island to our starboard and North Stradbroke to port. Rounding Stingaree Island we were confronted by the entrance to Jumpinpin. Although never having been to it in the past, its impressive width and open view to the ocean proper, silver and glinting in the moonlight, left us in little doubt as to where we were.
Backtracking west between Short and Crusoe Islands we steered south again into a narrow but well beaconed channel between Eden and Crusoe Islands to find ourselves again in more open water. A quick conversation with a group of part goers on a large houseboat moored off Green Bank confirmed we were at the eastern end of Tiger Mullet Channel. Having at last a clear idea of where we were it was a simple task to go about and head east past Kangaroo Island and north to Tabby Tabby Island where we turned south again at Cabbage Tree Point.
Passing Steiglitz it was not long before we sighted the entrance to the Horizon Shores marina on our starboard side. Navigating to the guest pontoon, we tied up just after midnight. After a quick look around we pulled out sleeping bags and set about sleeping the remainder of the night. A bloody restless one it was at that, hounded by the incessant buzz of mosquitoes and silent but no less annoying sand-flies. It was with tired eyes (well I was tired) that we awoke early the next morning to formally organise a dry berth for Lara and arrange for Phil’s wife Judith to collect us for the drive home.
In hindsight the trip had taken a lot less time than I had thought and had we not strayed from Main Channel it would have been shorter still. In the end though it was all a bit of an adventure and a lot of fun We are certainly looking forward to exploring a part of Moreton Bay we are not familiar with.
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