Lovely Lady

Wendy and I first came to Lady Musgrave Island as a day trip on our honeymoon in 1992. We said then that we would bring our own boat back one day and this is our second visit since. It really is a beautiful place, though I didn't think so when the weather turned nasty(more on that later). There is a cay surrounded by a big lagoon and clear, clear water.

We have sailed every day since leaving Brisbane to get here and overnight from Fraser Island, 100 miles to the south. A morning start seen us leaving with an outgoing tide through the Sandy Straights before the wind picked up and we could stop the motor. A memorable sail in the lee of Fraser Island in about 10 knots saw us plodding along at 4 knots on a flat sea. As the sun was setting the fishing rod started to scream. I picked it up and pulled in some drag, still running. A little more drag slowed it a bit but there was still a lot of weight there, I dared not to tighten it anymore. Daniel was keen to land this one but he was still in the bad books for loosing a big one off Noosa. I really wanted to bring this one in but somehow found some selflessness in me to pass him the rod. He done well and brought a 110cm Spanish Mackerel along side the boat after about 20 minutes. Probably the best table fish there is, I cleaned and filleted this beautiful fish and shallow fried about a sixth of it for tea and put the rest in the fridge for another 4 or 5 meals. A great end to a great day. The wind stayed with us until about 1am, so we started the motor again to get us the last 25 miles.

bottom of that rod is pushed in pretty hard, I don't think he felt it

trying to see some colour

Amy trying to help

A beauty



Happy boy

I get stuck cleaning it

We arrived at the lagoon at 7:00am and went through the channel markers and dropped anchor. After breaky we jumped over the side and brushed the antifoul under the boat. She had heaps of scum and slim stuck to her from being in the rivers at Newcastle and Brisbane. One thing we noticed was the amount of remoras or sucker fish. As soon as you threw any food scraps over the side about half a dozen of them would shoot out from under the boat and devour all traces of it. They usually attach themselves to sharks, we were hoping they were not around as well.

Entrance into the lagoon

Cleaning the hull



Where are your shark friends?

Later on we went to the reef and done some snorkeling. There were dozens of turtles. They are Green Turtles and Daniel tried for a couple of hours to catch up to one for a ride. He was surprised when he seen how fast they can swim. It is the time of year that the babies hatch from the sand and that night we went to the island in the hope that we would see some. After about 2 hours we gave up, there was lightning in the distance and a storm approaching.

Amy ready for fun

Looking for turtles



Shearwater chicks are abandon by there parents at this time to survive on their fat reserves

No turtles but these geckos somehow got to the island

The storm had us a little excited. The lagoon is large and seas can build up inside. As the wind picked up I let out more chain, 50m in total. We are in 7m of water so the scope ratio is 7 times the depth, the higher the better, you would normally have 5 times your depth. The wind picked up more and the chart plotter showed us to be moving, I thought we were dragging so I started the motor. Wind now gusting at 38 knots or about 70km per hour. Waves were hitting the boat and spray was hitting the windscreen hard, the boat was not moving anymore, I think the catenary had gone out of the chain, it would have been bar tight. The boat in front of us lost something over the side and a flashing light was head toward us. We shone the big spotlight on it and it was a life ring, luckily nobody inside it, though we don't know what we could have done if there was. After about 20 minutes it was all over and all was calm. In the morning we could see that one of our neighbours had dragged anchor about 300m. There is only one narrow entry and it can not be navigated in the dark so once the sun goes down you take what you get and hope it's not too bad. They say that hell knows know fury like a lady scorned, I don't if we upset her but I don't want to see this lady in a really bad mood.

Next morning the forecast was for a chance of thunderstorms. We left for the mainland.

Lady Musgrave Island

Just a quick post to let you know that we are currently only contactable on our satellite phone for the next few days. We are anchored in the lagoon at Lady Musgrave Island and have no cell phone reception or internet. We should be back on the mainland by Thursday and we’ll update the blog and post some pictures of the wonderful diving and fishing we have been enjoying.

Cheers, Saltheart crew.

Brisbane and Fraser Island

We spent about 2 weeks in Brisbane, we tied up at the piles at Garden Point which is right next to the Botanical Gardens. This is right in the centre of Brisbane with everything so handy. A short walk to the shops, post office, movies and Southbank with the Maritime museum and the really cheap movies. We have never gone to movies so often, I think we saw everyone they were showing.
Amy made a couple of friends Ruby and her five year old brother Miles on the boat behind us Convivia who are from the US.


Amy and Ruby with the boats in the background.

We had a couple of visits from Kathleen while we were here as she was going on a camp and saw us on the way back as Ian left his phone in her car, that was one way to get her to come back. We went to the art galleries while here which are children friendly with activities to keep them amused. Kathleen took Daniel and Amy by herself once and looks like they had great fun.

Daniel and Kathleen being amazed by this artwork

Amy with her own camera

It rained just about everyday we were there but we did get good windows of no rain in between it so we could go out without getting totally soaked every time. Two weeks was enough time in Brisbane once we decided that we are going to go to Indonesia we now need to be in Darwin by the 1st of July to leave on the 27th July with the rally.

We are going to have a quick trip up the East Coast but with some stops along the way. We spent the night at Kingfisher Bay on Fraser Island, when we arrived there were heaps of big fish jumping out of the water after the smaller bait fish. Needless to say Daniel got very excited and wanted to go fishing off the deck but he didn't catch a fish, Amy however did only a small one which we used as live bait. We went over the resort in the night and Amy and Daniel had a swim in the pool, we also had a game of pool Daniel and I beat Ian and Amy.

Amy with her first true catch

Ian teaching Amy to play pool.

We left Fraser Island this morning and are now heading to Lady Musgrave for a couple of nights. Amy is really excited about seeing really clear water. Tangalooma was nice snorkeling but the water was no where as clear as where we are going.

New satellite number - 0147141774

If this post appears on the blog it means that we can send and receive emails and post to the blog anywhere in the world via our Iridium satellite phone. We had this phone on our last trip but this is a new number. When we are out of mobile range we will be checking the message bank once a day and try to update our position on Yotreps(see the link on the right hand side of the blog). We will also be able to update the blog with text only(no photos), we aren’t able to browse the web so we can’t view comments etc. when we are using the sat phone, but we enjoy receiving your comments and will be reading them when we get into civilization and high bandwidth internet.

The other thing we will be able to do is receive weather grib files via email which we can overlay on our chart plotter. It will give some peace of mind knowing what your sailing into.

Looks like we will be leaving Brisbane around Wednesday next week with our bow pointing towards Cairns.

Gold Coast to Tangalooma

We made it to the Gold Coast after 3 days of long motor sailing. We were trying hard to get to Brisbane for Kathleen’s birthday. We spent a couple of days recovering before moving on. Kathleen, Michael and Jake all came up to visit us while on the Gold Coast the boys spent one night before heading home. Kathleen stayed for a couple then Amy and I went home overnight with her when she went to work.

There is a great park on the foreshore that everyone was having a great time playing in. No one can resist the air cushion pillow.

Who is going to win Amy or Ian

 

How high will Jake bounce

Ian moved the boat to Brisbane by himself while I went home to sort out some stuff and take back things that we really don't need on the boat. We all met him at the piles in Brisbane which is right in front of the botanical gardens. Michael and Jake came up also which was nice surprise for Kathleen as she didn't think she would Michael for a couple of weeks as she is going to Melbourne. For her birthday we decided to go to Tangalooma in Moreton Bay. Ian and I got up at 4am so we could spend a few hours in the sand dunes and snorkeling around the wrecks. It took about 5 hours to get out to Tangalooma.

What a bunch of posers

The first thing the kids wanted to do was climb the sand dunes the dunes are really steep and it took me ages to get to the top but the views are amazing.

Add caption

Jake you need to jump higher

Some of the kids wanted a race to the bottom of the dune I must say there is no way I was going to be part of it. I think it was only Amy who didn't trip and end up taking a few rolls on the way down. Towards the bottom The kids all had fun leap frogging over each other and making it as hard as possible for the jumper.

Daniel Tumbling down

After a play in the sand it was time to cool and rinse off with a snorkel. About 10 ships have sunk here to create an artificial reef and anchorage. We were looking around them for a while, we saw many different fish and were having a great time until our birthday girl decided to cut open her big toe on something.

What a mess!!! and on your birthday too

After cleaning up her toe and getting out bits of shell, coral or what ever it was we went over to the resort for a look around. It did bleed a bit but Kathleen was a brave girl but she didn't trust her dad to help clean her toe.
The snorkeling was not done yet Kathleen had not had enough so with a dressing in place we hit the water yet again. This was a much better snorkel with finding a turtle, wobbygong sharks and shovel nose sharks. The current was running pretty hard by this time and Ian stayed in the dingy only getting out for a quick look when we found a big wobbygong.

Daniel with the turtle that he found.

Kathleen with her fishy friends

 

Amy the snorkeling princess

Michael took his snorkel off for a face shot going through one of the wrecks.

After a great day it time to go back to Brisbane as Michael has to go to work tomorrow and Jake had Uni. They didn't leave until 1030pm and had a long drive back home but they did sleep most of the way back to Brisbane and took it in turns driving home. Ian made everyone some yummy fried rice once we made it to the drive and everyone enjoyed the lights of Brisbane up the river and the bridges.

The Gateway Bridge

Not far from the piles where we are now staying