Safe and Sound in Brisbane

After a fantastic run down the coast from Mooloolaba, averaging over 7 knots, we're safe and sound back in Brisbane after more than 6 months and 3,100 nautical miles. We're living aboard for a few days as we get house keys back from our tenant and wait for our removal next Tuesday. Can you believe I have to do a removal on my birthday?? I can't! At least Shane's parents have been kind enough to take the squids for a few days and Shane is taking me out to dinner.

Haydee was doing intermittent little dances as we approached Brisbane; she is really excited to be back. While she has loved the trip and living on a boat, she is looking forward to catching up with all her big Year 7 friends. Cam is also keen to see friends and, a little surprisingly, to move back into our house. He was a little disappointed when we told him it would be about a week before he is back in his own bed. Shane is beside himself with excitement about getting back to work in a couple of weeks and particularly looking forward to shaving every day again. We also thoroughly enjoyed going through 6 months of mail today - we love it when utility companies don't do what they say they will then get shirty at you. Love your work, Elgas and AGL.

Hopefully the rest of our re-acquaintance with reality will be gentle, not harsh! Sponsors willing to back us to continue living this lifestyle are most welcome to contact us!!! Please!! Anyone??

40 Miles From Home

Lake Mackenzie, Fraser Island

After restocking the boat once again in Urangan, we did a day tour of Fraser Island. Overall it was a good day although the craziness of our driver, the constant rush we seemed to be in and lunch we were given detracted a wee bit. Highlights included Lake Mackenzie, Eli Creek, 75 Mile Beach and the very cooperative dingo we saw. Cam thinks a 1000-year-old tree we saw was pretty impressive and Haydee loved the "roller coaster", a steep and bumpy downhill stretch our driver took at speed.

Haydee's scooter floatation
device, developed after Cam
took the plunge at Urangan

From Urangan, we sailed down through the Great Sandy Straits, the first leg by day and the second leg by night. I recall kissing the bottom on the way up but we had ample water and no issues on the way back, despite a lack of daylight. It took us a wee while to find an anchorage in the northerly weather we were experiencing and ended up tucked in behind Inskip Point on the mainland opposite the southern end of Fraser. Strong winds early on Thursday prompted us to head further into Pelican Bay behind Inskip Point rather than cross the Wide Bay Bar on Thursday as we had planned. We ended up crossing the bar and sailing into Mooloolaba on Friday. This was the fourth time we've crossed the Wide Bay Bar - one of the most dangerous on the Queensland coast - and it was quite a good crossing, if a bit choppy. Once we cleared the swell caused by the shallows at the bar, our sail to Mooloolaba was beautiful and we made good time.

Haydee and Fid at Mooloolaba Beach

Mooloolaba has a nice marina; people are very friendly and, as you'd hope after 6 months, we got a few comments on how good our shorter crew members are at berthing. We made it across to the surf beach and took the kids boogie boarding this afternoon. While everyone ended up getting dumped at least once (four times in Haydee's case) we all had fun. We're now just 40 miles from home and will be in Brisbane tomorrow afternoon. We all seem to be agreed that we're sad that the trip is over but happy to be home to see friends and family and happy because this 'bashing south' business will be over! It has been absolutely fantastic - strongly recommended, especially for families with kids approaching their teens. Both Haydee and Cameron have benefited immensely from the time we've spent with them, the things they've seen, done and learned, and the responsibilities they've had to take on - from washing up through to keeping the family safe on night passages. Shane has had a ball - he is the least willing to return home and is already planning the next trip - and I've loved spending so much time with Shane and the kids, especially seeing the kids learn, grow and mature. Sadly, Shane is still immature. I wonder what our next big adventure will be?

Old Shelley and Friends

Hello to all my fans and I'm sorry that I haven't blogged since November the 17th. However, I hope I can make up for that wide, wide space by telling you about Lady Musgrave Island. Just bear with me...

Lady Musgrave Reef

We sailed to Lady Musgrave Island from Pancake Creek. The morning after we arrived in the little anchorage, we motored ashore in the dinghy and went looking for turtles. I should tell you that Lady Musgrave is a popular turtle-laying area. We took a track winding through the trees on the island. The Noddy's, the main birds of the place, didn't like the white light of Dad's headlamp and kept running at his legs. It was very funny, but the island stank of their...

Anyway, when we reached the beach on the other side of the island, we saw a Green turtle making it's way back to the ocean. We walked on a little way and found a small group of turtle experts watching another Green's progress to the water. One of them was Jim who Dad and Cameron had met in their inspection of the island the previous afternoon. We were hoping to see hatchlings but unfortunately we didn't see any.

Cameron and I with
a nesting Green Turtle

We followed them along the beach to a Green filling in her nest. Another Green was just next door digging her nest. We followed the former Green down the beach then watched the- oh, this is so confusing- new former Green. She was digging her third attempted nest because her first two weren't exactly the right shape. Thankfully, she was satisfied with her third attempt and laid her eggs while we watched. I called her Old Shelley. Jim took one of the eggs out and Cameron, Dad and I held it. No Hatchlings.

Card towers are not easy
on a rocking boat

He put the egg back and we got to pat the turtle as she filled in her nest. The experts wrote down her tag number and we went back to Seasprint.

Later, at night, we went back, me with a bandanna around my nose, and watched another Green dig her nest. After about half an hour later, she moved on and started digging a new hole so we went back to Seasprint. No Hatchlings.

The next night Cameron and Dad went back alone. When they came back, they reported seeing a Loggerhead Turtle with a head the size of a cow. But still no hatchlings.

Back in Civilisation

The kids with a nesting Green turtle

Haydee with a newly-laid
Green Turtle egg

Cam snorkelling at Lady Musgrave Reef

The tasty lobster

We've had no reliable phone or internet coverage for a few days but are now back in civilisation (we're at Urangan at the southern end of Hervey Bay after an overnight sail on Saturday/Sunday) so Happy New Year!! to everyone. We hope everyone had a great new year's eve and will have a happy and safe 2012.

December saw us cover the most ground of any month so far. We're now where we were just one week after leaving Brisbane back in July and expect to be back home within a week. Three-quarters of us are both happy and sad to be nearly home - I think Shane would just keep sailing forever if we could fund this lifestyle and in no way wants to get back to either home or work.

In the 250 nautical miles we've covered since Christmas, we've been back to Great Keppel, once again traversed the Narrows between Curtis Island and the mainland, revisited Pancake Creek (which wasn't as good the second time around in my view) and - the absolute highlight of recent weeks - made it out to beautiful Lady Musgrave Island. Lady Musgrave Island is on the edge of a beautiful coral reef lagoon. We all loved the few days we spent there and had even more special and memorable firsts - we were privileged to see a number of turtles nesting and Shane had his first (but not, I suspect, last) go at spear fishing with a new friend he made. He brought back three sweetlips and a rather tasty lobster. We also visited Lady Elliot where, sadly, we felt more unwelcome than anywhere else; while the island itself is stunning the resort is quite B grade and the staff are surly. Enough said about Lady Elliot.

We're letting someone else worry about tides, cooking, driving, entertaining the kids and what-not tomorrow and have taken the opportunity to book ourselves onto a day-tour of Fraser Island before we continue our run home through the Great Sandy Strait, back across the Wide Bay Bar for the fourth time and down the coast to Brisbane via Mooloolaba.

Before I sign off, I would like to share a little bit about the absolutely horrendous afternoon poor Cam had today - he plans to blog about it soon. You may have seen on Facebook that he somehow ended up in the water at the marina earlier this afternoon. The poor thing was by himself at the time but somehow managed to haul himself out of the water and back to the boat. After a shower, he dropped his clothes in the wash but managed to leave his marina access key locked in laundry. Some idiot in apartments overlooking the marina told him to shut up when he attempted to yell out to us to let him in, making his afternoon just that much worse - good one, winner. From there, he moved onto a minor panic attack about his scooter which was not in its normal storage spot when he went out to get it this afternoon but was, most fortunately, still in the laundry after we transferred his marina clothes to the dryer. And everything was topped off by our top-opening fridge lid dropping on his head after dinner. I'm happy to report that some sympathy and cuddles, an ice block and teddy made everything okay again. What a day; poor buoy, I mean boy!